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| ashley's Diary |
| Date |
Tuesday, 01 Aug 2006 |
| Country |
Botswana (Okavango 2nd attempt!) |
| Weather |
Sunny |
| Diary |
Headed off to Moremi yet again and ended up at Xanthana camp. A very nice place next to a reed covered lake. Had brought our charcoal with us and picked up enough wood for a campfire on the way, so had a Braai. Thought I’d go and get the sweet chilli sauce out of the fridge to put on my sausages so was rooting around in the back of the LR and of course, being a man I couldn’t find it so shouted “Clare, where’s the sweet chilli sauce” usually Clare would respond by saying “Use your eyes” , but this time I heard Ella’s trembling voice say “Dad, there’s an elephant behind you!” I turned round to find….yes a twelve foot elephant two feet away…How had it managed to sneak up soooo silently? I had no idea as my thought process was going something like this…thinks errrrr, errrrrr, errrrrrr, errrrrr – I wasn’t really prepared for this, a hedgehog I can deal with, get my gloves and move it out of harms way….but a wild elephant….no, brain cells completely empty on this one. Ella and Tess in the meantime had scampered up the ladder into the front tent and were screaming at the top of their lungs, Polly and Nye in the rear tent were (sensibly really) as quiet as mice, Clare was checking the life insurance policy to see if death by elephant attack was covered and I was just standing there like a gormless twit still thinking errrr, errrrr, errrr. Elephant and I made eye contact and it seemed to be trying to say “Really noisy kids, Ash” and then it just turned and moved silently off into the night……Clare said “ Are you alright?” to which I replied “Errrr, errrr, errrrr” Kids came down and as we were still talking about the elephant a hyena burst out of the bushes about 30 yards away and ran at full tilt through our camping spot and into the bushes on the other side….really too much for one night and I kept my faithful “dogstick” at the ready as Clare and the kids brushed their teeth and got into bed. The hyenas came back and we watched them warming their toes around our campfire from the rooftents. Toilet bucket now relocated on the roof of the LR between the tents as no one wants to get down to ground level to go to the loo. One good thing about the hyenas was that they removed and ate my desert boots in the night….and no, we didn’t find their corpses scattered around the next morning. Am now reduced to my tatty Converse All Stars. PIC SHOWS: AT LEAST SOMEONE LOVES ME. |
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