Hi everyone!
Sorry for no update in such a long time, it was a battle to get phone
signal in Karongwe let alone internet! But alas here are my updates :)
Sorry in advance Mom for the many spelling mistakes you will no doubt
find - but as usual its such a rush to get this written up. Also, having
spent the last 4 hours trying to make this work, have given up with the
slow internet and hence why no pics. Will try upload them seperately,
watch this space!
Hope you all enjoy and am looking forward to catching up with you all soon.
Lots of love xxxx
9th November: Karongwe
I didn't think that any of our camps could get better than Selati, and
turns out I was most definitely wrong! Karongwe is a massive upgrade
from Selati, and is an absolutely beautiful camp. It is spread out along
a river bank, with some tents further up the hill, tapering down to the
riverbed and the excellent volleyball court below (and yes, this one is
marked out!).
Let me start with my wonderful new tent - its luxurious! I am sharing
with Marianne, and we have a single bed each (an actual bed!) and mozzie
net (princess beds!), and a little shelf unit between us for all our
things. We have a small terrace outside overlooking the bush and river
bed, and some lovely big trees full of birds all around us. The
bathrooms are just across the way (no more scary walks to the loo's in
the night), and we're next to the other girls tent which is nice and
sociable.
The rest of the camp is just fantastic - the walkways between the tents
wind through the trees, up and around bushes and rocks - it makes you
feel like everything is hidden and fits perfectly into the surroundings.
You come down to the fire place which is a clearing under a huge big
tree, a much bigger area than Selati, with a concrete circular area for
fires. It's the kind of place you could do tribal dancing around the
fire haha. We made good use of the space with a little party on our
first night :)
Further along is another clearing with 4 double deck thatched wooden
structures. The first is the classroom/ dining room on the upper floor,
with tables in the middle of the room and a whiteboard at the end for
lessons, then underneath is a ping pong table (can you believe it?!) and
the drinks fridge. The structure adjacent is the kitchen on the ground
floor, then above is an open deck with mattresses - we are actively
encouraged to sleep out and "listen to the bush". It is completely open
and they say you can often hear and see hyena walking through camp at
night - exciting! The other two buildings consist of an office and
toilet/shower block and the fourth is another sleeping deck.
It is definitely more wild here than Selati - the bush is far denser,
greener and more tropical, there are more insects and butterflies flying
around everywhere, and quite a few snakes and scorpions - I nearly
stepped on a snake (a Western striped belied sand snake) on the way to
my tent! There's far more "signs of life" everywhere too - many more
tracks, and definitely far more birds. In Elsa's tent next to ours,
there is a little bird nest in one of the flaps, with a teeny-weeny
little Scrub robin chick - every time we go to look at it, he's got his
beak wide open waiting for food from his mom - so cute! And in the men's
loo's near the classroom, two Lesser striped swallows have become most
taken by the mirror in there and you can watch them from the doorway
looking at themselves in the mirror and talking to each other, so funny!
Naturally being more wild, we are more remote and have almost no signal/
connection with "the outside". Tough time not be able to talk to family
and friends, but as I sit here on the deck overlooking the bush and
watch the butterflies and just listen, I feel so lucky to be here and
still can't quite believe that this is my life now. Am keeping busy and
focusing hard on work and revision - we have 3 exams, one practical exam
and one presentation in the 4 weeks that we are here - as well as 2
outings a day, and rifle practise as well, it is non stop.
11th November: Pride Rock
The "wild feel" certainly extends outside camp here in Karongwe - the
roads are rough and basic, the walking trails overgrown and there are
many more species of trees, insects and animals that we have not seen
before. We saw Hippo's for the first time yesterday on our walk - we
heard them call from their lake and tracked them down, and found a nice
high (and safe!) rock to sit and watch them from, they're such enormous
animals! Being bird boffins now, we were also all very excited to see
new bird species here, especially the water birds, which weren't present
in Selati, being a far drier reserve. Afterwards, we walked to "Pride
Rock" - aka the Lion King rock, where you can see part of the reserve
from - it was beautiful and a lovely place to watch the birds from. On
the way home, we saw a lot of Leopard tracks, namely a mother and her
cub - I really hope we get to see them, that would be so special.
