Life as a trails guide back up

26th Feb 2013: Start of 6 month lodge placement: Welcome back to Makuleke

Today Marianne and I left Aunty Merry's lovely home in Johannesburg and headed back up to Makuleke to start our lodge placement, where we will be working as Bruce's back-up trail guides for the next 6 months. 

After a long 7 hour drive, we arrived to a very welcoming Bruce, Dee and one of my favourite previous trainers, Rhodes. We had a little time to settle in, then it was lunch and straight out on our first walk. We walked from camp into the Fever Tree forest, which I was shocked to see fairly dry, amazing given how soon after the floods it was, and we managed to walk all the way up to Palm Vlei, a new area for me. We had some fantastic Eland sightings and it was great to see how much game has come back into the area since the floods - a marked difference in the two weeks we've been away. A fantastic welcome back to the bush :)

Eland in the Fever Tree forest

What will happen in the next 6 months is that different EcoTraining courses and groups will come through the camp, some lasting over a month in length, others just a week or even a few days. The courses range from Trails Guide & ARH, EcoQuest (week long introductory course providing an overview to becoming a guide), birding courses, a biomimicry course (modelling modern world technology/ products/ process on those designed by nature e.g. the Eurostar bullet train shape is modelled on a kingfisher beak for aerodynamics), wilderness trails (5 night, 6 days walking and sleeping out under the side) and a few others. On all of these courses, the activities and learning will be out on in the bush walking, and that is where we come in as back-up's. So the great thing is that we get to go on all these other courses and learn so much more, its very exciting. The group that has just started now is a Trails Guide course which couldn't be more perfect given that both Marianne and I still need to do our ARH, so Bruce has said that we will participate in all practise shooting and assessment sessions, allowing us to get that done. Another positive is that unlike our course group of 13, this group is very small, only 6 of them in total, so there is lots of opportunity to shoot and walk. 

The Jordanians

On our arrival, we also met 4 Jordanian students who had stayed behind a few extra days after their course graduated to get some final assessments done. They've been on the year course, sent here by an organisation in Jordan to teach them about the South African safari and nature industry and how to be guides. On their return in a few days time, they will take up their positions in pioneering a huge nature conservation and tourism project in Jordan, using and developing the areas of natural beauty and reserves to build lodges, lay walking trails, train new guides and set about attracting tourists to the area. It's a massive undertaking and a hugely noble task, and we all hope they succeed. I highly recommend everyone visit and see what Jordan has to offer - from what I hear from the group, the nature there is extraordinary. If you'd like to get in touch with them about it, contact Abdullah on wildjordan@hotmail.com. 

L to R: Abdullah Abu'Ramman, Osama Alsomadi, Osama Alrabay'ah and Nadia Alalul

27th Feb 2013: The dreaded rubbish run

They didn't waste time on sending me out on my first rubbish run! Luckily I had Dan with me to show me the ropes. The usual run is to load the trailer with all the rubbish (6 massive full wheely bins, plus excess rubbish and cardboard), empty gas bottles (19kg and 48kg) and a selection of approx. 6-15 diesel and petrol 20L fuel tanks. You drive about 45 mins to get out the concession gate, then another hour or so to get to the dump - it's miles away! You have to offload the rubbish, switch gas bottles to get full ones, re-fill the petrol tanks, check the mail in "town" (a one stop shop), and buy anything you're asked to at the little shop. It takes about 5 hours in total, and the hardest thing without a doubt is all the lifting - I hope I'm going to get stronger in the next 6 months, because I really struggled this time round! Still, it wasn't a terrible job, it was quite nice being out on your own and the biggest bonus of all - getting phone signal!

Rubbish run done, it was back to camp for brunch and lunch, then in the afternoon I got to go for a walk - its not all bad here. We drove up to Manqueba Road and walked around Jachacha Pan - another new area for me. The birding was great and we had another fantastic sighting of a large herd of Eland - brilliant. We had drinks back at the vehicle on top of the hill watching the sunset, which is always magical in Africa. On the drive home in the dark, I saw my first ever Civet, sitting right in the middle of Pafuri Road - I thought it was a Honey Badger to begin with - absolutely beautiful animal. We also saw two Spotted Eagle Owls also sitting in the road, so cool. For the rest of the drive my head was tilted backwards looking at the stars and the milky way. Another fantastic day in Africa!

