WE arrived at Tsoi at about one o’clock, dying for a cold beer. Corrie climbed onto the roof and found that, somewhere along the route, we had lost the lid of the cold box.
We now had four days’ supply, varying in temperature from luke-warm to mulled. We cracked two luke-warm ones and discussed our chances of survival.
In the middle of the debate, Karen suddenly said “Oh dear” and looked behind her, indicating that, while we were worrying about beer rather than unpacking her potty, she had perforce done the necessary in her pants.
While I unpacked the utensils and hung them in the ‘kitchen tree’, Corrie muttered something about making a cold-safe for the beer and went scrabbling in the remains of previous visitors’ camp fires. I thought it a bit odd at the time, but I had to admit that he was a genius, when he presented me with a cold beer a couple of hours later.
His ‘fridge’ was a rather messy affair, consisting of an old kitbag, filled with charcoal and river water, but it certainly worked.
When the time came to feed the dogs, I couldn’t find the dog bowls anywhere. I asked Corrie where he had packed them, as I was sure he had said he had put them in.
“Dog bowls?” he replied. “I didn’t pack dog bowls, only bog rolls.”
It was good to know that we had plenty of toilet paper, but it didn’t alter the fact that we were miles out in the bush with three dogs and nothing for them to eat out of. We solved the problem by using two tin plates and Karen’s potty for the dogs and teaching Karen to use an antbear hole like the rest of us.
She was not, however, allowed to go looking for an antbear hole by herself. Don’t believe what people say about the laxative effect of finding lions behind one’s chosen bush.
They obviously haven’t experienced the situation. After it happened to me, I didn’t go behind a bush for the next four days.
Next day, while idling by the river, Corrie threw a beer can top into the water and watched the fish make a beeline for it. One of them tried to swim through the ring, got wedged in the middle and tangled itself in the weeds. The first I knew of the drama was when my sopping wet husband came back to the tent, triumphantly bearing a beer can top.
He had been in up to his neck, to rescue the fish from its unwanted chastity belt. We have both been very wary about throwing things in rivers ever since.
Later on, while we were sitting by the light of the fire and the steaks were done to a turn, a lion wandered into the camp. We couldn’t see him, but he had obviously spotted us, and turned away with a disgruntled grunt. We assembled our total armoury of one blunt fishing knife and one rusty axe, I worked out which flaming log would be the easiest to throw, and the steaks turned to charcoal.
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