Last night was very eventful - having heard hippo calls though the
evening, I was woken up by the sound of munching, with a huge hippo
eating grass outside my tent! He was there for ages and it was funny
hearing the fatty munching away and cracking branches. Good thing I
didn't need a wee!
14th November: Really wild show
The last few days have been really hectic, with everyone studying non
stop for our second theory exam and also trying to get to grips with the
new roads in Karongwe. The drives and walks have been fairly laid back
though with more of an exploratory feel, which has been nice. Of course
when your not looking for anything in particular, is often when you see
the most, so it as been an eventful few days! I also had my first night
sleeping out on the deck which was pretty cool. We put up a white sheet
and used the classroom projector to watch a movie about Lion and Hyena,
and later when we all were falling asleep we heard the hyena in the
riverbed below that had been attracted to the calls on the movie!
Falling asleep looking at the incredible stars, and listening to hyena
calling was a definite highlight.
One of the main differences between Karongwe and Selati is that Karongwe
has commercial lodges within the reserve, so the radio is full of
different guides calling mobile. Far more interesting and useful for us
though, is that they also call in key animal sightings.
Yesterday was a study day off but a few of us went out on a drive in the
afternoon, and decided to follow up on a cheetah sighting reported in
the north of the reserve. Graham, one of the trainers here, took to the
wheel and set off at a rapid pace, and we soon pulled up to the area of
the sighting. He decided that we should go in on foot, so we all hopped
out of the Landrover and set out into the bush, buzzing with
excitement. About 100m in from the road, we caught sight of distinct
black spots in the distance, and creeping closer saw two stunning male
cheetah's asleep under some bushes. They both lifted their heads and
noted our presence but flopped back down to snooze as if we weren't
there. We got about 5m away from them which was absolutely incredible
and were able to take in every detail.
We left them in peace and walked silently back to the vehicle, at which
point we all burst into excited chatter at having had such an awesome
sighting. We topped the afternoon off with drinks on top of Beacon Rock,
the highest point in Karongwe, and sat taking in the view and watching
the sunset, alongside two cute Dassie's who sat on the rock next to us.
Perfect end to a perfect afternoon in the bush :)
This morning (14th) we sat our second theory exam, which covered
Geology, Arthropods, Mammals, Taxonomy, Ethology and Amphibians. It was
far more difficult than our first test, but we all passed which was
great. In high spirits, we set off on an afternoon drive, meandering
around the bumpy roads looking out for interesting birds and mammals. We
saw lots of heavily pregnant Impala, some Kudu, three big Waterbuck,
Giraffe and two Leopard Tortoises (rapidly becoming one of my favourite
things to see). We were also very lucky to see the Red Crested Korhaan
do its mating display on the side of the road - he sits on the ground
calling, which gets more and more urgent and loud, then he flies up
vertically high into the air, before turning and suicide diving back
down the the ground, saving himself by swooping horizontally just meters
above the ground. Such a cool thing to see! While we were driving, we
also heard a sighting called in about a large breeding heard of
elephants which weren't too far from our position. We went to check it
out and what a treat - 15 elephants including two huge bulls, females
and babies too! Unlike in Selati, these elies were very relaxed as they
trundled through the bush. We had our first practise at having to work
with other lodges/ guides, with a rule of only two vehicles at a
sighting, so had to organise on the radio positions and who was next in
queue etc. We got really close to one of the bulls and watch him feed
and bumble through the bush, it was magic.
On the way home, I was driving and just before our turn off to camp, two
Black backed Jackals ran across the road in front of us! It finished
off what was by far our best game viewing drive to date.
