Sunday 20th April 2014

I was feeling much stronger after a good nights sleep. However, this was short lived, as soon as we’d started walking my thumping headache returned. This aside, the walk was enjoyable with a surprise buffalo encounter. Again we’d stopped to do some birding, this time we were watching a hornbill without a tail, a very peculiar thing to see especially in flight. Whilst we were discussing it we must have woken a sleeping bull in a wallow behind a steep bank. He jumped up with a shock, looked at us and then bolted.

A little bit further on we were making our way through a thicket, Steve had gone ahead to check out a suspicious noise whilst I stayed with the guests. At this point there was another noise from the bush that we were standing next to. This made it all very confusing, Steve was up ahead, half the guests were immediately behind me with the other half not able to come past the bush where the new noise had come from. We eventually left the area knowing that the first animal was only a zebra but we were unsure of the second.

We finished the walk in good time which meant that I had time for a recuperating siesta after brunch. This works really well but goes to prove that to get over tick bite fever you need plenty of rest, not something that you can get in this job.

Rather than walking this afternoon we headed to Lanner Gorge. On arrival I went on ahead and set up a little picnic spot with some champagne for Dean and Kerry who were celebrating their first wedding anniversary. As we were leaving Hine turned up with his guests from the Outpost where he’s freelancing. I took the opportunity to hide the keys of his Landy so that when he returned he’d have a mild panic.

This evening I was given a super strength prescription pain killer which sorted out my head, this meant I could enjoy the last supper with the group. Once again they’ve been a great bunch and I’ll miss them. Walking trails is definitely the way to go as the people are all like minded. The nature of the product is self selecting, not just anybody will opt for a walking trail but any Tom, Dick or Harry could pitch up at your lodge.

Unfortunately these tablets don’t last too long, when they wore off I was ready for another recuperation sleep. I made it to my bed by eleven to find so many spiders and little shrimp things in my tent. As long as they didn’t make a noise I was happy with them. I set my alarm for duty time and fell straight asleep to the hyenas calling across the Luvuvue.