Hi everyone,
My name is James and I’ll be scribbling up the next days
worth of CMJJJ blog. I’d better be good as my last blog had me in trouble with
Ciara, the mopey cow.
After what had been a MAHOSIVE day for the gang, especially
a v-shagged Ravalon (didn’t she do well?) we all crashed out pretty well in les
tents. Morning time and, as standards, Gulia went off on her tod for a stroll
to search, presumably, for some small furry animals to chuck on the cinders of
our dying campfire.
SOMEONE (not mentioning any names) managed to ‘spill’ some rice
after dinner the previous evening which had attracted a number of feathered
friends. Hornbills (comical toucan-like birds) had been tucking in since they
had risen from their slumber and we were positively surrounded. If you ever run
into Hornbills, they are frikkin comedy. Managed to get them to eat bread (much
to Gulia’s annoyance) from a) my crutch and b) Bray’s bonce. LOL. Brazier,
Irish and I smashed back a hearty brekkie before packing up and leaving camp.
On our way out we had to pop in to the camp office to see ‘Morpheus’ and give
him our docs. Ciara took the lead here while myself and Bray nipped in a quick
workout using some handy elephant remains (pictures to follow). Morpheus pretty
livid that we (Bray and myself) had , and I quote, ‘disgraced’ his office by
rocking up topless and hench. Apologies Laurence Fishburne double. And so
onwards to find the marsh road (not the sandridge one as the Rav would just
sink again).
Plenty of wildlife on offer here as we spotted giraffe,
wilderbeast, various antelope, MORE FRIKKING ELEPHANTS, some dolphins, a duck,
and a tall balding creature with a habit of providing awkward moments merely by
talking…oh wait, that would be Bray. Julia decided to chase after some giraffe
in true gung-ho American style. Her shock and awe tactics had little effect
though.
The marsh road began in earnest after the spotting of said
safari creatures and to put it bluntly, the marsh raod is about as exciting as
it sounds – NOT VERY. Still this may be down to the fact that we saw little and
got lost a few times. Nevertheless this is Afrika after all and so even the
hard-packed, dust-as road through dying shrub still held some desperate beauty.
At one of our most desperate moments, when all notion of
direction and position had all but dried up, Bray clocked a couple ragging the
shite out of their Landy towards us on a faint dirt road. He promptly waved the
driver down and asked whether or not we were on the right road to the south
gate (can’t remember the name). The bloke said ‘yep’ and then, being the good
citizen he is, Bray kindly informed the driver that he was going in the right
direction and to just ‘keep going straight’. Bewildering advice since a) the
driver hadn’t even asked for directions, b) he obviously knew where he was
going, and c) we hadn’t gone straight at all. Nice one Bray! Cue much banter in
his direction.
The drive continued through an ever-changing landscape until
we reached the gate, downed some lunch, got laughed at by more South Africans
for having a go-kart instead of a real 4x4 and tried to figure out just how so
much dust had got into the Rav. Luckily one of the South Africans had a
motorised pump that Ciara managed to flirt her way into lending us in order to
get our tyre pressure back up for the better roads ahead. Of course myself and
JB as the muscle of the tour felt like right mugs as we had to just sit back
and watch a bloke who knew what he was doing do our job, AGAIN.
The lady at the gate had told us the turn off was ‘7.4
kilometres away on the left’. Easy enough directions to follow you would think
right? Not for us. We ended up off the road about 3km down and once again stuck
in the sands of Botswana. Got out and after going back to clarify her seemingly
baffling directions we headed off and found the road proper. Nice drive to our
camp at North Gate (think that is right) where JB was presented with a golden
opportunity. The lady at the gate was slender, easy on the eye, wearing
knee-high leather boots and simply gagging for a bit of our loveable rogue.
Thanks to his ‘pals’ he was set up on a speed date over the collection of some
firewood. One word – MUG. Didn’t even get her number! Minus lad-points and the
shame of tour fineage to follow. Tisk tisk.
Camp turned out to be ace. Different to Savuti in that it
was more wooded and in a salt-pan. Settled down for the evening back round a
campfire as standard. Bray was almost cuddling up to a hyena by the fire at the
end of the night which made him ‘slighty surprised’, but he thought he could ‘have
it’ if needed. Lad.
Woke in the middle of the night to see an elephant smashing
up trees around our camp. All seems kinda normal now.
I’m done.
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