So finally after 3 days something is happening. We are going to move today. I have to learn the hierachy of the existing group and learn the routines of the camp. Some of these people have done multiple trips before Everything has the be done in the right order and in the right way etc etc. Luckily enough they have taken the time to point out my mistakes and help me get it right..
After all the chores are done the old hands jump on the truck and grab all the good seats. There are enough seats for us all to have a window but mine just happens to be facing backwards.
After 3 days of sitting around doing nothing we head off and the first stop is the servo to fuel up? We obviously couldn't do that on a lay day. Then to the cop shop to pay the tolls for the roads, yet another job we cant do on a lay day. I rapidly learn the cook cooks, the driver drives and the guide guides, we do everything else. In order. The other trucks at the same places seem to be going out sight seeing while we were there, we had to leg it to the falls.
First stop was to the Painted dog 'rehabilitation' ctr. Im not a big fan of "rehabilitation" ctr's cos they usually a money making scam. This one sounded legit and the story the ranger told was different than most. Instead of the usual stats and figures she told the story of a dog and his life and death at the hand of poachers. Then we had to walk about a km to see one mangey lookin dog. I ended up giving them a donation.
We arrived at Hwange national park for lunch and we are going to stay the night. This means jobs to be done and the roster has been posted. I have permanent job - mattresses and we all have rotating jobs in groups. I have no idea what mattresses means but luckily I have a partner and he knows. It just means I have to get them out of the locker and put them back when finished. We all are assigned a tent and mattress on the first day and you stay with them for the trip. I am in tent 9 and have mattress 10a. You would think mattresses 10a and 10b go with tent10, rooky mistake. the mattresses can go in any tent you just have to keep the same one. The trip is not full so some people decided they would like 2 mattresses. I don't see a problem with that until he asked what number I was. I told him 10a and it had been taken so I said no probs I'll take another one. Welllll the great mattress scandal was off. Thankfully some one stepped in and got all the mattresses back to get 10a into tent 9 and the others were given un assigned mattresses. OMG this is going to be 39 DAYS OF HELL.
The afternoon we had a game drive. The guide gave us the usual speech "these are wild animals, we might see lots or none. You should have been here yesterday they were everywhere" Hwange is known for big numbers of elephants and there are no nomadic animals here so you probably going to see elephants and not much else. We did come across a big heard of elephants. I didn't take too many photo's cos I got a long way to go so I will be trying to only keep the good ones. As I expected we saw elephants and not a lot of anything else but the elephants were cool.
Back to camp for dinner which was nearly ready and someone cleaned out the truck so we couldn't go in it. It is a little frustrating cos they want us to keep as much as possible in the truck so you have to constantly swap stuff from one bag to another. After dinner more chores. Wash the dishes and "flapping", it is ridiculous! We cant dry the dishes with a cloth we have to wave them around till they dry? Flapping! Doesn't matter the food is bouncing around in the bottom of the truck and our salad got washed in the tap water I cant drink? While we on the subject you have to wash your hands before you go anywhere near food, even just to eat. There are 3 bowls and you have to was in all 3 in the right order and dishes are also washed in 3 bowls IN ORDER. Everything is such a drama!
After the arvo game drive they asked if we wanted to go on a night drive? 2 hours spotlighting for animals. I said I would go if someone else was going and Dara said she wanted to go. we were told to bring our sleeping bags to wear cos it will be cold. We took them but I didn't use mine cos it wasn't too bad. The night here have been very cold in the early morning. The guide picked us up at 8.05 and we headed out with me as spotter. Cant spot in the park so after we left the park I started spotting and straight away spotted a Bush Baby, then a Duka. Few more Duka then we turn off into Hwange resort so we can get hot chocolate or whisky if we want. We both declined. There is also a water hole out the back that is flood lit so we checked it out. Not much to see there either. After that it was straight back down the main road to camp and the game drive was over at 9.10.
Tonight is my first night sharing a tent. My partner was happy to move cos he was sharing with a guy who snores. Guess what I now share with someone who snores like a f**** freight train.
We had to get up early for another game drive. It was bitterly cold so everyone was rugged up as much as possible. A short way into the park, couple of km, we saw a leopard. We got a fairly good look at him before he went back into the bush so that was pretty cool. We didn't see much else again.