Kipper - welcome back and I am also now finally back from all my trips. next one away is around the 18th December to the USA - if Alitalia does not go bust!

WHOW - that was a close call (I would call it a nappy call).... you did not mention how close the elephant was when you measured it the next day - how close.
I would have lost the last 3 hairs on my head!

Now - lets not tlak about your will yet - you are too young for that and there must be plenty of more travels, trips and stories is our good old Kipper. Keep the Back Street English jokes safe in your little cottage and keep adding to them. It will increase my vocab. when the time is mature!!

Welcome back Mzee.

A word of warning for self drivers!

We rented our vehicle from Britz a leading camper & 4x4 hire company in SA & Australia.
We had paid extra to have the vehicle delivered to Vic Falls.

The tyres were worn.
One of the spares had large lumps of tread missing.
A wing mirror was missing.
The fuel tank was empty, being Zimbabwe we had to drive the last 40k to Kasane with the fuel warning light brightly burning.
A compressor was fitted but no tyre gauge to check pressures for sand running.
Incorrect paper work, we nearly had the vehicle impounded.
The cooking gas bottles were half full but of a type I have never encountered before & required a special key to open.....Yup! The key was missing, we had to improvise, although we managed to open each bottle we were unable to close it.
The starter motor packed up. OK! I know this could happen to any vehicle BUT the breakdown assist phone numbers given were useless, not answered or not Britz.

Luckily I'm a mechanic.....Honest!...Well!... OK!...I use spanners & to make a living mending cranes!
We managed to start the engine each time, eventually, but I think prayer played a major role!
The starter Finally gave out never to go again, luckily, at Maun airport.

Lessons to learn.

If you pick up a hire vehicle other than a main depot, no matter what condition it is in your lumbered with it.
If you refuse it, your adventure is over before you begin & remember you paid in advance!
Try the emergency numbers before you set out.
Put a list together of what you expect to be included in the vehicle & check every item of kit but as I said there is not much you can do if it's wrong as your not at a main depot.

One other general warning. With fraud now rife through out the world tell your credit card company of your trip & duration. My card was refused by my bank & a lock put on it by the anti fraud department.
I had a number of invoices to pay by card on arrival. Luckily my wife has a trusting face & we were allowed to sort it all out on our return home!

It was still a great trip, Lions a plenty, Elephants, Cheetah, Leopard, Meerkats & much, much more & my first ever Brown Hyena!

I should add that this was my first trip with a roof tent!

Never! Ever! Again! I'm sure they were invented in the dark ages as punishment!

From now on it's back to a bell tent for us!

what is wrong with a roof top tent?

That is what I call a proper safari - our kind of Safari Carsten when we were totos.
We has no Kipper with us who knew what mechanics was about - it was pure try and see if it works...

Roof tent problem....?

Many moons ago before the moon & the sun fell out & went their separate ways. My body was a temple! Circuit training every night, rugby sevens on Wednesdays & two games every weekend I would think nothing of running a few miles & a couple of miles swim.
I needed to burn a lot of fuel!

Now at 61...or is it 2?

I still take on the fuel.....!!

And a roof tent was pure agony! No room! Squeeze in then try to turn round to zip up...Turn round again to sleep dragging all bedding into a heap in doing so while on your hands & knees because of no headroom.
And at two am a big fat boys legs swinging about trying to find the ladder step does not bear thinking about! Even the bladder's weaker these days!

Now I know why they're called Laughing Hyena's!....The show must have been hilarious!