You can never tire of the sunsets in Africa

28th Feb 2013: Extreme gardening

You'll like this entry Mom - it's about gardening! And I'm not talking a small patch of gardening, or even in-camp gardening...I'm talking mass scale weeding! Since the floods, we've had an alien plant species that has been introduced to the area and gone crazy - it's everywhere. It's called Datura, and although it has very pretty white-purple trumpet flower, it's awful stuff and within a few days will cover an entire area and crowd out all the indigenous plants. So today, Marianne and I got set the task to pull all of the Datura out between camp and Middle Road, along the access road and beyond. Luckily, the soil is still fairly soft so the leafy green plant comes out, root and all, with just a tug. Nevertheless, it's back breaking work, and after 5 hours pulling them in the baking African sun, we were absolutely exhausted, not to mention covered head to toe in soil, dirt and scratches! It is mildly rewarding when you look at the area you've just cleared and it's gone from a sea of Datura green to lovely red African soil, but then you look up and beyond a little more and see it for as far as the eye can see it is a bit demoralising. Humph, I have a feeling this is not going to be a one day, or even one week job! Little and often we've been advised though, so anticipate me now grumbling about this horrible stuff for months to come!

The afternoon brightened up some what when I had time to go for a little run, which you'll all know pleased me no-end, then after lunch we got to do some dry rifle practise to re-enforce our drills before going to the range. The dry practise went well and I felt much more comfortable with the rifle by the end of it - I'll whisper that I may even a tiny little bit be looking forward to going to the range again - thats a GIANT step forward for me!

13th March 2013: 

Time has flown, as it tends to out here, and so much has happened.  By far the most exciting development is that I have passed my ARH shooting assessment, whooooo! Sure, it took a few attempts, however better late than never, and better safe than botched, so I'm over the moon. Bruce told Marianne and I that he will be taking us to the range a lot still to do some more "fun and practical" shooting - some running around and shooting, backpacks on, crawling around on the ground etc, sounds like a jol. The best thing of all now is that we can start logging our back-up hours, all contributing to our Lead Trails Guide assessment, for which you need a minimum of 100 backup hours and 50 encounters.  So the count begins!

Walk camp to Crooks Corner: 12 hours, 20km

Walking to Crooks Corner

One of the highlight walks of the last few weeks was an epic hike we did from camp to Crooks Corner. We were very lucky with the weather, it was overcast all day, and we left from camp at the crack of dawn, crossing into the fever tree forest and followed the Limpopo down all the way to the Zimbabwe & Mozambique border. 

Gourmet lunch in the Jackelberry forest

The walk itself was stunning, taking in open pans and huge water holes to fever tree, jackal berry and riverine forests, acacia and mopane shrubvelds and huge open grasslands. We had a brilliant lunch break and half an hour nap in the Jackelberry Forest (we all bought a roll mat) which was much needed after 6 hours walking. It was most disheartened to see how much Datura there was about though, it was just everywhere, sea's of the stuff taking over everything, just horrible. It's hard to know even how to begin clearing it, I struggle to see how man power alone can tackle the problem...I suppose it is one for the conservationists to tackle. Meanwhile though, we had far more exciting things to distract us; we kept a bird list that totalled over 130 species by the end, including a Bat Hawk, Cuckoo Hawk, Lemon breasted canary, Dwarf Bittern, Grey headed parrots, a Bohmes Spinetail and we were even treated to a very quick glimpse of a Pels fishing owl. We saw a few buffalo and a very tiny hippo calf feeding on the river bank with it's mother...so sweet.  After some 20km and 12 hours of walking, we finally reached Crooks Corner and sat exhausted watching the crocs and African Fish Eagles from the Limpopo River bank - couldn't have been a more perfect end to a really fantastic walk. 