15th November: Time to be creative
This morning we drove up to Minata big dam - nothing particular to
report, but it was a nice drive and we saw some some new birds including
the Sabota Lark and also some bush pigs, which are huge! We stopped at
the dam for coffee and watched some Southern Masked and Lesser Masked
Weavers tending to their chics in their very neat little nests, very
nice to see. We also learnt about the Black Stick Lilley which was a
valuable plant used as a fire torch back in the day, and also the Devils
thorn, which when you mix the leaves with water turns into an excellent
soap! Mum you would love the flowers here, they are all coming into
bloom now and some of them are really stunning.
Following a not so interesting lecture on fish this afternoon, we went
on an afternoon walk and saw our first croc! We sat on the side of the
lake and watched him and also a hippo that was chilling out there too,
listening to all the water birds and putting bets on which Egyptian
goose would fly off first. There were drinks waged on it, and after 10
mins of intense waiting and watching, they all flew off together at once
and we all burst out laughing. Drinks all round tonight then!
This evening I sat by the fire and started making my first wooden pipe. A
few of the boys have been making them and I thought it would be fun to
try. Under the scrutinizing eyes of all of them, I sawed my bit of
Bushwillow off and started gouging out the inside with my leatherman
(thanks Doug!). Progress was good, but I called it a night when I got my
first blister - take 2 tomorrow! After its gauged out, you have to make
a hole in the side for the pipe bit to go, for which I have some reed
in my tent, then you can decorate it - its going to be a good one!
16th November: The hilariously disastrous sleepout
At last we reached the day of the much anticipated sleepout! This will
be the first one of the course so far, where we get to go into the bush
away from our main camp and sleep out under the stars for the night. Its
an opportunity to feel really part of the bush, to be out in the open
and also a time to focus on star gazing. It was blistering hot day all
day today, so packing up the trailer with the camp chairs, braai-ing
equipment, food, drink and personal bags was a hot and sticky process!
Eventually it was all done, and while one group walked to the chosen
site by Bull Frog Dam, my group drove with the trailer and other
landrover to set up camp.
We found a really nice spot just up form the dam (careful not to be in a
game path), and set up the table for food and chairs around the fire
area and collected firewood. We laid out a big canvas sheet for everyone
to sleep on, DV (one of the volunteers) smartly bought a hammock and
St. John even bought a little tent! We were all very jealous about that,
especially when he started blowing up his mattress too!
Fire lit, we all sprawled out on the rocks, which were hot from the
roasting sun all day, and relaxed. I made some more progress with my
wooden pipe and Graham taught some of us how to make woven bracelets
with Guinea Grass - so now you all know what you'll be getting for
christmas! Meanwhile, we were all glancing up at the ever darkening
evening sky, which since just before we left the main camp had begun to
get darker and darker with some angry looking clouds. In the distance
over the mountains there was some lightening, but directly above us, it
looked like we'd might by-passed. Dale, the head instructor said that
his blackberry weather forecaster said there'd be no rain, so we decided
it would be fine, and started braai-ing the burgers. It was hard to
tell now if the darkening sky was nighttime or rainclouds, though the
thunder rumblings were ominous and there were a few light
raindrops…hmmm….
