M.A.C in Africa: Tracking lions

Hi everyone, hope you are all well. Thanks so much to those who have messaged me about my blog, I really appreciate your kind words and interest :)

Its been another busy few days in the bush! You'll be glad to know that my eye has dramatically improved, so feeling much happier about that. I went back to Tzaneen on Monday to have another appointment with the specialist who said it was improving, and today it has finally stopped hurting! I still have to continue with the huge pile of medication l'm on though for a couple more day (2 different drops 5x a day, one drops 4x a day, and 1 pill 5x a day) - its quite exhausting!

One of the highlights from the last few days was undoubtedly tracking and finding lion. There are a few lions in Selati that are collared, and we have a telemetry to help find them. Easier said than done I have to say in a 30,000 hectare reserve! However, we picked up signal not to far from camp, and set about tracking it down. There was much excitement on the vehicle as the beeps began to get louder and faster as we headed towards the Goland dam area. We had a hilarious run in on the way with Sabrina, an Italian lion researcher working for Leo, who was also on the hunt for the female lioness. Having had no contact with girls except us 5 on the course, the boys were all falling over themselves to talk her and look cool, and Kobus even asked her to come to camp for a drink! We girls thought the whole thing was hilarious, especially when a bit later on she called on the radio to report her position and the boys all started arguing about who was going to radio back - even funnier was the winner only got to say "copy that". Hahaha.

After all the noise, laughing and squabbling it was a surprise that we saw the lioness at all, but St. John spotted her lying down at the bottom of a big rock under some trees, about 50m into the bush from the road. It was brilliant being able to track her down and get an actual sighting (very rare I can assure you), and I even managed to see her with my gamy eye! Wahoo :)

Another great highlight was climbing the Kopie on the north side of the river yesterday afternoon. It wasn't a tough climb, but the view from the top was absolutely stunning, and you could see the whole reserve - it sounds silly but I felt like I was on top of the world! Its been a bit rainy and cloudy the last few days, but that day the sun was out and it was beautiful. I took a wonder to the other side of the Kopie and sat for a while on a rock taking it all in. While I was sitting there a huge eagle flew in front of me - zero out of ten for being able to name it, but a very cool experience! I wish we could have stayed up there to watch sunset - it is definitely my favourite place so far.

The walk down was less enjoyable however when I discovered that South Africa also has stinging nettles - but of course not wimpy ones like in England…try multiplying the stinging power by 100! Ouch! So I moaned all the way home about my stinging legs, even a Savanna Dry (cider) didn't take the edge off! Worse still I didn't see what the plant looked like, so I am none the wiser for next time.

It was a great day none-the-less, especially as it was the first drive in a while that my eye felt a bit better and I could see, so that was just lovely.

View from the top of the Kopie. L to R: St. John, Angus, Henry, George, Kobus.

After a mammal focus the last week or so, this morning we had another observation test. It was the same format as last time - 70 questions on all sorts of things, and despite feeling a little more knowledgable going into it, I still struggled! My trees and birds were much improved however (much to St. Johns relief after helping me the last few weeks) but it still highlighted lots of gaps. I jut about scrapped a pass, lots of work still to do thats for sure!

Later this afternoon we have "casual drive" planned, so that will be fun - I think we are going to try track some lion again. I managed to get in an hour of running this morning after the test which was much welcomed - after all the food we get, I am turning a little podgy! Tomorrow we have a mock guiding assessment - 45 mins of intensive guiding - so need to do some reading up and studying in preparation for that, then starting on the 3rd we have a birding course for a week before moving camps for the first time, to Karongwe!

So all happening here, will let you know if we find any lions later!

All my love xxxxxx