The Puff Adder
see photo below

So it was a beautiful weekend at the beginning of 2002, when we were down at
Sterkfonteindam. Warren Buys approached his vehicle as his thoughts were
perfectly aligned and focused on the ice cold beer he was about to fish from
his cooler box behind his car. It was then that he spotted a snake. 180 Turn and
running the opposite direction, he frantically announced this discovery to his friends.
A huge search started, and of course speculation on what snake or possible "vision"
it could be.... Cars were moved, grass was scouted with sticks and it was agreed with confidence that the snake had probably gone and that it shouldn't be hurt if found, and that Warren might have had a beer to much in the sun. All went back to normal for about 20 minutes, when suddenly Warren came hopping towards his friends again in a tactically venom avoiding jumping motion. THE SNAKE WAS RIGHT THERE AGAIN. This time everyone was a little more worried, because if Warren was not pulling a premature April fools joke, then they might have been walking right over the snake while searching for it......

We got to the car, and there it was, coiled up in the grass underneath Warren's Jeep, which we moved 20 minutes ago to also look for it there ! I phoned the Nature reserve office to check if there was any procedure in moving venomous snakes, and they just laughed at me. We got a mast, and with the one half Johan Greyling and Gregor Kröger moved the snake. This was the beginning of a two-kilometer puff adder moving exercise. The move went well, except for Johan almost running over the snake a few times as it slid off the mast he was carrying it on, and Karin coming back from the bathrooms, having to do a neck braking swivel and run as a fat puff adder on a mast was coming her way.

As you can imagine, that night everyone made sure that the zip was properly sealed on their tents before getting comfortable in their sleeping bags....after checking the sleeping bag of course.