There are nights in the bush you remember.

And then there are nights when a leopard walks underneath your bed, a white rhino goes for what can only be described as a midnight dip, a black rhino appears behind your head, and you realise sleep was perhaps a wildly optimistic part of the plan.

This was one of those nights.

Following on from our stay at Chimani with the BHS team and our time in camp with Brett Stamper, Mike and I were lucky enough to be offered something a little different: a night in the hide.

Now, before anyone starts adding this to their safari wish list, this isn't a standard guest experience. It was a very special opportunity we were incredibly fortunate to have.

And what a night it turned out to be.

Hear more about what it was like to spend a night in the hide on Instagram

Room with a view. Walls optional.

After a wonderful dinner, we collected our sleeping bags, hot water bottles and overnight bits and were driven out to the hide.

By day, it's exactly what you'd expect: a bird hide overlooking the dam, with open windows and steps leading up to it.

By night? Apparently, a rather excellent bush bedroom.

Beds had been made up for us inside, and we were handed the essentials: a torch and a radio. Chris gave us a quick lesson on how the radio worked, pointed out the important bits and, with the casual confidence of someone who wasn't about to sleep in an open hide for the night, said something along the lines of:

“Right, enjoy. We'll pick you up on game drive tomorrow morning.”

And off he went.

We did, thankfully, also have a box containing coffee, hot water and rusks for the morning. So, really, all the important things had been covered.

We climbed into our sleeping bags, tucked the hot water bottles around us, it was properly cold, and settled in.

The dam was quiet.

The bush was quiet.

Everything felt wonderfully peaceful.

For a while.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Somewhere around midnight, I woke up to a sound in the distance.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

If you've spent enough time in the bush, you'll know it.

A leopard's contact call has an unmistakable, almost sawing quality to it, a little like someone chopping wood somewhere in the darkness.

And having lived in the bush before, I knew exactly what I was hearing.

It was far away.

Still, I tried to wake Mike.

He rolled over, apparently assuming I was nudging him to stop snoring.

Fine.

I lay there listening.

Twenty minutes or so later:

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Except this time, it wasn't far away.

It was close.

“Mike. Mike. MIKE. Listen.”

He woke with a start.

We looked at each other.

Grabbed the torch.

Jumped out of bed.

And at almost that exact moment, a huge male leopard walked directly underneath the hide.

There are certain moments when you forget to speak.

This was one of them.

We trained the torch on him as he walked out from beneath us and towards the water. He was enormous. Completely unhurried. Completely at home.

He made his way along the water’s edge towards the dam wall while the two of us stood there, hearts hammering, trying to process what we were watching.

And then we heard rustling to our right.

Because apparently one ridiculous midnight sighting wasn’t enough.

Enter: the rhino

We swung the torch around.

A white rhino.

So now, in one direction, we had a male leopard lying on the dam wall.

In the other, a white rhino.

The two seemed remarkably uninterested in each other. The leopard watched. The rhino watched. Neither appeared particularly bothered by the fact that they were sharing the dam in the middle of the night.

Then the rhino walked straight into the water.

I know rhinos aren't exactly known for their swimming careers, but from where we were standing, it looked very much like he'd decided to go for a midnight swim.

There we were, standing in our pyjamas in a bird hide, watching a leopard on the dam wall and a rhino in the water under the moonlight.

It was completely surreal.

Eventually, the leopard stood up and simply slinked away into the darkness.

The rhino climbed out, pottered around for a while and gradually disappeared too.

Mike and I looked at each other.

There was absolutely no chance we were sleeping now.

Obviously, someone needed to keep watch.

Obviously, we should take shifts.

Obviously, we needed to remain alert because WHAT ELSE WAS OUT THERE?

Approximately five minutes later, we were both back in bed.

Watch the leopard sighting and hear more about the night’s rhino visitors on Instagram

Oh, it's just the rhino…

Eventually, somehow, we drifted off.

Then came more rustling.

This time, directly behind my head.

I sat bolt upright.

Mike had heard it too.

Torch on.

“There he is,” I whispered. “It's just the rhino.”

Mike stared for a second.

“That's not the same rhino.”

Pause.

“That's a black rhino.”

Well.

Sleep was officially cancelled.

For anyone who knows the Greater Kruger, you'll understand just how special a black rhino sighting is. You simply don't see them often.

And here we were, in the early hours of the morning, lying in a hide while one quietly moved around just metres away from us.

A leopard.

A white rhino.

And now a black rhino.

All in one night.

We could hardly believe our luck.

‍

Dawn, coffee and the night shift clocking off

By the time the sky began to lighten, we'd given up pretending we were going to get any meaningful sleep.

So we made coffee, opened the rusks and sat quietly watching the bush wake up.

Wildebeest wandered into view.

Hippos provided their usual running commentary from the dam.

Lions called somewhere in the distance.

And, because no bush gathering is complete without one turning up to see what's going on, a hyena arrived around dawn.

Of course it did.

Sitting there with hot coffee in hand, watching the first light spread across the dam after the night we'd just had, was one of those moments that is almost impossible to put into words...

By the time the game-drive vehicle arrived to collect us, we were tired, slightly dishevelled and running almost entirely on coffee and adrenaline. But we'd just had one of the most extraordinary nights of our lives.

Would we do it again?

In a heartbeat.

Although next time, Mike is definitely taking first watch.

Plan Your Chimani Camp Experience

Chimani offers an intimate and wonderfully wild Greater Kruger experience, where exceptional wildlife encounters can happen when you least expect them.

While sleeping in the hide was a special opportunity and is not part of the standard guest experience, there are still plenty of unforgettable moments waiting at Chimani.

Contact us to start planning your Chimani Camp experience.