Do not leave Polokwane late if you have to go to the Kruger National Park. A surprise birthday camp weekend for my wife in the KNP. We left at 14h00 while our initial plan was to leave at 12h00.We got to Letaba at around 17H15 and started setting up camp around 18h00.It’s not fun to set up camp in the dark and when you borrowed a tent and have to pitch it for the first time,every thing that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong.
To start my wife did not know where we going for the weekend and wanted to bring cup-a-soup for the Friday night. I said NO!! I will Braai after we set up camp. It got dark and I rolled out my electrical lead and guess what, we left the blue plug at home. And then you know how short a dinamites fuse can get when you and three ladies have to pitch a tent. When you say pull they push, so I send them off to the shop to go and buy the essentails and another blue plug.
After they left and I had eventually used the bakkie’s lights to see and struggle to get the tent up ( by now the fuse was almost burned out) they got back after 45 minutes with my blue plug and what ever they had to buy. They told me that the shop tillpoints were offline and they had to wait for everything to be writen up by hand. Now it’s almost 20H30 and the Braai wasn’t going to happen and it was cup-a-soup and “ I TOLD YOU SO” for dinner.
Around 21H30 I realised the two air mattresses had to be filled with air and the only way to do this was with the little compressor that sounds like a chainsaw if you start it. The quickest way to wake up the whole camp is to fill up your mattresses in the middel of the night with one of those little compressors. Eventually after I saw some lights go on from our fellow campers with all the noise I made with the compressor, I decided to take the bakkie and go to the Letaba’s filling station and use their compressor to pump up the two air mattresses. There the compressor was of and I had to use the little compressor, likely there was no other campers to wake up. Everything sorted, tents up matresses pumped we went to bed. The next morning at about 4H30 my litte girl started crying. We didn’t know what was wrong and again did not want to wake the neighbours. Switching the lights on we discovered that her hair and the sleeping bag’s velcro got....into a twist. And that is how the day started on my wifes birthday.
After the sleeping bag episode and birthday wishes and presents we started breakfast. By now the sun is up and every one that passed us, looked, smiled and waved. ....some of them ....twice. Eventually we saw why everyone was smiling, the whole tent’s outer cover was upside down and every thing was facing the wrong way. Last night when the fuse was burning out I thought something wasn’t right but the tent was up and standing. But now seeing it in day time I know what went wrong. After fixing the tent and breakfast we had the most wonderfull time, and that was the greatest camping weekend EVER, the four rookie campers.