Just as we sat down to eat dinner, the heavens seemed to open and within
minutes it was absolutely bucketing with rain. The whole camp burst
into mayhem with people running all over the place to pack away all
their things, everyone panicking about cameras and electronics and
rushing to pack everything back into the trailer. The rain just got
harder and harder, with huge flashes of lighting and the loudest cracks
of thunder you've ever heard! The harder it started raining, the funnier
the whole situation got and we were all soaking wet within minutes. We
flung ourselves and belongings into the landrover and set off at rapid
pace towards home, hurtling over the now very muddy roads, bumping all
over the place. It was raining so hard it felt like hail, you would
burst out laughing if you had seen us all huddled together, three
abreast, not even able to open our eyes it was raining so hard and all
shaking with laughter at the ridiculousness of our situation. To make
matters worse there was a sudden shout from the back and St. John passed
on the rather unfortunate news that we'd lost the trailer! Of course
this set us all off laughing even harder as we slipped and slided back
up to the trailer, on which the bolt had broken off completely, and
there was no ways we could re-connect it. So we loaded as many bags as
we could into the landrover and just left what we couldn't take - it was
ruthless! The whole time the thunder and lightening just kept coming
harder and harder, so we raced back home, eventually making it back and
coming face to face with all the eager faces of the rest of the group
wanting to retrieve their bags from the trailer. We passed on the bad
news about losing trailer which was met with disbelieve and then worry
about all the missing belongings. Nothing we could do, they'd have to be
retrieved in the morning, but we felt terrible. For those of us who did
have our things, we all trailed off back to our tents to assess the
water damage. Unbelievably, despite the dripping mess in my arms,
everything inside my hole-ridden black sac was relatively dry and I was
able to crawl into my sleeping back in my nice dry tent. Such a relief,
though I'm still laughing at the complete failure of our first sleepout!
17th November: Zero to Hero
Today we took advantage of the radio call-in's and followed up on a lion
sighting. In Selati we saw a few female lionesses, but no males. The
radio report was of male lion tracks on the Elie circuit road area, so
we zag zagged through the roads seeing if we could find them. We turned
into one road and in front saw a vehicle pulled in on the side. Bingo,
that must be the lions! When we got closer, we saw two males lying in
the shade snoozing. One was the famous male, Zero, the oldest and
dominant male in the reserve, characterised by his dark Kalahari
colouring and huge size. He was a stunning cat, and the other with him
was his blonde maned son. It was so cool to see the males at last,
they're such impressive animals!
23rd November: Exams, a visitor and some very cute hyena cubs
Another busy few days, we had the day off on the 19th which was nice and
some people took advantage of the time and rented a car to go into town
- after my many trips for my eye appointments, I had no such interest,
and used the time to catch up with some work and relax. We spent the
afternoon playing volleyball all together in the riverbed which was
great fun, and it got pretty competitive!
Since then, I've presented my second presentation, which I did on the
Leopard Tortoise, which went very well, and today we had our second
observation test which also went well - my trees, grasses and insects
knowledge is good, but tracks not so much, so need to work on them.
Tomorrow we have a bird sight and sound test, then a theory test on
everything to date the following day, followed by our practical exams a
few days after that, so very busy indeed at the moment.
Studying has been broken up with some nice drives and walks though, and a
particular highlight was finding a hyena den where we saw the matriarch
and her three cubs. Two of them walked right up to the vehicle to
inspect us, and I got some great shots - absolutely brilliant. All the
impala lambs have started to drop too now, and the bush is buzzing with
tiny little lambs, they're adorable, such a special time in the bush.
Another highlight was Chris coming to visit for a night, who I think
wanted to check I was still alive! It was so nice to see a friendly face
and good to catch up and reminisce on the otter trail, as well as
discuss guiding. I learnt a thing or too from him on the drives, so that
was great. Very much looking forward to canoeing the Orange river with
him and Katherine and some of their friends in the Christmas holidays :)
28th November: Hip bone's connected to the thigh-bone…
Wow what a crazy week. The module test was super difficult and Johann
our new instructor freaked us all out by saying he hadn't marked any
papers that had passed, so we spent a few days all being very worried
about that. Turned out to be misguided however, as I passed with 89%
which was a huge relief after all the hard work. The next major written
exam is the FGASA level one test in a few weeks- what we're all here to
do, so need to start focusing on that now. In the meantime, today I had
my practical assessment - an hour and a half long guided drive with 6
guests. I was super nervous before I did it and spent days worrying
about my knowledge. The trick is to link everything as much as possible,
and having missed some topics all together on the mock assessment, I
spent a long time thinking about these links and how to incorporate
reptiles, mammals, arthropods etc to a rock or a tree, or a single thing
that you see. For example, you can talk about an Impala, describe what
it is doing, that it looks darker than usual because it is cold and has
pilo-erection which makes its hair stand on end - similar to humans
having goose bumps. You can say that at the moment the females are
dropping their lamps, its a very special time in the bush. Its a good
time for the female leopard in the area to wean her cub as it will be
easier for the youngster to learn to catch impala lambs than adults.
