12K IN THESE CONDITIONS :
Having been forewarned about the elephant shortage, I and others where quite happy to have a potter in the jungle. My bamboo stick (with my name now carved in) was jungle hardened and could face any challenges.
The guides had warned us that conditions where tough and that as the rain was ON constantly, conditions underfoot for anything other than a mammoth would be testing. Thanks to Pok and the mahouts, to make walking easier our rucksacks where loaded on to the elephants, this made a massive difference to manoeuvrability.
Pok joined us for the first stint, and being ever mindful was constantly uttering "mind your step" as we slipped and slid up the "path". Elephants as you might imagine tend to leave quite big footprints, these in soft wet mud tended to be a tad deep, careful foot placement either side of the potholes was required.
Quite often this was in vane as my all terrain boots clearly were not 2-foot-deep-jungle-mud proof. However they did prove effective in scooping up mud thus giving me a footprint the size of an elephant but with zero grip. The girls equally took the 2 steps forward 1 step back method. Most of the time the 1 step back was uncontrolled and partnered with a wail, however progress was made.
Miss Stephens perfected some dance / gym moves with very balletic pirouettes spins and turns, she would claim these intentional but the facial expressions told me otherwise.
Regardless of the toil, it was fun, with laughter and singing punctuating the slopping and falling.
The guides in all this where invaluable helping out at every opportunity with support and hand holds, despite all our best efforts to collect them as we slid towards a boggy hole.
Pok was clearly a liability throwing himself valiantly around in the mud, at one point he did a cartoon like defying gravity move, where he was falling horizontal head first toward a foot hole. Somehow he got his legs under him and saved himself, I have no idea how he did it and I suspect he does to
Elephants are actually quite slow plodding up hill, so having set off before the riders we were quite a way ahead before the tiny patter of elephant feet could be heard. Trust me, when you are struggling to climb a muddy bank in the jungle the site of your wife on a 30ft elephant a foot behind you tends to give you a bit of a spurt.
We let them pass and judging by some of the groans and grimaces I was quite glad to be on terra-boggy.
We then slogged on to the top of the hill, where a change over awaited.
Video collection which I think illustrates the conditions for the walkers and the riders.
[Soundtrack is for the benefit of Hilly, Steph, Hayley and others - who sang the first line of this song for hours]
That video is fab - I can't believe that we did it! I made the mistake of wearing trousers so, not only did I have to contend with the additional weight of the mud on my boots but after about 2 minutes I had fallen into an elephant footprint pool up to my knee and now my trousers were also weighing me down..... very comfortable walking condidtions!
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