Long day of tarmac driving and we arrived after dark at Mt Zebra National Park. The guy on the gate, an African man, headed to me as the Westerner to seek directions on our group. I told him who our leader was and directed him away. This happened several times during the trip
I talked to my fellow adventurers about this – about the inherent assumptions that the sole westerner on the group was the leader. It didn’t bother them that this happened to me, they know I wasn’t chasing attention, but in broader terms they say they just deal with it. It’s racism they live with every day. We talked long into the evening about these things, possibly aided by someone producing some nice Black Label, and something else that should have been used an injector cleaner.
A few crests were covered, but generally we were heading down. At one stage just after leaving the ski lodge, we dropped some 500m in only a few kilometres. It would have been awful climbing up, but of course, it’s difficult going down too. Someone has made two concrete tracks to aid traction and avoid losing valuable tourists into the precipice.
Tents were set up again, this time in a proper campground with toilets and a campers kitchen. We set up the lights – four LEDs each on tripods that are excellent to light a large area. With two of those going, setting up in the dark is easy. Lee and I got the tent and our stretcher beds up in no time, leaving me to my other duty of lighting the fire. This gained admiration from the Malaysians who generally have to resort to pouring petrol onto some poorly assembled sticks and mostly something happens.
The gate guy had given us a sheet listing a whole lot of animals that we might see – tomorrow was going to be exciting.