Nearly Blown Away in my tent at Tombati Camp

I decided on that trip to Kruger National Park I would stay at a bush camp; a small fenced area much removed from main stream and substantially smaller than the main camps with most having only fifteen or so accommodations and virtually no amenities.

From the Orpen gate, where I was instructed to check in, I traveled several kilometers down a dirt road to Tamboti Camp.  I traveled through an unmanned gate.  Any animal could have found its way past this entrance so the fence I knew was a false sense of security from the plethora of predators

My Bedroom at our Tamboti Camp

that could wonder in; lion, leopard, elephant….  

Regardless, I unloaded my supplies into tent #31 on what was one of the hottest days I had in Africa during that three week trip; forty-four degrees Celsius or one hundred and eleven degrees Fahrenheit – HOT by any measure!  To make matters worse, there was no breeze at all – the air completely still.  Regardless of the heat – or the marauding monkeys that were making themselves ever present looking for an opportunity to pillage my food - I cooked a fabulous dinner of boerewors and lamb sosaties in my outdoor kitchen then showered in my fabulous en suite bathroom trying to wash off the day’s sweat.  I begged for a breeze throughout the evening.  



Tent # 31

After dinner I headed to bed to read on that still night.  I’m not sure how long I had been asleep before I got my wish of a breeze. With only a slight bit of warning, I heard the winds howl in the distance rushing eagerly in my direction.  When the wind hit my tent it was with such force that everything I had on the canvas sides fell as the wind forced in the canvas and tried with all its mite to lift the tent and blow me away like Dorothy and Toto in the Wizard of Oz.   But my mighty tent with its large pillars and hardwood planked floor held steady.  For the next twenty minutes the winds pulled but the mighty Tomboti tent refused to budge.  The rushing wind was accompanied by thunderous booms only Africa could deliver echoing across the veld. 

The next day, I saw no wildlife at all in camp; not the mongoose family who was my welcoming committee the day before, nor the vervet monkeys who tried to steal my dinner the evening before; not even a bird.  After coffee, I drove to the Orpen gate.  Victor and the Orpen staff exclaimed they had never experienced a storm like that ever and felt fortunate no one was injured or killed.  They told me a fence at the Maorela camp very near mine was hit by a lightning strike and rendered useless but other than that there was no

The family welcomed me the first night then disappeared!

damage which I think was miraculous. 

Once home, I wrote to my local meteorologist with GPS co-ordinance, dates and times to find out just what specifically I lived through that night – no answer, but I believe it to be straight line winds of at least sixty miles per hour sustained for twenty minutes or so. 

Really though, it doesn’t matter; I was in Africa.  I was in the bush.  And as the bush tends to ensure, I was relaxed and grateful; grateful that night for the “breeze” and grateful to be in such an amazing place.