Another thunderstorm was in full flow at getting up time - 6.00am- so I lay listening to the rain and the river which you could tell was higher as a result of the storms. The rain soon stopped and allowed a dry walk to the mess tent albeit the grass was very wet. Hot porridge set is up for the day and at 0715 we were away walking the 12 miles back to main camp. With the wet grass my feet were nearly as wet as yesterday when I fell in the river added to which was the thick black cotton soil - so called because it absorbs water- which stuck to the soles of my boots adding half a kilo to each ( good weight training). Nearly back at camp we had to cross a river we had crossed on our outward bound leg but it was now running faster and higher so we had to find a place to cross - eventually we found some stepping stones and with the assistance of the bushmen wearing their rubber sandals, which allowed them to stand in the water, we successfully jumped and stretched from rock to rock making it to the other side without any mishaps and there were no super wet feet!
Enroute today we saw Ruppels starling, Donaldson Smith's weaver, Robert's gazelles, zebra, red hartebeest, wildebeest and giraffe - today's photo is courtesy of John who took a picture of John and I as we walked towards a giraffe who was unperturbed and didn't move until we were quite close.....and then it only ambled a few paces.
We walked back into camp at 1045 - and were welcomed by Billie and offered drinks and showers - a much needed mug of tea and flapjack were consumed while we waited for the shower to be rigged up.
All told I reckoned that we walked about 40 miles on our excellent fly camp experience.....not bad and good training for my 300 mile charity cycle ride in June.
After our shower all our dirty clothes were discarded into the laundry basket - with good drying weather they should be washed, dried and ready to pack on Saturday.
We decided our afternoon activity would be a drive so at 4pm we set off for a meander through the wildebeest herds - it is interesting how some have lots of young while others have none - they are clearly on a different cycle. We also saw hyena, black backed jackal, bat eared foxes, stenbok and dik dik.
Tonight dinner was with a group of 10 Germans albeit the lead lady owned a lodge - Hatari - near Mount Meru and was of Namibian descent ...they all spoke German with a little English. Dinner is very different when another language is the predominant one; there were no end to end and across the table conversations as there had been on other evenings.