101 Kruger tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park, by Jeff Gordon

101 Kruger tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park, by Jeff Gordon. Penguin Random House South Africa (Struik Nature) Cape Town, South Africa 2015. ISBN 9780620611329 / ISBN 978-0-620-61132-9

101 Kruger tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park, by Jeff Gordon. Penguin Random House South Africa (Struik Nature) Cape Town, South Africa 2015. ISBN 9780620611329 / ISBN 978-0-620-61132-9

Editor Jeff Gordon dedicates his book Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park to that dying breed of Kruger Park visitor: the one who still drives slowly, still raises a finger of greeting to every oncoming ear and still stops to share, with barely concealed delight, what you may find in the shade of an umbrella thorn just a few kilometres down the road.

We in south Africa are blessed to have the Kruger National Park. It is, and always will be, one of my favourite destinations. Anyone who has been lucky enough to have visited this special place will have a story or two to tell. Well, I am no different. About a year before my final tour to England, I met a man, Frik Rossouw, who changed my life - not that he ever intended to. He heads up the anti-poaching intelligence operation in Kruger and was instrumental in steering me towards the cause of rhino conservation following my retirement from cricket. Albie Morkel, a fellow cricketer, was good friends with his son, Jean, who lives in Skukuza, and together they organised a tiger fishing trip to the lower Sabie River. The expedition, which would take us far from the publicly accessible parts of the Park, included Albie and his brother (the formidable fast bowler, Morne), my team mate Jacques Rudolph, as well as Jean and two other brothers, Ludwig and Jaco Sevenster. It was going to be a three or four-day trip, with fishing in the mornings and game drives in the evenings. We slept in tents and made camp every night - it was bliss. On the final day we pushed deeper into the Park, found a large waterhole and made camp around it for the night. Albie Morkel was to be the chef for the evening. When he opened one of the cooler boxes, however, he immediately smelled something rotten and discovered that the chicken we were going to braai that night had completely gone off. He did his level best to clean out the cooler, but in doing so, he unwisely discarded the rotten chicken into the bush nearby. It wasn't as dangerous for the Morkels or the other guys because they were all sleeping in army tents made of thick canvas. I, on the other hand, was in a small pop-up tent which I'd bought in Cape Town and was more suited to a kiddies birthday party. I pitched it in between the proper tents and hoped for the best. Poor old Jacques Rudolph had to share it with me. It had been a superb day. We had seen seven or eight rhino, and we could hear the elephants drinking at the waterhole and the lions roaring in the distance. But the smell of that discarded chicken in the bush seemed to be making the hyaenas go crazy. We had a couple of mugs of red wine to celebrate the day and help us get to sleep. At about one o'clock in the morning, long after we'd got to sleep, the fire was going down and the hyaenas were, we thought, at a safe distance. I was abruptly woken by quite a commotion and, moments later, heard a voice yelling: 'F— off, f— off, voetsak' Jacques and I were suddenly very aware that our tent was about as thick as GladWrap. We looked nervously out of the entrance and there was Albie, standing up and shining a torch about frantically. When I asked what the problem was, he said something had just tried to bite his head through the tent. [...]

This is an excerpt from the book 101 Kruger tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park, by Jeff Gordon.

Title: 101 Kruger tales
Subtitle: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park
Editor: Jeff Gordon
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Struik Nature
Cape Town, South Africa 2015
ISBN 9780620611329 / ISBN 978-0-620-61132-9
Softcover, 15 x 22 cm, 410 pages, 150 colour photographs, 3 maps

Gordon, Jeff im Namibiana-Buchangebot

101 Kruger tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park

101 Kruger tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park

101 Kruger tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to Kruger National Park is a fantastic read, bedside book and travel compagnon.

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