Sunday 12th January 2014

Business as usual on the trails course – two walks in seven hours covering 13 km including two buffalo encounters. However there was a slight change to proceedings as we are now acting as lead guide and back up. This means that whoever is the lead forges the way ahead, interprets, scans for game and leads the approach to any sightings.

There’s still so much to learn and we’re hundreds and hundreds of hours of experience of doing this for real so it’s a very controlled walk. As students our rifles aren’t loaded but we have an armed instructor and an armed back up with us to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

Despite the two buffalo encounters coming on the afternoon walk the highlight was when we were within 30 metres of two black backed jackals as the sun was going down.