This another excerpt from my 'Pilgrim's Musings', it's about my first night on my first wilderness trail in South Africa.

On tuning in and the significance of water

As I mentioned before I decided I was going to go on Camino when I was in South Africa on a wilderness trail.

On the trail we camped under the stars around a camp fire, always on the banks of the river away from game tracks and the risk of animals walking through the camp. During the night we each took turns to keep watch, which entailed maintaining the fire and checking the camp perimeter every so often for dangerous intruders.

This is my journal entry for my first watch on wilderness trail:

*"My first watch on my first night in the bush. Our guide Ian gave us a quick talk on what we have to do and how to behave. F and G have been on trail before and know all about doing the watches, L and I are newbies. We have to keep an eye on the fire the stop it going out, and every 5-10 minutes we have to do a sweep around the camp with the torch looking for shapes and eyes, the only part of the animals that we will be able to see in the dark. I am very nervous, but excited at the same time. Ian says we have to wake him or Mandhla if we see any of the ‘Big Five’. We also have to alert them if Hyena or Wild Dog, or anything else that might pose a threat comes near the camp. Oh my God, I’m going to be jumping at everything; they aren’t going to sleep much because I’ll be waking them up every 5 minutes.

I am doing 2nd watch, 10pm to midnight, 2 hours! I thought it would only be an hour, but because there are only 4 of us it’s 2. Ian and Mandhla don’t do the watches.

Lauryl is first, she is as nervous as I am. I get into my sleeping bag, to try and get a couple of hours sleep before my shift. But it’s pointless – I can’t sleep. I’m shitting myself and my mind is racing with everything I‘ve seen and experienced so far today: Total joy, awe, utter sadness, blinding realisation, peace, harmony and beauty.

Lauryl wakes me up; I must’ve fallen asleep despite everything going on in my head. Oh shit! Oh wow! It’s my turn. I get up, put my bins on and go over to the camp fire. L has made me a cup of tea. I ask her how her watch went. She laughs. She says she spent most of it trying to keep the fire going and jumping out her skin at every tiny sound; she didn’t see any ‘eyes’ or ‘shapes’. I thank her for the bush tea and she goes off to her sleeping bag, wishing me luck.

So, now it’s just me and the fire and the night and the shadows and the noises. Bit of a crowd then! I sit by the fire and sip my tea and peer out into the dark. It’s not pitch black, but a sort of inky, purplish blue. The moon is full and casts silvery light on everything, at the same time creating the darkest, scariest shadows I’ve ever seen.

I think about the fact that I’m responsible for the five people asleep in their sleeping bags next to me on the rock ledges that are our resting place. I think about the ‘shapes’ and ‘eye’s’ that I’m meant to be looking for and all the creatures out there going about their nocturnal business. I think about keeping the fire going. What if it goes out? What if a Rhino or a Lion invades our camp? What if I can’t get to Ian or Mandla in time? What if I can’t wake them up? I can’t do this. Someone else take over please! I want to hide in the bottom of my sleeping bag and wait for morning.

No. I can do this. I must do this. I want to do this. I calm down, take a breath and do a sweep of the camp with the torch. The beam penetrates the darkness, creating more strange shadows. Our camp is on a rock ledge above the river. Behind us there are more ledges and a cliff covered with thorn bushes, trees and scrub. There’s a troop of Baboons roosting there. Below and in front of us is the river. First, immediately below camp is a pool of ‘grey, green, greasy’ water, then reed beds, and beyond that the main river channel. The water level is low. The opposite bank is a sandy beach, backed by the bush; grass, scattered trees and dense bushes. The river curves away to the right and left, making the beach opposite appear almost like an island.

I see no eyes or shapes. I sit down again and let my senses take in the night. The shifting shadows, trees and bushes moving in the cool night breeze, the moonlight on the river below me, a silver ribbon stretching away to my right and left and into the darkness beyond. The stars in the night sky are so clear and bright, I’ve never seen anything like it before, they almost look like they’re falling towards me; they appear to be so very close. The Milky Way is splashed across the sky immediately over my head. There is no Northern Star visible here or Plough. The only thing I can identify is the Southern Cross. I make a mental note to ask Ian about the stars visible in the Southern hemisphere. The warm glow of the fire as it dances around the slow burning Tambuti wood casts gentle, shifting shadows around the camp.

The sounds of the fire, popping and crackling, the wind moving through the reed beds, the trees, bushes and grass. Invisible creatures moving, twigs and branches cracking. I hear a snap and rustle right next to me. I jump and turn around to see a teeny, weeny mouse peeping at me from across the fire. Bird calls. Baboons barking, squeaking, and other alien, unidentifiable sounds of the other animals out in the night. The only call I really recognise is that of the Hyenas. I’m sure over the next few days I’ll get to know the different calls.

The musky, aromatic scent of the Tambuti wood smoke, the muddy, mushroomy smell of the reed bed and the river bank. The fresh scent of the clear, clean night air.

My senses are bombarded! My eyes and ears are out on stalks!

The longer I sit there I calmer I get. I start to tune in. It’s wonderful. I am calm, restful, I feel the warmth of the fire on my face and legs and cool night air behind me, and the warm bush tea as it slips, warm, sweet and nutty down my throat. I am also alert. Not in a jumpy way, I’m tuning in, becoming aware and being able to distinguish one shape, shadow or noise from another.

This is now about an hour and a half in. I am really enjoying it now. Then I hear the most enormous splash. My heart jumps into my mouth. What the hell was that? I quickly turn on the torch, fumbling in my haste. I can’t see anything. Where is it? What is it? Then I see a pair of eyes, glowing silver green back at me. Oh, holy shit! Big breath. I try and see what it is, where it is, which way it’s going. Whatever it is was it was moving, wading through the water, away from us towards the opposite bank. I hear it climb out of the water and start to move away. I am shinning the torch right at it, but I can still see only its eyes. It moves again then pauses; now I can make out its shape. It’s an antelope of sorts. Quite large and definitely an antelope… not dangerous. But then I think about what might be stalking it! My heart is pounding, adrenalin pumping; I have flocks of butterflies in my stomach. WOW!

It’s midnight. Time to wake F up. I boil the kettle and make her a mug of tea. I don’t want to go back to my sleeping bag now. But I must, I am knackered and we aren’t supposed to share watches. It’s distracting and makes you less vigilant.

My first watch is over. I can’t wait for tomorrow night!

It turned out that the great splash I heard was a Water Buck crossing the river. When the day light came we saw it on the opposite bank, lying on the sand enjoying the warmth of the early morning sun. As we were admiring it a pack of Wild Dog came down to the river as well and we witnessed them chasing the Buck. It escaped by standing on a sand bank in the middle of river, where, according to our guide, a crocodile had taken an antelope few days before. The Wild Dogs wouldn’t go into the river at that point, and the Buck seemed to know this, so there was a stand-off which lasted sometime after which the wise Buck crossed to the opposite bank and went on his way. We saw a Water Buck every day after that."

• On our last day, just before returning to the vehicle we sat down together to reflect on our time in the wilderness. Our guide said that we’d given the wilderness our blood, from cuts and scratches, sweat and tears and pointed out the significance of water and how it had featured during the trail. There was the river of course, which we camped next to and used its waters for washing, drinking and cooking, the Water Buck and how it had used the river to escape from the Wild Dogs, how we’d seen one every day of the trail and, last but not least, my tears. This observation really struck me and made me think about the symbolism of water: death, life, rebirth, ending and new beginnings, change, cleansing and pure happiness. All of these things were relevant to my circumstances at that very moment. I was reborn, liberated, things were changing and I was feeling truly happy for the first time in a very long time.