Awesome day! The date did not bring any bad luck! It's mine and Neeru's last few full days at Antelope Park (before our trip to Vic Falls) so we're able to choose what activities we do. Also we're getting some activities filmed for our DVDs. So the morning started off with a P's walk followed by half hour of elephant training with Tombi who kept poking me with her trunk and pestering me to give her treats! At 9:30am I had the chance to do something I've been wanting to do since I got here - meat prep and cub feed. Admittedly I was a bit anxious about how I would react to a huge container full of animal parts! The initial smell was pretty horrendous but once the meat was removed and cold storage was shut it didn't really smell at all. We were feeding 4 sets of lions so had 4 cow legs, 2 sets of ribs and the neck and shoulders. The set of ribs had to be cut in half which I had the honours of doing and actually I strangely enjoyed it! I found the whole thing pretty cool and oddly not gory. The meat, once sliced and with added vitamins etc. was chucked in the trailer and we hopped in the cruiser to deliver it to the big cats ... kinda like the lion version of Dominos! First stop Laili and Lewa. The cubs all need a small piece of meat with vitamin A tablets in which has to be hand fed through the cage: I got to feed Lewa hers - AWESOME! After that me and Neeru placed 2 of the legs in some trees (gotta make the lions do a bit of work for their food) and let the girls out to feed. They make the meat look weightless when they carry it and yet me and Neeru struggled to lift it onto the branch - it just shows how insanely strong they are! Next up were the P's who also had their vit. A tablets, a leg and a slab of shoulder meat. Sahara and Soriah (the pregnant girls) were next and got most of the neck and some ribs thrown into them. Finall the 4 C's - the Stage 1 night encounter lions - Chobe, Chundu, Chise, Chete who got the remaining leg and ribs. Such a great morning!
In the afternoon myself, Sheran and Neeru worked at the stables doing food making which is always good as I get to chat to Summer and Landella dogs and my top boy Jacko horse! We concluded the day with a lion walk with the L's. Despite only being fed a few hours before, Laili decided to show off by climbing a tree and shortly after they had a really close chase with some impala - even on full stomachs they still want more food!
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| With the cold storage doors open! |
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| Soriah with her ribs - om nom |
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| Chundu enjoying his lunch |
Dragged myself out of bed to find out lion walks were full so went to look sad at Jealous who found space on the P's walk for me. Although it actually wasn't really worth it as there were 11 guests so we spent most the time stopping for photos. I didn't bother with breakfast either as I was saving room for pizza in town. Instead I had a shower, a hot shower which is rare here! I actually had to turn the cold tap on too! Luxury! Anyway, usual trip into town for pizza and alcohol. I'm glad it was the last time ... I feel really out of place. Also the money confuses the crap out of me: it's mostly USD's but anything under $1 is in Rand ... and I swear the amount R1 is worth changes at every place we go! About half 10 we got picked up and went to the boys orphanage for a sports day. Sports Days here pretty much just consist of playing a giant game of football. We split into 2 teams and played 90minutes flat out. Initially us girls were ignored by the boys but myself, Gunns, Caroline, Sunface, Neeru and Hilde kept trying and got in a few good tackles and eventually the ball was passed to me. I actually did quite well too and managed to dribble passed Paul and Seamus before passing it to one of the boys - I was quite proud of myself. However the next time I got the ball I missed it completely, fell on my arse and grazed my leg! It's difficult to play in flip flops OK!
Once we were back at AP, me and Neeru went on an elephant ride with Ami for half hour. She passed me 4 rocks and a stick as gifts. I kept one of the rocks as a souvenir.
At 4pm we set off of for the PoloX match - loads of people came to watch. Jacko was playing which surprised me as he's fairly old and slow but he did quite well. When he came off for a break I looked after him and offered him some of my cider but he just raised his eyebrows at me ... or would've if horses had eyebrows. I volunteered to ride him back to stables afterwards ... I'd had 3 bottles of cider so not sure I was in a fit state to do so but hey ho, there's no law against it!
This was followed by the standard Saturday night drinking extravaganza which we kicked off by having a Jäegerbomb (yes I know, they have Jäegar here!), danced about for a bit then decided it was time for another shot which unfortunately turned out to be tequila.There were about 12 of us vols who all did a tequila shot - the barman had to fetch extra glasses and lemons! From then on the night was filled with more drinking, dancing on desks, drinking and general fun ... in bed at 2am. Good times.
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| Sharing my Hunters Gold with Jacko horse |
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| Sarah, Neeru, me and Chutney (Emily) getting our drink on |
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| Me, Sarah, Caroline and Torie being drunkards |
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| Me, Geir and Ida in the office partying the night away! |
Day 22 - Sunday 15th July
Hungover. Dragged myself out of bed for breakfast at 8am but it was a struggle to eat it. Nearly everyone was suffering but by 10:30am we felt we'd recovered enough to go canoe-ing down Ngamo river. Me, Torie, Sarah and Neeru chilled out, floating on the suspiciously green water for nearly 2 hours.
Lunch deserves a mention today as there were yorkshire puddings - WIN!
Post-lunch me and Neeru went on our filmed horse safari. Obviously I was with Jacko who was having a very slow day! I was miles behind the others for most of the ride. On the plus side we got really close to giraffe, zebra, impala, tsebok and Wilbur the waterbuck so should have some great footage on our DVD.
There was some mild excitement at dinner when Jealous appeared at our table saying there was a huge bush fire coming towards the park so about 20 of us ran and jumped on the back of a cruiser (which definitely should only normally hold 20 people so a lot of us were hanging off the side). To say the ending was anti-climatic would be an understatement. Within a few minutes we had a flat tyre (can't think why) and then while waiting for a replacement we were told that actually the fire was pretty fare away so we had to walk back to camp - no night time fire fighting for us :(
Since Saturday night was a bit wild, a bunch of us decided to watch a film .. I voted Toy Story 3 however I was over-ruled and we watched Blood Diamond instead. Possibly the worst film to watch when you're in Africa; don't get me wrong it was a good film but was just a bit too relevant and very depressing! Also it was ridiculously long so we didn't get to bed 'til 11pm - such rebels!
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| Sarah and Neeru row, row, rowing their boat |
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| Torie and me loving canoeing |
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