Day 3 @ Kirkman's by Chris

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Things are a bit out of order, but this is Chris' contribution about our third day at Kirkman's Camp.



Matt and I woke up at about 5:50, 10 minutes before our wake up call from Sean. We heard the knock on Mum and Dad’s room just before us, so we yelled out “Good morning Sean” I don’t think he bothered to knock on our door, he just replied Ï thought I told you two to sleep until I came” We all got up and started to get ready, brushed our teeth, got changed then got our socks then shoes on. I picked up my ipod up off the bed and creaked open the door slowly as we were told to do because sometimes elephants are outside your door and what do you know….there was no elephant but about a metre or two away, a kudu was there. At that moment I didn’t know what it was I just shut the door immediately and peered out the window. It took me a while to figure out what it was and when I did I went straight to Matt and told him what was there. He immediately grabbed his ipod and started filming. When he opened the door, he startled the kudu and it went to the edge of the bush. By the time we were ready and out at the open jeep David and Monica were already there with Sean and Elvis We all had a quick glass of juice and a banana and then we headed off. Once we passed the tennis courts and went to the entrance stone there was something missing. The stone was still there but its sign saying where things were was gone We asked Sean what happened and he said the elephants did it on purpose and the sign was in the shop back at the camp. Monica said she would like to see Rhinos and giraffes and when we drove past the rock we spotted one behind us walking along the road. We drove back and there was a whole journey of giraffes behind a bush. There were about nine giraffes and after a couple of minutes we drove on. In the next minute we spotted a hyena walking around some impala scouting or I should say trying to pick out which one to have for dinner. We kept on going and out of the blue we heard a snorting sound and looked over to the plains and there was a giant white rhino staring at us. We asked Monica how she felt and she said she was ecstatic. Throughout the rest of the morning until our bush brekky we saw buffalo, elephants, hippos, a dwarf mongoose and a lot of impala.



Then we stopped for some surprise brekky in the bush. While Elvis. Sean and some other guides/trackers made it, we hung around and started chatting to other people from all around the world. Then Matt and I had breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and croissant.



After that we were on our way home when Dad spotted something on the side of the road. It turned out to be wild dogs. Dean was extremely cocky when he was on the walkie talkie telling everyone what we had found. We had about three minutes until everybody was queuing up to see the wild dogs and we had to leave to return to camp.



Sean dropped me and Dad off and left with Mum and Matt to do a one and a half walk through the bush. Dad was going to have a one hour massage while I was sitting down next to the pool playing stick cricket. By the time Dad came out I had come first in an entire’s season of cricket. Once Dad came out he watched me swimming in the pool with a nine year old English Kid called Sam. Dad and Sam’s parents were talking while we looked for Sam’s goggles. His Mum came into the pool after a while to help us look and five seconds later she found them and said Ï was wondering if you boys would ever find them”. When Matt and Mum got home we had lunch and organised a game of cricket in the tennis courts. It was going to be an Australia vs South Africa game When everyone showed up we commenced the game. Here were the highlights of the match: me bowling Sean around the legs, Matt bowling bodyline at Dad hitting him everywhere until Dad hit him for a six with a pull shot, Sam’s Dad hitting me in head and the thigh until Sean bowled me with an offy and Dad bowling Sean pitching it outside leg and hitting the top of off stump.



The night time safari was great. We saw the usual animals but when it was dark we saw a leopard up in a tree. We watched it get down and followed it while it was hunting but left before it killed anything. At dinner time Elvis joined us and told us tracking stories which were great. Finally we had a traditional Boma dinner and we then got up and we danced with the locals to finish off the night.

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