(Daniel) This morning I woke up to the amazing jungle sounds, and looked out of the tent to find that a group of tribal people were walking through the camp, they were being very quiet, and it was only coincidence that meant that I saw them there, they looked back at me and smiled, before walking off up the path. I got up then, and found that Thomas had already woken up and had been showering in the river. He woke Fie up, and he and I walked off to find a good spot to wash. We entered the river and then walked upstream past the spot where I had found the Tiger tracks a few days ago, and then up into a pool. While we were washing, Fie found a large fishtrap at the bottom of the pool, and when he removed it, there were around 8 small fish inside. He returned the trap to it’s position, and we finished up there before walking back to the camp.

Having seen the fish in the river, Fie wanted to do some fishing further upstream, and asked if I would find some worms for him. I agreed, and watched carefully as he showed me how to tell which clods of earth contained worms. It wasn’t hard, as there were so many in each, that I was soon digging around with the shovel, and sifting through the mud, and quickly had a bag of around 30 worms. I had put on my thick top to protect myself, as there were many bees flying around, attracted by the smell of my sweat as I dug. But this actually worsened my situation, as one bee flew inside my top and stung me on my back, I called out and Fie came and removed the stinger that was still pulsing even on the floor afterwards! He told me that I was lucky that this was the small variety, and the big one could easily kill with two or more stings.

I walked back with Fie to the camp, where Thomas had started to cook breakfast, he asked me if I could help and I agreed. He handed me a bowl with some fish inside, and I started to descale and gut them, halfway through I asked where the fish had come from, to which Fie started laughing and pointing at the river. These were the Asly’s fish, and he had bloody pinched them. I told him off severely, and tried to explain that these were their fish, he didn’t seem to mind. I finished gutting and cleaning them, then passed them to Thomas, who deep fried them, so that we could eat everything, bones and all. He also made another omelette, and some more vegetables, all of which we ate with relish. I wondered what the day would bring in the way of challenges.

After eating we packed up camp and burned any paper rubbish on the still smouldering fire. Then we drove on into the Jungle through the river crossing, and back to the area where I had got stuck in the deep ruts before. The track had been washed away even more, and as I drove one of the Wolfs back wheels started to slide a little. I slowed down, and as I came to a stop the back of the Wolf slid over and dropped down from the edge of the track. I could have tried to drive out. But faced the potential to loose another wheel, at which point I would not only struggle for traction, but could potentially slide off the edge, and would then roll down into the river below, a good 60 feet. I jumped out and took photos and video. We decided to try a snatch recovery, as this would stop the lead vehicle from having any major forces exerted on it, and should give us the extra pull to bring me back into line. Thomas radioed ahead to Fie, who reversed back to a good point, and then attached my kinetic recovery rope to his vehicle. For those who do not know about Snatch recovery, this is a tow pull from a lead vehicle, but using a kinetic rope, this has a certain level of elasticity, which allows the rope to store energy before exerting it on the rear vehicle. This avoids jerking the vehicle, and adds to the amount of pull which you can achieve.

We set everything up, and I gave the camera to Thomas to film the recovery. Everything worked perfectly, and as I was now out, we undid the shackles holding the rope, and tried to carry on. Again, my vehicle slid off the edge of the track, and this time we winched out, but very quickly. Around the corner we came to the deep ruts, and rather than attempt to drive through, we attached the kinetic rope and dragged the Wolf through the deep mud, which passed without problem. Around the corner from here we arrived at the huge tree, still looming over the path, impassable.

The jungle temperatures had risen now, and as we got out to survey the site, insects came form all around and started to land on us. Fie took out some flares and lit them, burning away some wasps nests from the tree at the same time. The tree was huge, it would be impossible to cut, and even if you could, It would simply stay there until you cut both sides, at which time it would probably drop into the path, and sit there, 5 tonnes of immovable wood! The ruts were deep already, but the hole could be made larger. We were three fit young men, all armed with picks and shovels, how long could it take to dig another two feet in this thing!? I made a video for Aleyna, to show that we had returned to the site, and in the Land Rover spirit refused to be beaten by this tree across the path.

We dug out the ruts as much as possible, then drove Fie’s car through to the other side. He used his huge jungle tyres to wheel spin the ground flat, and it looked as if we had made a real difference. I pulled the Wolf up to the tree, and looked at the faces of the two boys. They looked worried. I pulled back, and started to dig again. As we dug the bees from around the area came and stood on our backs, eating the sweat, This was extremely uncomfortable, as trying to dig in this stifling heat was bad enough, but add 50-100 bees on you body at the same time and then it really starts to get prickly. As we dug, Thomas noticed a fat leech in the middle of the area, and he squashed it with the shovel, blood went everywhere. We checked ourselves, and Fie found a trickle of blood coming down his leg. The leech had drunk it’s fill before releasing itself and trying to escape.

We took out the chainsaw now, and started to cut away the tree at the same time, piles of sawdust mounted up on the bonnet and windscreen of the Wolf, as the boys stood on the top to get a cut, I spent a long time up there myself cutting away. Every now and again a huge chunk of wood would fall away, and usually land on the bonnet, denting it in places. I tried to ignore this, thinking that all that mattered now was getting through this. Meanwhile the bees got worse, and worse, filling up the Wolf, so that when I got in to move closer, I had to kill at least two hundred just to sit in the car.

Thomas and I both found leeches sucking on our legs, which we pulled off and killed, then fie found another one stuck to his side, and we burned that one of with a lighter. The bees got so bad now that the only way to get some peace was to light a flare, and stand in the smoke form it, so that they wouldn’t come near, but even then, there were still some brave ones that made it through. I wore my leather gloves, which got soaking wet, and as we dug, the pile of earth next to the hole got higher and higher, so that the sticky mud wouldn’t come off the spade as you had to reach so high. We continued to dig on, and it started to rain, hard.

One good thing about the rain, was that the bees disappeared. Leaving us to the task at hand. The bad thing, was that we were all drenched in minutes, and the spirits which had taken me through 5 hours of digging started to wane. We dug in the ruts, under a foot of water, and each time we threw a clod of earth onto the pile, another fell back into the muddy water. I climbed in and pulled the Wolf into the Hole, forward, forward, but the look of abject horror on Thomas’ face said it all, there was no way which we would get under this time. I pulled back, and called him over. “Perhaps” I said “We should consider that this may not be possible now?” I looked at Thomas, he was soaked to the skin, he had been stung twice by bees, and once by leeches. He had dug and sawed for five hours just like Me and Fie, but still he just looked back at me, and said “30 minutes more.” I felt recharged by his strength, and jumped out of the Wolf into the inches of soft mud that tried to eat my boots, and dug for another twenty minutes. Before deciding to try again.

This time, I pulled up to the gap, and watched Thomas’ face carefully, he seemed to be forming that same look of terror, when all of a sudden, it was like the sun rose on his face, as a huge smile beamed out, and he waived me forward excitedly. Inch by inch I kept coming, until I knew that the wolf was through. I filmed another short video for Aleyna, and we packed up the tools and headed on to the Villages. It wasn’t long before we found some farmland, and then drove through this into a small village with tribal people coming out from everywhere to look at us. We didn’t stop for long, although I would have liked to stay the night. The road after this was fairly good, some big ruts, but we never got stuck. We drove on as darkness fell, and eventually found ourselves coming back onto tarmac, and the Cameron town of Tringcap.

Soaked through and exhausted, we stopped at a small restaurant, and ate a meal, then we headed back to Fie’s workshop, and I had a shower before climbing into the rooftent, and falling into a deep sleep.

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