When an impala is killed, the white on its stomach shines up like a
beacon to the Cape Vultures that nest on the Drakensburg escarpment
(which is made up of intrusive igneous rock) not far away, and they can
come and feed on it. They help with the decomposition process, a very
important role in nature. So do dung beetles etc etc and that is how it
works.
So my assessment went really well overall despite the rain that started
falling half way through which was a bit of a shame, but I remembered a
lot more than I thought I would, and I had a good time guiding, which is
always important I think. I've just had my feedback which was
excellent, I scored 86%, and Graham said I would breeze the FGASA
practical if I did the same, so that was great to hear. He also said
that I'm going to make a great guide, which was a huge compliment and so
heartwarming, as I really love being here and you can't be told
anything better then being told your good at something you love. So very
happy bunny right now :)
Next week we start our tracking course with Adriaan Louw, one of the
best trackers in the whole of Southern Africa, so we're very lucky to
have him as our instructor. Its going to be a fantastic course, I can't
wait for it to begin. So as always, I'll keep you up to date with all my
exciting news, sightings and stories, and in the meantime, keep safe
and happy all of you, I'm missing you all and wish you could be here
experiencing this all with me.
Love always xxx
3rd December: Moholoholo and some awesome sightings
Another whirlwind week, with lots to fill you in on! We had the day off
on the 1st of December and took the opportunity to visit the Moholoholo
Rehabilitation centre, not far from Hoedspruit. It was a fantastic day
out, the centre was really interesting - they help rehabilitate wild
animals who have suffered from injures, such as lions/ leopards that
have been caught in snares, birds with broken wings, and they raise
young whose parents have been shot by poachers, etc. Some highlights
were being able to stroke a leopard, feed the vultures chunks of meat
with them landing on your arm, watch baby rhino suckle and cause havoc,
and see the growling honey badger and hear stories of his clever
escapes, for example when a female was added to the enclosure, he took
her by the scruff of the neck up against the wall and then used her to
scramble out by climbing on her back! We also got to scratch the very
friendly warthog that was rehabilitated from injury and released but
whom keeps trying to break back into the centre and hangs out at the
gate. It was very educational, and was awesome being able to see the
animals up close, especially the birds of prey, of which usually we can
only get a glimpse of way up high in the sky. They also had the biggest
lions I have ever seen in my whole life!
Since the day off, its been a very relaxed day or so waiting for the
tracking course to start. We took a drive right up to the northern tip
of the reserve to see the buffalo breeding project which was very
interesting. Disease free buffalo have become huge commodities in SA,
the highest price at auction recently hitting something crazy like 35
million rand for just one buffalo! They've got 40 or so on this reserve,
and the breeding project has been fairly successful, evident in the few
young that we saw. The plan is to be able to release them into the rest
of the reserve and integrate them with the other animals, but in
practise, I can't imagine the owners being very happy when one of their
lions takes down a multi-million rand buffalo!
This morning, we had an incredible game drive also up north, bumping not
only 4 white rhino's but also a huge breeding heard of elephant. We got
extremely close (a little too close for comfort at times!) as they
walked right past our vehicle, one cheeky juvenile even having a very
close sniff of us all inside. We watched one of the tiny babies try and
charge the vehicle of another group that were also at the sighting, it
was hilarious! By far the best sighting we've had of elies, such a
highlight.
