Things that go bump in the night

When we settled into our makeshift camp along the river from Saba’s place everything seemed rather luxurious as far as wildlife filming trips go. We even had camp beds which makes a change from sleeping on the floor and would keep us out of range of most creepy crawlies. However, I soon found a scorpion in my tent which made me feel more at home and I decided to put up my mozzie net as usual which would at least stop me swallowing too much of the local arachnid population in my sleep.

I remember Saba suggesting that I should bagsy the tent in the shade of the big acacia tree because being the wildlife cameraman I would be out earlier and later than the rest of the team and would need some shade to rest in the heat of the day. Little did I know that this particular residence came with a curse that would come back to haunt me.

Working on This Wild Life, we were lucky enough to see the park through the eyes of the amazing Samburu guys who work with Saba and Save the Elephants. Samburu National Reserve is quite a small reserve and with the legendary driving skills and knowledge of wildlife guide Wilson Wemali, it didn’t take long for us to understand the rhythm of the place. We slowly started being able to second guess: where the lions would be each morning, which were the leopards' favourite trees and when the elephants would head to the river for a drink.

A typical day's filming would consist of getting up at 4:45am, shifting all the filming kit into the filming cars, grabbing a couple of boiled eggs for packed lunch before heading off into the park in time to catch the sunrise. After spending the day with the wildlife of Samburu, we would return after sunset, grab some dinner, download the day’s footage and then hit the sack.

The chorus of cicadas is almost deafening at night, but it was the tracks around our tents even after the first night sleeping in the bush that made me realize we were in for some interesting encounters. After a rather noisy first night we woke to find the tracks of a genet, hyenas, elephants and even a passing leopard!

After a few weeks of following wildlife around the park you begin to start dreaming of elephants only to wake up to a splashing sound in the river and find a moonlit bull ele stood just a metre or so from your bedside. Even with just a thin piece of canvas & mozzie net separating us, this never felt scary, quite the opposite, it was magical... Well at least until one finally decided to use my tent as a back scratcher at which point I did begin to wonder how much further our inquisitive neighbours might start to investigate!

Snoozing soundly one night to the soundtrack of the wild I was suddenly awoken by an almighty crash and felt the whole bed shake. Fearing the worst I instinctively adopted the brace position and scrabbled around in the dark searching for my head torch. As I switched on the light I half expected to see an elephant’s head staring me square in the face. My heart was racing as I looked up and saw the buckled frame of my tent and I lay there bracing myself for a second charge… But it never came. Just silence…

I slowly got up to investigate further but figured it would be foolish to go outside in the dark if there was a temperamental elephant in camp. I sat there for a while trying to compute exactly what had just happened. If it wasn’t an elephant that had bent the sturdy steel roof support of the safari style tent, what could it possibly be?

Soon my alarm went off and I heard the reassuring sound of Wilson starting the car and I knew it was time to go filming. I rather gingerly unzipped my tent looking for signs of danger. As I stepped outside I seemed to have an unusually good view of the moon, and I soon realized why. Most of the canopy of the tree above my tent was now precariously perched on my roof and it was flora not fauna in the form of half a tree that had very nearly led to my demise!

After joking about my rather sleepless night, we set off for another days filming with Wilson laughing about the strange shriek he’d heard from my direction in the night. I was feeling rather lucky to be alive and after another day with the elephants, we returned to camp in high spirits to find a welcoming committee and all the guys from Saba’s place performing some kind of ceremony around my tent in full Samburu attire.

I certainly would have been crushed in any normal tent not supported by thick steel poles and while I had been busy praising the tent manufacturer it turns out that according to the Samburu elders the reason the tree had fallen on me was because evil spirits had entered my tent. Now both the tent and myself needed to be cleansed.

The guys had already very kindly removed the tree and we all joined in and asked the Samburu gods to rid the tent of all demons. A goat was sacrificed and everyone ate well that night. The ceremony clearly did the business as thankfully we all escaped the rest of the trip unscathed and I had some of the most memorable filming experiences of my life. Ironically, with all the amazing wildlife action in the park, Wilson & I rarely got back to camp during the day and I never did get to enjoy the shade of the other half of the big acacia tree.