A Morning Routine in the Wild

0234 Canoeist 1 leaves tent and urinates 3 metres from the tent like a stray dog.

0334 Canoeist 1 leaves tent and urinates 2 metres from the tent like the same dog.

0434 Canoeist 1 leaves tent and urinates 1 metre from the tent with the same stray-like abandon.

Calm then reigns in the canoeing kingdom.

0626 Canoeist 2 sits up and stretches with all the agility of a beached whale.

0626 Canoeist 1 shows signs of alertness commonly associated with meerkats. Dead meerkats.

0629 Canoeist 2 crawls out of the tent and stands up like a baby giraffe taking his first steps.

0630 Canoeist 2 pulls up his running shorts and pulls on a skin tight Nike pro vest. Bulging like a cheetah digesting a recently eaten large meal, Canoeist 2 takes some loo roll in his running shorts.

0631 Canoeist 2 breaks into a trot. Canoeist 2 feels like a strutting stallion. Canoeist 2 looks like a workhorse on the way to the glue factory.

0634 Having warmed up, Canoeist 2 crouches in the bush like a tensed frog.

0636 Canoeist 2 leaves his bush-hiding place. He no longer has his stomach bulge or his toilet tissue.

0637 Canoeist 2 does some pre-run stretches. A German couple out walking watch this strange routine with the wide eyed shock of lemurs.

0640 Canoeist 2 runs around with the hopeless enthusiasm of a Tanzanian devil with his tail on fire.

0704 Canoeist 2 returns to the tent like a guilty wolf cub who doesn't have quite as much stamina as he thought he did.

0705 Canoeist 1 arises from the tent. His sleeping bag is rolled and his clothes are on. Nonetheless, Canoeist 1 moves with the fragility of a one-day-old badger.

0706 The two Canoeists growl greetings in the direction of one another.

0707 Canoeist 1 goes for a shit. To be brutally honest, he looks like a 22 year old graduate who needs a poo and a job.

0707 Canoeist 2 purposefully walks to the river bank. Canoeist 2 is proud to have attempted to swim in every river he has canoed upon.

Canoeist 2 enters the water, slipping on the rocks with the poise of a pregnant elephant. Canoeist 2 washes with the urgency of a drowning rat.

0712 Canoeist 2 returns to the camp. He yaps around Canoeist 1 like an excited puppy. Canoeist 2 prepares 2 mugs of cereal and sits waiting for Canoeist 1 like a slightly less excited and slightly more hungry puppy.

0714 The two Canoeists eat breakfast. There is about as much conversation as between a pair of possums playing dead.

By 0829 the canoe is loaded and the journey can continue. Some human-like attempts at conversation are now audible. While the two Canoeists have come to resemble wild animals, they were never that civilised in the first place.