Day 2 on the water

Fri 25th Oct

Day two on the water. Today was blistering sunshine. The whole time it was out in full force but we had a beautiful cooling wind whilst on the water. at some points it was a headwind as well which makes it even cooler as we are paddling. Just very aware of getting burnt now, legs are starting to get a little bit red even though I’m  regularly putting on factor 50 on, so every now and again I’m using my towel dunked in the water and covering up my legs And obviously wearing hat and long sleeves most of the time as well now so this is not gonna be a holiday where you come back with a tan, the lines are gonna be horrific I think!

Today was another day of seeing incredible wildlife, we saw lots and lots of hippos on the way to our lunch stop We actually came across an elephant mid way crossing the river and he was on a sandbank. He was quite happy with us floating next to him while he had a bit of a food break.

And we saw elephants on the sides as well. then as we approach where we were stopping for lunch there was actually a huge family of elephants already waiting at our lunch spot so we had to take it easy. I managed to get the drone up as we were coming in, so hopefully that shot Will be exceptional. When we eventually landed for lunch we had to wait quite a bit for the elephants to move from where they were drinking so we just sat in the canoes watching and then eventually the elephants moved across and then we landed and we were able to wheel the guys and lift them up onto a bit of a ledge just off the plane and then we sat and had lunch and literally family after the family after the family elephants came down to the watering hole we saw warthogs, monkeys, inparlour, antelope, crocs, a kite and must’ve been about 50 elephants on the whole.

They were completely fine with us being there. They would kind of notice us, take a look and then turn around and carry on with what they were doing, playing in the mud or go for a drink Until we had one really really big male bull that came down onto the plain and it took one look at us and was really unsure.

We were actually having a break so we had just had lunch and then we had like a couple of hours just snoozing whilst the hottest part of the day past. This bull was walking towards the water but then turned towards us to check us out and actually started moving towards us. He got a little bit too close for my liking so I woke CB who is one of our guides and he told us to all to move back and take a seat and then we sat and watched for a bit and when the bull made a movement to come towards us again CB stood up and told him no and pointed away and the bull and walked off to the water and was fine with us there after that so it was a bit tense for us, but they know what they’re doing.

We also had a female elephant that was quite aggressive. That looks like she would actually try and make it up the bank to where we were sat again. CB had to put her off and shouted at her to move and eventually she did but again just became a bit wary of us so when we were around elephants, they encourage us to be quiet and sit down. Don’t make ourselves big so we’re not threatening, so the canoe is totally fine.

The rest of the day was pretty chilled. We just had to get to our base camp which was about an hour and a half down stream after we left and again we’ve counted on the sort of Sandy Island. There’s a little bit of grass on it so apparently we did have a hippo last night that came up for a bit of munch but the sunset in the sunrise is just absolute glorious, today is gonna be another blistering day. My hands are a little bit red raw so I’m wearing mittens to cover them up and I’m gonna keep trousers on as well today just to give my skin a bit of a break from the Sun.

The team oare fab and getting along. Lots of laughs, lots of giggles everyone’s quite lighthearted and the guides have been absolutely incredible really helping us and knowing their role with getting camp set up and helping with the wheelchairs loading and unloading they honestly have been amazing. We had a chat around the fire last night about what peoples expectations were before going on the trip and for us it was mostly about you know the challenge and getting the kilometres in but being surprised about how much wildlife we were saying for the guides they before we arrive they were worried about the wheelchairs. How do you get them onto a canoe? They didn’t know they folded flat and thought they were gonna have to have an extra boat behind us that just carried wheelchairs so they’ve been pleasantly surprised, but also really impressed how the guys don’t let their disabilities stop them doing what they do on day three