Half way thru and armed!

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  Campfire Safaris, South Africa
Friday, October 19, 2007

Greetings one and all! Another action packed week concluded and now officially past my half way point having completed 7 weeks -can you believe it?!
Last Sunday was particularly busy starting off with quad bike game viewing. Having never quad biked b4 I was looking forward to it with a degree of trepidation. The game farm we were to drive thru was stunning with lots of rocky outcrops (coppies) We were given about 5-10 mins to gain some familiariity with our bikes and then we were off! I had an automatic bike so less complicated for the poor old soul. Jo and I were separated from the boys after about 20 mins as Jo was riding so slowly that disability scooters were overtaking her (obviously they weren't but they could have!) At my fastest I attained the impressive speed of 41kmph which whilst not v fast it was quite fast enuf without any protective equipment (that's no hat , nothing - health and safety - ha!) The boys of course drove at fairly ludicrous speeds I'm led to inderstand, and were all suitably filthy afterwards. My turn of speed left me munching grit for an hour or so afterwards but I really enjoyed it and would do it again altho preferably with a safety helmet!
The afternoon saw us having a lecture on weapon handling and learning some drills with a .22 rifle including how to make the gun safe, during which I "killed" 2 people and Helen 1.After some more practice we were taken out to a site to undertake some exercises, one of which involved hsing to try and hit 3 different targets (one shot per target) at various distances in the space of 15 seconds.

After our survial experience.........

Now I'm sure if you're a half decent shot that's a piece of pie but for us, well what can I say ; not that inpressive really, altho for mine I did get 2 brains and a haircut (you could hit in order of importance, brain, brain case , haircut , miss) I think my time was double what it should have been but at least I was in the right area. The key mesage of the letcure snd exercises was to demonstrate how not very useful a gun is in relation to a charging dangerous animal unless you are the world's fastest and best shot and how instead understanding animal behaviour and respecting their environment and distnaces etc is more likely to keep you safe in the bush -all very interesting.
Having had some rain the change in the bush is quite amazing -it'd greened up so much it doesn't even look llike the same place. Some small and very brightly coloured flowers are pushing their way thru and the groundwork is being laid for a huge carpet of white with the White Bush Lillies having sprung up in their thousands and which are due to flower at the end of the month -it'll look spectacular.
Also on the increase are the bugs! The more we move into the summer the more bugs abd the more mossie bites I'm getting and trying (and failing) not to scratch. No repellant seems to work and depite sleeping in a net at night I am regularly awaking with another couple of bites to add to my collection -aaargh! Some of the bugs that dive bomb us in the evening whilst having our evening meal are huge; we have have some attractive " peanut" bugs that just plop into your food, bounce on the table , land in your food and other big, winged many legged critters that seem to have perfected the art of landed unceremoniiously on their backs on the floor\table etc and then buzz wildly in circles like manic break dancers.

Ellies at Campfire's waterhole!!

Yesterday additional wildlie accompaniament was enhaned by the presence of a Red Toad (very cute ) and a Foam Nest frog,which unfortunately for Ryan who picked him up, urinated on him! A couple of these frogs permanently live on the light fitting in the kitchen area. We had a bit of excitement the other night to when a scorpion was lurking about just outside the dining area(its all open to the elements) and what is more it was a thick tailed scorpion - only deadly to man so that was ok??!! (This is why you always need to wear something on your feet and use a flashlight at night cos you don't want to be stepping on those fellas!)
On a less scary note, on a bush walk today we came across a number of dung beetles merrily rolling their balls of dung, usually about 4-5 times their size, which they put together beautifully I might add, at some considerable speed. They roll the balls using their back legs for a few paces , pop up onto the top of the ball to check thier direction and then get behind the ball roll it gain and repeat the sequence over and over again. Fascinating to watch and hilasrious to boot!
Well, time to sign off for the mo, it is 10pm afer all - and that's late for here even tho it is a Friday night -everyone else who opted to stay at camp tonight rather than go into town has gone to bed. The others, prinipally the FGASA students are all off celebrating as they've all passsed their practicals but are still awaiting absolute confirmation of their theory papers -so well done them!
Best wishes, lots of love etc to all my readers.
Signing off for the moment
Africa Sal,
xxx

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Giraffe in the fading light over Campfire

Me kissing Jessica the hippo!

Vultures awaiting the all clear

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