As the cool grey jungle dawn gave way to the now familiar barrage of animal noise, we crawled slowly out of bed; unwilling to perform yet another final task in the jungle. Most others had packed last night while Ted and I had been hunting and so, as usual, we were the last to be ready with our kit (although on previous occasions this was because we had found something exciting!). After breakfast, we waved goodbye to the unfathomable depths of life at Waterfall camp and set off down river to everyone else at base camp. The river had somewhat receded and so it wasn’t hard walking, although it was entertaining watching the occasional fall – something I had done multiple times while distracted by other animals.

The plan for the rest of the morning at base camp was to present our cockroach project findings and to listen to everyone else’s. The presentations weren’t assessed and, although everyone took it seriously enough, we had been drawing on each other’s faces in charcoal in the minutes leading up and so may not have looked the part.

A lot of happy group photos ensued and no goodbyes to any people as we were all headed out of the forest. Setting off into the river (apart from the few of our number who had developed bad foot-rot or succumbed to a broken toe who got a lift back in a kayak) we began our walk out of the jungle. There was somewhat of a divide in the group at this point. Quite a few powered ahead, eager to begin the journey home to tell all of their families etc. while others dawdled right at the back, still looking at everything, hating the idea of leaving.

Crossing the final river we picked up our heavy bags which had been kindly ferried to the trucks via kayaks and began to pile on to said trucks. Of course, a few of us had to be shouted onto the vehicles as a large and beautiful Odontolabis species of stag beetle had been found: perfect for the opening shot of our video!

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