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Gavin and Jill Allderman were camping at Bosobogolo camp number two at the beginning of March. On the first day, temperatures soared above 40°C, followed by a milder day reaching the mid-30s.
After a beautiful sunset and braai, the pair packed up and secured their equipment for the night. ‘Jill showered and got into the rooftop tent. I was just finishing showering when I noticed an animal in the murky edges of the circle of light. I yelled “Jill, a leopard”, but in the low light [I] had doubts and thought it could perhaps be a cheetah…big mistake!’ Gavin said in a Facebook post in the Kgalagadi Sightings group.
He said he then secured their motion sensor lights around their Hilux and climbed up into their tent, fixed to the roof of their vehicle. Zipping up the gauze insect protective covering, the couple felt secure, he adds. They lay in bed reading.
‘We were aware of the animal circling the vehicle [by] the motion sensor lights being triggered and at one point we were aware that the ‘cheetah’ had crawled under the bakkie, only its tail visible.
‘In the glimpses we caught we could see the animal was completely emaciated and gaunt. I started feeling uneasy – this was [an] unusual activity, and thought “thank goodness we are in a rooftop tent”.’
He says they eventually fell asleep around 10pm. At about 1:30am, Gavin says he jerked awake, hearing movement on the ladder. ‘Sitting bolt upright, instantly wide awake, I peered down the ladder and saw the animal climbing up. I shouted, “he’s coming up the ladder”!
‘Screaming and swearing was no deterrent as he scrambled up and launched himself onto the gauze of the tent, his claws gripping the thin fabric with his head inches from my face.
‘I started punching at it furiously in the face with all my might. I realized we were now bare-fisted fighting for our lives. Both of us were shouting and screaming, Jill from behind me, hitting with a pillow at its paws, and then with her book.
‘[Now] and again the animal pulled its head back in a terrifying gesture as if to attack and bite through the gauze.’
He says he focused on punching its claws. ‘I became aware that there was blood spattering in copious amounts, but just carried on punching and shouting, adrenaline coursing through my body in this fight for life.
‘Terrifyingly during the whole attack, there wasn’t a sound from the animal, just its jagged breathing as it concentrated on the assault. There was no flight option at this point.’
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Eventually, the animal fell back. Gavin’s hand was bleeding, so Jill grabbed a pillow case and wrapped it to stop the flow of blood.
‘Panting and shaking from this terrifying experience which lasted at least a minute, we considered our options. We had to get into the vehicle, but how?
‘While we pondered we heard what sounded like the animal jumping on the bonnet! It seemed like a horror movie! We would be fighting for our lives the night through!
‘When the animal reappeared at the foot of the ladder we sprayed it with water from a spray bottle we had with us…this was not much of a deterrent but a mild distraction.’
Jill suggested they pull the ladder in but the animal reappeared when they attempted this. Gavin swung the ladder at it. ‘Eventually, we got the ladder in with the tent zipped up – but What now? We (…) had to get into the vehicle, only how?
‘I could either dash down the ladder and confront the beast using the ladder as a weapon, or stealthily creep down the ladder on the opposite side of the bakkie as the animal was now in the A-frame hungrily plotting his next move.
‘The latter was a less grizzly option as long as the front left door was not locked (a lousy Toyota anomaly).’
Gavin opted to open the tent on the opposite side, slipped down the ladder and got into the vehicle which was luckily unlocked.
‘Shaking with shock, adrenaline and (…) the exertions of pounding at the beast’s face with all my might for a lengthy period, I thought at least now we have a chance as I started the Toyota.
‘Yelling to Jill to find out if she was okay, I reversed, blood dripping everywhere. I drove the vehicle towards it in an attempt to chase it, then drove slowly to camp number two about three kilometres away, all the while yelling to Jill if she was okay and telling her to shine backwards down the road to make sure the animal wasn’t following us.’
When they got to the other campsite, the pillow slip wrapped around Gavin’s hand was soaked in blood. ‘We gingerly pulled it open expecting to see a shredded hand, but to our surprise, all that blood came from a single, pretty deep scratch at the base of my ring finger. Phew…relief!’
He washed his hand in a Dettol solution, dried it and applied antiseptics and bandages. ‘We slowly drove back towards our camp. In the headlights, there it was….unmistakably a gaunt, highly compromised leopard. My skin crawled as realization set in that we had just, with our fists, driven off this killer animal!’
The couple snapped some photos of the leopard before it disappeared into the dark bush.
‘At the camp, sitting in the Hilux talking about the incident, we realized just how lucky we had been. We were suffering now from post-traumatic stress so I quickly jumped out and retrieved a bottle of whisky which we sipped neat to calm our jangled nerves.
‘What a night! We realized once again we were lucky to be alive.’
The next morning, the couple drove to Mabua to report the incident. They met a French couple, both vets, at the gate. They redressed Gavin’s wound and gave advice regarding rabies and tetanus shots.
‘After consulting doctors we realized I needed an anti-tetanus shot. We washed our bloodied sheets at the game scout camp and then set off to Lesholoago camp hoping it would be unoccupied – fortunately, it was.’
Luckily, they found someone with an anti-tetanus shot the following day. ‘We reported the incident to the SANPARKS when we arrived at Nossob a few days later. This was such an unexpected, terrifying and horrific experience which is taking time to assimilate.’
Gavin warns that visiting the wild is a ‘high-risk activity’. ‘I have been going to Mabua for 43 years, almost every year and sometimes 2 or 3 times a year, so regard myself as reasonably experienced. I have always carried an axe and a diver knife into the tent with me, but the recent acquisition of a rooftop tent has made me feel safer so I have let this practice slip. Big mistake!
‘If we had straight away recognized the animal as a leopard, I would have been more alert and cautious.
‘A compromised animal is a far more dangerous risk as we all know. I am glad we stayed on for five extra nights; it helped come to terms with the incident.’
Gerrie Camacho, a carnivore scientist and leopard expert with the Mpumalanga Tourism and Park Agency, told Citizen that the couple survived due to the poor state the leopard was in.
‘Judging by the marks in the gauze and the fact that the leopard had to use the ladder to reach the tent, shows just how little energy the cat had left. If the leopard was in a slightly better state, this story would have had a different ending.
‘A healthy cat would be able to effortlessly jump on the tent from the ground and bite through the gauze.
He adds that if the animal had just a little more energy, it would not have stopped until it succeeded. Camacho says the most common injuries, such as porcupine quills that get stuck in a cat’s mouth or throat, could be the cause of the leopard’s condition.
Camacho recommends campers always have a small axe at hand when camping in unfenced reserves such as Botswana.
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Picture: Geoff Brooks / Unsplash
