This morning some of us went on a bushwalk with Jan the student coordinator. It was pretty interesting though we didn't see many animals, and I got bitten by a termite!!

So it turned out I didn't do any rounds or jobs today, at 4pm we got a phone call saying the elephant had been killed. We knew one was being hunted and moholo had bought the meat to feed the animals, but we had to go and cut it up. It took 2 1/2 hours to get there, by which time it was dark. We had to help skin it, then carry the meat to the buckies when it had been cut off. At first everyone was trying really hard to stay as clean as possible, but it wasn't long before elephant blood war-paint was decided necessary. Blood doesn't bother me, I was pretty happy to get covered, but when it comes to urine and stomach fluid it's not so cool. I was doing pretty well at avoiding victimisation, but then someone threw a handful of partially digested grass from the elephants intestine at me. I don't think my clothes will ever be the same again! Towards the end it got pretty cold & I got pretty tired. We discovered the magic of sharing body heat. That of humans and dead elephant! Me and a friend, Ale, went to sit in the bucky and keep an eye on the hyenas which were closing in around us. At one point one was only about 10m away from us. Pretty incredible. We finished at about 1am, and everyone was pretty shattered. As we were driving through Timbowate game reserve we spotted a male lion lying in the middle of the road. It wasn't bothered about us at all, so one of the rangers threw some of the elephant out to try to get it to move. Eventually it did. Not something you see very often though. It's the sort of thing you expect in a safari park, not in the wild! We got back at about 3.30am, then had to unload the meat and clean the buckies. Then we went to shower (I have never scrubbed so hard in my life!) and had dinner at 4.30am!! Crazy. Then went to bed, ready to be up at 6.30 again for morning rounds! Safe to say everyone was the walking dead in the morning!