Well, i said i'd include posts about anything awesome that happens/has happened to me, so i thought i'd start this trend with a post about the time i fought a lion with nothing but a stick....True story.
This is in fact a true story. About 1 and a half years ago i was in South Africa doing a volunteer course with Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre. This is a reservation for cheetahs and other big cats, located as part of the kapama game reserve in South Africa. My basic duties usually included preparing and feeding the various animals (and obviously trying not to get eaten by all manner of fangs and poisonous animals out there).
One of our more unique duties was that, there were 4 lion cubs in the reserve and we had to move them from one cage to another one nearer their parents. Now, these were not the little, kitten sized, Simba at the beginning of Lion King kind of lion cubs - these were big, snarling and pissed off lions cubs. We managed to catch the 1st 2 ok and shift them over, but then the 2nd 2 got wise and started hiding in a tree.
Now we (me, the other volunteers and the game keepers) had to stop this happening. They're plan was to give me and another volunteer a big stick and tell us to stand in front of the trees they wanted to get to. This is about the equivalent of poking a bear in the eye with a stick.
So we take up our positions and watch the keepers herding the lions towards us. Then they bolt, both heading straight for me. At first i was very nervous, but then when it happened i realised there was no way i was gonna live, so it wouldn't hurt to go out with a bang. So i raise the stick above my head (in a stance from Kendo called Jodan, look it up on google to find out what that is) and below at the top of my voice.
Then the most miraculous thing happened - the lion cubs ran away.... and ran up the other tree instead. Ultimately it was a failure for us humans, but it was still an amazing experience. Nothing since then has given me that kind of battle rush :)
