Friday 18th April 2014

It was cold last night, or at least I thought it was, I slept in a sleeping bag under a duvet and I also wore my base layer. This morning I woke up with what I thought was a hangover. This was the confusing part as I’d only had three and a half stubbies last night. I started to feel worse as the day went on with a thumping headache, a stiff neck , swollen glands and hot flushes. Given that I’ve got a black and swollen tick bite the general consensus is that I’ve tick bite fever.

The morning was pretty laid back, I did one transfer up the Outpost to drop some of the EcoQuest group as their week with us was over. They were a great bunch, very cerebral with a thirst for knowledge. I was disappointed I didn’t get to spend much time with them, I was away on Trails for most of the week and when I was back I was on duties away from camp.

This afternoon I went back to the Trails camp, I’m going to be here for the next six nights, Steve appears to be in a similar situation to me with the fever. We picked up the group from the bridge to bring them back to camp. We bumped into a breeding herd of elephants on Ambush Alley just 30 metres from camp which delayed our arrival. This was such a great encounter with one of the mums giving us a gentle nudge with her tusks on our bulls bars, she wanted to test us out a little. This was amazing and the guests were blown away by it and also their first sight of camp.

We did a short walk in the afternoon, during which we had to radio in some human tracks that we saw. This is standard practice given the current state of poaching in Africa. From the vehicle we saw both a loan buffalo and a bull elephant, I think this group are going to be lucky.

Luckily dinner didn’t go on late, we were in bed by half nine. This was such a relief as I really wasn’t feeling well. I was so cold, sat there in my base layer, shirt, fleece and coat whilst others were simply in their t-shirts. I do n’t want to be sick, I actually don’t think I can be sick as there’s no back up for a Back-Up. I also don’t want to ruin my record of not missing a days work due to illness (with the exception of when I did my ACL) since early 2004.