Day 12 - Kafue, Zambia

More photos coming soon!

Rouvierre and Ken left early this morning to go and spend the night with her Nephew. She does not often get to see him so this was a good opportunity to have a little time with him. So we sent them off with a shopping list of all the fruit and veg that we needed them to stock up with - they bade a fond farewell to the guys that will be leaving tomorrow and off they went. We will meet up with them tomorrow on our way through Kabwe.

Today was a seriously lazy and quiet day. Fritz went off as usual to go and do his fishing. This time promising to bring back an edible fish. The rest of us had a good breakfast and then just sat around chatting and talking about some of our great experiences. Ronell got going with her packing as she had to move out of the truck and into Kobus and Sonja's car as they are traveling back to SA with them tomorrow.

Ernest then decided that we should all go for a walk along-side the river so after gathering everyone together off we set. We did it quietly as Patrick had told us we were not allowed to wonder off on our own but being the rebels we are we sneaked past the lodge and clambered over rocks etc along the side of the river. I was lagging back a bit because I was phoning Warwick to get Camlyn's progress in the SA snow skiing Championships that she was taking part in. What a contrast, here were Ernest and I walking along the African river in the sweltering heat looking out for wild animals like lion or leopard or hippos and she was  skiing down the mountain in snow and freezing cold. How bizarre is that!

Anyway I was trying to get what Warwick was saying as the Sat Phone was breaking up and I was losing the line at the same time as there was a real commotion going on around me to which I wasn't paying too much attention. Warwick was saying she's in......and I didn't know if she was in, injured or in first. Well it turned out she had won, and I am jumping up and down with excitement and joy when I found that everyone around me was also jumping around but for a different reason. 

Ronel had gone on ahead to find the path, had got down close to a little green patch next to the water and had not been paying attention to her surroundings, she had her attention on where the pathway is going and if us bunch of geriatrics could make it through. Well she just caught the movement of the hippo out of the corner of her eye as he came out of the water right next to her and started charging. She said that she was less than three meters away from this ten ton Tessa when she started to run and then when she looked back he was still coming. She tried to climb back up the large rock behind her, slipped and fell backwards into a big hole. All she could think about was that the hippo couldn't get to her in the hole but I am not so sure that was true. Anyway she hit her head on the way down but fortunately wasn't too badly hurt. Ernest, who was standing on top of this large rock said all he saw was Ronel's head popping over the top of the rock and then all of a sudden she disappeared again. Even though she was shouting hippo, he thought that a lion had got her and pulled her back down. He tried to get to her but Andria was standing between him and where Ronel had disappeared and Andria was just standing there in sort of a shock. Anyway as it happened the hippo wasn't too serious about pressing on with his attack - he obviously lost interest once Ronel disappeared down the hole so he wondered back to the grassy patch and started eating. By this time Ernest had retrieved Ronel and retreated back to where we had been standing safely out of reach.

Steve and I then crept back over the rock to see if we could see this naughty hippo and sure enough he had retreated back to his grassy patch and took no notice of us. Everyone else climbed down as well to admire our very large beautiful hippo who proceeded to take absolutely no notice of us what so ever.  We were all very weary however as he could re-start his charge at any time. We as humans do love pictures so we spent the next half hour taking photos of us all with the hippo in the background.....hell they are really big and he even gave us a display of opening his big mouth and showing us his teeth.

We then quietly crept back to the lodge, sat in the lounge and never told them about the hippo charge. Fritz was a little shaken when we told him. He chastised Ronel saying " the foooo.... thing could have killed you" talk about stating the obvious!

We spent a great evening around the fire, gave Ernest all his presents and sang his praises and happy birthday even though his birthday was only the next day. The others wanted to celebrate the event with him and tomorrow we will be at Forest Inn and they will hopefully get to Livingston.

I gave Ernest a very powerful torch so we can now see how many crocs are in that river and all the other stuff around us that we couldn't see before. Fritz will download some of the pictures in the next few days so we can share those with you.

Signing out!