Sunday 26th January 2014

Having done the last guard duty I started the little gas burners going in the morning and wandered down to the Luvuvuh to wash the mugs out. It was so peaceful down by river, it reminded me of the crisp mornings back home when I’ve been on holiday at Strangford Loch or on the Norfolk Broads. I couldn’t allow myself to day dream as I had to concentrate on the water and make sure that I didn’t miss a lurking croc.

It took us longer to break camp than it took to set up. This was because we were doing a thorough clean, we only wanted to leave footprints. This meant taking the ash and any half burnt sticks down to the river so they’d be spread far and wide. We also returned any unused firewood to where we found it and ditto for any sticks we used to construct shelters. We left feeling good about what we’d left behind.

We had a long trudge through the rain back to our rendezvous point but it was made worthwhile when we first saw a breeding heard of elephants walking over a rocky ridge and then bumping a ‘daggaboy’ at 20 metres wallowing in a pan – Dagha is the Zulu word for mud and refers to old buffalo bulls preference for wallowing.

The rain set in for the rest of the day so there were no walks, instead I hit the books, fingers crossed it pays off.