In the middle of the night last night I heard a "ping" and the left half of my tent collapsed slightly. I delayed investigation as I was a bit bleary eyed and wasn't sure if I was dreaming. After a minute I unzipped my inner tent to find the outer tent had been unhooked from its peg and the peg had turned around. Not only that but I could hear alot of rustling and chewing of grass very nearby. My tent was surrounded by Elephants! Whether or not an Elephant had kicked my peg as it walked past my tent I can't be sure but apparently the tree next to my tent that Nigel was locked around had been used as a scratching post the previous night so the chances are quite possible.
I fixed the tent and went back to bed, I was exhausted and had one thing and only one thing on my mind...sleep. When I woke up I had to do something for the first time, cook my own breakfast. I normally have bread or I'm near (ish) to a shop but today I had to cook up another round of noodles. I managed to pack away the tent etc whilst the noodles were cooking and so I still managed to get away without wasting too much time. I still had the beast of a push back through the thick sand but I used it as a good warm up for my legs.
I had pretty much cycled through the whole of the National Park as the road became lined with empty fields as opposed to broken trees and bushes crumpled by Elephants. I decided to just coast the cycling and concentrate on the road instead of checking intensely for anymore wildlife. As far as the ride was concerned, it was pretty straight forward. The only thing worth mentioning was that I had to endure drinking some extremely muddy water for the whole ride but other than that, it was a rare incident free day.
I finally arrived at a tiny shop where I had to think about what to buy as I was possibly going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere and not see another shop until Saturday. They say variety is the spice of life, in Africa, variety is non existent. There are more options under the gender section of my African visa forms than there are items of food on a supermarket shelf! I couldn't even buy bread but I was lucky to still have some noodles so it was the standard packet of biscuits for pudding and a chocolate bar which i would save for later to say "well done for another days ride"
I had a couple of options with regards to what campsite to stay at. I headed towards Nata Lodge and also had the option of Nata Bird Sanctuary which was slightly further past. The Bird Sanctuary had been mentioned to me previously by a few guys I've met but I knew it was literally just a field with no restaurant etc. I wasn't too sure about staying there purely because I needed some sort of restaurant so I could get a decent breakfast tomorrow morning. Due to this I had decided to stay at Nata Lodge and I past Pelican Lodge en route which looked pretty fancy and was probably way over my budget. My ride towards Nata Lodge became a bit more of a panic as the toilet monsters had woken up and were doing their best to halt my progress and ruin my incident-free day. It became apparent very quickly that I wasn't going to make it all the way to the lodge door and I would have to stop pretty sharply if I didn't want a horrendous RTA (road trouser accident)
I managed to get to the entrance of Nata Lodge, there was nowhere i could stop and hide away along the roadside leading up to it as the road was fenced both sides. When I arrived at the entrance I very VERY quickly, propped Nigel up against the lodge sign post and even more quickly "submerged" myself in the sparsely scattered bushes. I say "submerged" because I was about as camouflaged as a Polar Bear in Monkey World. I turned my back to the road as to not have to look in the eyes of any outraged drivers passing by and did my thing. My mind was more focused on the multiple toads jumping around my feet at the time as i didn't want any of them to get experimental and try jumping down/up any holes! I would however, like to spare a thought and apologise to any drivers and especially families with children that drove past Nata Lodge as they would've saw the Nata Lodge sign with its situation worsening slogan of "Your African Oasis" and then seen my African Oasis in all its working glory!
I was even more thankful that nobody pulled into the campsite for a visit and this was probably because the campsite was actually closed!! I couldn't believe it, I had gone through 10 minutes of toilet torture to get to the campsite, didn't make it in time anyway and exposed myself to unfortunate holiday makers and all for a site that was closed due to flooding! (Not sewage problems!) In the end I decided to cycle back to the Pelican Lodge as it was the only place I could rely on to provide me with some decent food!
Pelican Lodge didn't turn out to be too expensive to camp and as has been pretty common throughout the fancy camp grounds of Africa, I was the only one there. I felt a bit of a loner but I'm used to that feeling by now and embraced it with a swim in the pool and some sunbathing (trying to even up the tan lines is a lost cause but I can always try!) As the sun started to set I fulfilled my need for man points and made myself a fire. Whether or not the wood I collected was stacked for burning I don't know but there was nobody around to tell me otherwise so I got stuck in and made sparks fly!
I sat and admired my masterpiece for a while and then was greeted by a German man named Mr Uberhausen. I knew this because he introduced himself by saying "Hello, I'm Mr Uberhausen from Geeeermany!" In a very similar fashion to a contestant on Blind Date. After a chat with him I had a little more time with my fire and it dawned on me that this could be the last really wild camp I did. I was in a campsite but after this I would be stopping at towns and so could possibly not use the tent again. The end was really creeping up fast, just a few weeks ago I was in Malawi and it seemed like I had ages left, now I was almost panicking!
After dinner around the fire I was again forced into my tent by the mozzies. Another long day over and rest was needed for a long day tomorrow but I was happy with my condition and more importantly, happy with Nigel's.
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