Spot the tiny hippo calf next to it's mother - adorable

The Deck: GPS coordinates South 27°21'27.8 East 31°10'17.8

Needless to say walking as back-up is just one part of our job here, and one of the other big tasks we got set as a group of back-up's (Myself, Marianne, Willem, Dan Fenton, Dan Fincham and Lorenzo) was to build a wooden deck. As part of Bruce reaching 10,000 walking hours (a massive achievement, only a few people ever have reached this figure), it was decided that, after a few years of planning and dreaming by Bruce and Dee, that now was the time to build an extension of their tent balcony. The aim was to get it completed by the 12th March to have a nice venue for the the big 10,000 party. 

Salvaging wood from the Wilderness camp...lots of fun with 
Willem, Lorezo and Marianne

Wilderness Parfuri camp (being declared a write off since being destroyed by the recent flood) provided a perfect source of wood and slats. And so the epic two week project commenced, starting with digging and laying foundations, followed by some hilarious trips to Wilderness to find and steal entire wooden decks that had been washed away by the floods. We spent some painful and very hot hours scraping out the filler in the deck before finding the screw heads to remove screws to take the whole thing apart, only to then have to re-build it to size! Planks and support poles ready, it was time for the deck to start looking like deck. Hardly professionals, occasionally the pole alignment was a bit off due to some people being a bit suspect with their measuring (cough Willem) and a few planks cut far too short (cough Dan), but overall as it took shape, it started looking amazing. 

Willem sawing some of the slats

As it took more and more structure, ideas and demands "from the top" grew as each day passed; a wine corner please, maybe a braai area, ledge bar tops running around the whole deck for drinks, a dancing pole in the centre (Willem!), an area at the end for a table, space for storage, etc, and it soon became a running joke. Construction manager Willem however took command, managed his clients expectations well and directing us accordingly. Union breaks were plentiful, and worker motivation was high. When Dan started breaking all the power tools and the generator and nearly cut his 

finger off with the grinder, he got banned from power tool use and Bruce promoted him to site manager instead. He got provided with a clipboard and pencil and was put on probation until his power tool skills returned.

Decking around... Dan Fenton (sitting and banned from tools), Willem (working) and Dan Fincham (posing)

Construction team hard at work!

I will say now, that Granddad you taught me well in the woodwork and design department because my tool use and knowledge was excellent by comparison- I even had the boys complaining that I was using "complicated technical terms" for the tools... also know as the correct names! My sawing and power tool ability most definitely came in use, as did my ability to re-measure things correctly that other people failed to do right (haha Dan). The project came to an end just in time for the big opening, and Bruce and Dee were invited for an inspection. It was all going well until they found a plastic chair under the deck that looked like it was supporting the whole thing and they nearly had a heart attack. After some very worried looks between themselves, they called a urgent meeting with the site manager and building team, during which reassurance was given, the chair removed (it was just under there by chance and did not play a supporting role), the deck continued to stand and they breathed a sigh of relief. 

Decking done, it was time for the slats to be cut to size and screwed in. Dan Fenton (still not using power tools)

Starting to look awesome! Dan and Marianne working hard

The big inspection with Bruce and Dee

Huge thumbs up were given, workmanship and effort praised and rewarded with beer, wine and chocolate, and all of a sudden it was time for the big strength test. For Bruce's 10,000 party, some 20 people ascended onto the deck for a braai, drinks and lots of dancing. There was knee sliding, jumping around, some hilarious soekie (traditional afrikaans dance), and lots of drinking out of Bruce's Veld skoene (leather bush shoes - a tradition). A certain someone even tested the stair case by falling (more than once) both up and down it (Byrand). Overall, the Deck did amazingly well and was deemed a great success...there was only one massive crack during the evening, which we found out the next morning was a support beam snapping in two...whoops...sub-par quality wood from wilderness, not our fault....

The experience overall was brilliant and I thoroughly enjoyed both the construction of the deck and the party afterwards. I have decided that if guiding doesn't work out i'll become a carpenter and build lodges instead!

Willem fixing the crack in the support beam the morning after the party