4th December: Hide and Seek
Our tracking course has gone off with a bang, and the amount we have
learnt so far is incredible. Once you know how to look for things, it is
amazing how much you see and how you can develop a story of what has
gone on using just a few tracks. Walking out on the path in the morning
is like reading the newspaper of the bush, you just need to know the
language. We started off learning how to read these signs, and this
afternoon we moved onto how to follow a trail. The first few lessons on
reading tracks and signs covered all the basics, like how to position
yourself in the right place, get the sun right, the direction right,
then examine it closely for further information. We studied all sorts of
signs from antelope to hyena to dove tracks, as well as scent markings
and ariel signs. We did a cool exercise learning how to size animals
based on the length of their stride, and how to tell the difference in
tracks if the animal is walking, running, or carrying weight. Basics
covered, its time to move onto the tough stuff!
This afternoon we switched to learning how to following a track. We took
it in turns in two groups, one group setting the trail then the other
trying to follow it. The first few were basic, no curve balls, until it
was my go, and as i was walking, I had more and more people keep joining
my group out of nowhere while I was trying to find the trail! Its
amazing how you become so focused on the trail you forget to look around
you - something we will have to learn over this week - but it was
awesome trying to follow tracks over different terrains from muddy river
beds, sand, to thick grass. On one of the other trails, we buried
Richard in the sand and covered him up as a mini ambush to the trailing
team, it was hilarious. On another, someone hid up a tree - its all
about teaching you situational awareness whilst tracking, but it was
such good fun, one team running off and hiding from the other and
setting ambushes, we had lots of laughs. On the way home with night
falling, when we were just round the corner from camp, we came upon a
termite mound which was erupting with "flying ants" aka future queen and
king termites. Just after the rains, termite mounds can be seen to open
up and you see millions of these termites flying up into the sky.
Adriaan, our tracking instructor, made us pull off the wings off and eat
one, ewwwwww!
9th December: Track and Sign Level 1
The rest of the week on the tracking course was absolutely fantastic -
the sheer amount of knowledge Colin and Adriaan have of the bush is just
incredible and that became more and more apparent as time went on. I
was so impressed not only with their ability to identify tracks but to
see the minute things invisible to everyone else. One example was
Adriaan finding potter wasp "tracks" - i. e tiny dots in mud that has
tiny lines in - the bite marks of a wasp picking up mud for its nest. We
had to look at it through our binoculars to see - seriously impressed!
The week culminated in a whole day exam - we left camp 5.30am and
finished at 6.30pm, coming back only for meals. It was a really intense
day having to identify different tracks, name the species and sometimes
say whether it was left or right foot, which direction it was going,
what it was doing. I really struggled with it and felt very frustrated,
especially as I'd felt that I was doing quite well in the week. Some of
the tracks we had to identify were tree squirrel, frog, snail,
caterpillar fraz (dung), potter wasp, lion tail, which foot of the
saddle bill stalk…so you can imagine how tough it was. One of the
hardest things was actually seeing the track, and also seeing the right
thing. Three times we had hippo, which you would have thought was very
easy to identify, but its amazing how it can look like so many different
things if you don't see it right! Overall though, the group did really
well. Marianne got top of the class qualifying with an incredible Track
& Signs Level 3 certificate - i.e she got more than 90% of the
questions right, and I, among with most of the others got Level 1 - over
70% - a huge achievement especially after feeling it went so badly, so
very very chuffed about that!
We spent our last night in Karongwe celebrating our achievements around
the fire with some beer pong drinking games and good laughs. It marked
the end of a fantastic 4 weeks at Karongwe (minus the last 4 days when
the water pump broke and we had no water!). Today, we got transferred
back to Selati camp, where we have a week of Navigation and Orientation
training with Rhodes and Albie (including 8 hours of walking a day!),
followed by our FGASA assessments before breaking up for christmas -
lots of studying to do!!
