Kruger Day 8 - Satara Day 4

We woke up at 4:45am to the sound of rain on the tent. It had rained most of the night. Nothing heavy just the fine drizzle that gets in everywhere and enough to soak everything right through.
We’d done well with the tent yesterday evening closing everything down and we had stayed dry, but when it rains here everything here has a sticky feel, including us, so it was a nightmare turning over in bed as it felt like we had been sprayed in glue every time we turned over.
I made coffee outside as the rain gradually stopped and we stood under the tailgate of our camper because the chairs were wet. Ellie said she didn’t feel great but at 5:30am we left camp and started the drive to Orpen Gate again. As soon as we left we heard lions roaring in the distance and to start with we were feeling hopeful but 15km in to the drive the rain started coming down again.
They had obviously had a lot more rain at Orpen Camp because the road was flooding and there was water everywhere. Except for the odd Zebra and hundreds of Impala we didn’t see much.
Once I’d put the windscreen wipers on full I decided to turn around and head back. Neither of us wanted to see anything good in this rain and halfway back the rain stopped, the road was completely dry and it looked like it had never rained atall here.
About 5km from Satara we came across the biggest herd of buffalo we had ever seen. It looked like a cattle drive from the Wild West with hundreds of Buffalo in a line crossing the road infront of us and disappearing across the horizon. It was quite the sight.
We arrived back at camp at 8:10am and the rain had stopped although it was overcast so we decided to head back to bed. I got back up at 9:30am leaving Ellie to get some sleep while I made myself breakfast and then went for a shower. Ellie got back up around 11am.
Once we had, had more coffee we wandered over to reception to get some change for the laundry machines and then we did our first proper washing of the trip. It was amazing how little clothes we had to wash. I haven’t been wearing any underwear for about 5 days and we’ve both just been living in the same shorts since we arrived, just like a couple of pikees.
Once the washing was done a big trailer pulled up opposite us to set up camp. We got talking to them and they showed us around there trailer, it was a beautiful bit of kit completely off grid and it even had a shower, toilet. It was like a complete off road caravan.
We spent the rest of the day Lazing around camp until 4pm when we decided to walk all of the camp just to get some exercise in. We had decided to skip an evening game drive as it’s a little rushed to get anywhere and except for our chance sighting of a cheetah on the way back from the watering hole at Letaba we hadn’t seen much on afternoon drives.
Our walk finished close to the restaurant at 5:15pm so we headed for an early dinner and it was great to get served straight away.
Just as our drinks came out our German friend and his disabled wife came in and started talking to us. Stupidly I offered her a chair after her standing there for 10 minutes on crutches and he said no it will be a bit of a squeeze with 4 of us at one table then they sat at the table next to us.
He spoke excellent English and only shut up when food was served which was a blessing, she doesn’t speak English and after we had all finished our meals he said “ Shall we meet tomorrow evening for dinner?”
Obviously we couldn’t say no, so now we have a dinner reservation for 6:30pm tomorrow evening with the Germans. Unless she is ill, or he actually tells her that he made a dinner reservation when we had left.
Back at camp we decided to get an early night and after watching some rubbish on the tablet we settled in for some sleep at 8pm ready for another early start.Read more