Sunrise was glorious this morning, with a pink glow covering the whole sky. We had the luxury of a slight lie in this morning as we don't have to be at the airstrip until around half an hour before our 08:10 flight back to Wilson.
The lovely Chris who we've known since he was a skinny young lad as I'm fond of reminding him; now 8 years on and he's a father of two.
How lovely, Esua so enjoyed our company yesterday he’s decided to come along again today and wish us farewell.
Still not much birdlife on the lake.
Standing on the airfield now waiting for the flight and a herd of elephants are just wandering along.
Whilst we've thoroughly enjoyed our 3 days here, I don't think we'll be planning a trip back any time soon. Our visit has definitely been marred by Dickson's tragedy but also the fact that Graeme and Candy have moved on and the rest of the staff still seem in a state of shock as Graeme and Candy were more than just camp managers; to many of the staff who'd known them for so long they were family
The flight back was uneventful except we had to stop at Tsavo Finch Hatton to collect more passengers, however when we got back to Wilson things were a little different to what we've been used to. Previously we were met off the plane, our luggage tagged and taken away, and then we were escorted to a little holding area where someone went off with the passports and came back with boarding passes. That meant all we had to do was sit and relax until we were escorted to the new plane.
This time everyone was herded out of the airfield complex, minus their hold luggage, and told to go back in through the main entrance where all electrics had to come out of hand luggage whilst it was scanned and documentation represented. It was chaos; Safarilink knew what they were doing but they didn't communicate it to us very clearly. We were then given boarding passes for our next flight at 11:00 to Mara North. When the flight was called we got up, the boarding pass stubs were taken from us and we were walked out to the plane, except our luggage wasn't there. It transpired there were two flights going - one with yellow boarding pass and one with purple. The writing on our boarding pass was in gold so I presumed we were yellow but we weren't. Back to the terminal to wait and a sweet guy named Daniel told us not to worry he had our bags and would come and get us at the right time.
The planes have always been 12 seaters but this time it was a 36 seater and we were told to sit anywhere (luckily we were nearly first on so we were at the front). Maybe all the planes are like this but I'd never seen a safety card before (yes, I always read them) that said the seat cushion acted as a life raft. I'm not quite what use it'll be though as we're not flying over water!
About 1/2 hour later we touched down at an airfield whose name we didn't recognise but were told to get off. 36 people then stood around the aircraft hold trying to get their bags which we then had to drag across the gravel to our next plane, which turned out to be the one we'd almost boarded back in Wilson. I understand we were on a "feeder" plane but it would have been nice to know what was happening.
Never mind, we eventually got on to our next plane, 12 seater, and to make life a little easier for Ian's knee we sat ourselves at the back. We were about 2/3rds of the way into out short hop to Mara North when all of a sudden the plane was thrown violently up in the air and several people screamed, whilst others like me just laughed thinking it was turbulence. Ian was sitting by the window and said he saw a large bird fly past and we assumed the pilots had taken direct action to avoid a bird strike which of course could have brought the plane down. We landed safely a short while later and the pilot confirmed it was a bird, several people were still very shaken and actually quite tearful.
George our new guide was waiting to meet us and our truck buddy for the next 3 nights - a mid 70s American lady who'd been living in Mexico for 40 years and this was her first safari. Kicheche Camps policy is max 4 people per truck and we are just 3 and also the truck seems extremely well geared for photography.
We’d commented on several occasions at Amboseli that we weren't seeing large herds of any plains animals but here it was very different, with big numbers of Cape Buffalo and Zebra although these shots don't convey that.
There are several cheetahs in the conservancy and before not very long we came across this lone female.
She looked quite hungry and keen on hunting and kept getting up to check on the nearness of any possible prey.
Time now to head to camp, settle in and have lunch. I think I'm going to enjoy George.