1st-6th June '13: Sussens Farm, Soutpansberg
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| Overlooking the farm below during a walk |
I had the most wonderful week of leave at the Sussens Farm, with George and his lovely grandmother Mrs Penny Sussens. Situated high in the Soutpansberg mountains in a valley surrounded by picturesque ridges, it is an incredibly tranquil place, stunning in its beauty, and the perfect retreat for a relaxing holiday. We spent the week walking together and exploring by day, and sitting by the fire in the beautiful thatched living room by night. The whole farm, now a little bed and breakfast, was designed by George's grandmother and built by his grandfather, and with its little rondavels, thatched roofs, landscaped gardens and swimming pool is a real gem. One morning we walked along the stream to a waterfall and jaw dropping view. We sat on the cliff edge, ate some scrummy sarnies, took in the view and watched some Verraux's eagles soar above us. On other walks, we scrambled thorugh the now very overgrown undergrown and climbed some of the surrounding mountains, certainly rewarded for the effort with some incredible views over the surrounding countryside. It couldn't have been a more perfect break, and along with Tannie Penny's incredible cooking and hospitality, it's become a most special place.
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| Georg surveying his empire! |
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| Sitting by the stream in the forest |
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| George with his trusty panga |
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| View from the waterfall...beautiful |
First day back in camp after leave, and sitting on the deck having brunch, a big bull elephant came bumbling into camp. He stood for a while feeding on the big Nyala tree next to the dining/ study deck, then rambled through camp, very helpfully doing some gardening for us and trimming some of the tree's and bushes! I followed him around for a while - it was amazing to see such a huge elephant in camp, and was an awesome learning opportunity to watch his behaviour and listen to the sounds he made. Alone, I decided to push my personal boundaries with him, to see how close I could get before I felt uncomfortable. It was an important exercise I felt I needed to undertake, because especially if you are guiding guests, you need to know when you are too close, which until this point I wasn't sure when that would be. I took up position behind a tree in front of him, thinking that he'd walk towards me after feeding, then turn and walk down the path, as he had done previously as he weaved among all the other tents. This time though, instead of turning, he walked straight for me and started feeding on the tree I was standing behind! At touching distance now with just a meagre tree for cover that he could step around in a millisecond, I decided I was far too close, and rather nervously retreated. It was an amazing experience though, and certainly a big lesson learnt.
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| Me deciding exactly how to back off now... |
11th June: Dave the elephant returns to camp
Dave the elephant is a famous character in Makuleke, and I've heard many stories about him during my six months here. He is a huge old bull, very relaxed and easy to recognise with one paralysed floppy ear and only one tusk, and who has been a regular visitor in camp for atleast the last 6 years that Bruce and Dee have been based here. Hearing stories of him rubbing up against tents, distracting students during lectures by eating on the tree overhanging the study deck and having to be chased out of camp on numerous occasions for causing mischief have made me very keen to meet him. Well today for the first time this year, we saw him, driving back from a walk in the fever tree forest. We watched him feeding noisily on some Lala Palms, then he walked right past the vehicle without even batting an eyelid. Later in the afternoon when we were all about to sit down for lunch, Dave turned up in camp, much to the new students and my delight. He spent an hour or so wondering around his old stomping ground, munching here and there and posing for photo's before moving on. I expect he'll be back often now in this winter season, so I shall keep you up to date with his shinanigans!
12th June: A rhino poaching incident
On activity this afternoon with students, we walked into a horrific sight - two poached white rhino's, a mother and her calf, who had been brutally murdered for their horns. We are all well aware of the plight of rhino's, the huge demand for their horns globally and the associated poaching that brings with it, but seeing the carcasses first hand was a real shock and bought home to us all how real the problem actually is. Much of the demand for rhino horn is manufactured. The boom first arose from a craze for rhino horn dagger handles in Yemen, then from China's high end market for ivory and rhino horn carvings and its use in medicine. In traditional chinese medicine, powered rhino horn is (wrongly) believed to be effective against fevers, rheumatism, gout and much else, as well as being believed to be an aphrodisiac by many other Asian cultures. The final blow for the rhino has been soaring demand from Vietnam in recent years, stemming from a rumour that rhino horn had cured an (unidentified) former government minister from (unspecified) cancer. Although the demand for rhino horn and poaching fell sharply after China banned its use in 1993, with Asian populations and wealth growing spectacularly, unfortunately so is the demand for rhino horn, and rhino populations around the world are feeling the pressure. The economics of extinction are ruthless. The fewer specimens of a creature there are, the greater the value of its products, and the more lucrative trading them becomes. Despite a huge amount of money being pumped into anti poaching, with the animals worth more dead than alive, there is still a very real threat to rhino's becoming extinct, and much sooner than we all expect.
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| Poached rhino female |
13 - 19th June, and 23rd-26th June: The Outpost
At last an opportunity to guide real paying guests - The Outpost lodge needed a freelance guide for a period to cover one of their permanent guides who was on leave. I jumped at the chance and just an hour after arriving at the lodge, I met my first guests - 4 South Africans from Johannesburg and 3 Germans. It was a huge opportunity to put all those months of training into practise, and having made such a big move to work in the guiding industry, until this moment, the question still remained, will i even like guiding? The answer, after two or so weeks of guiding a range of different guests is a very resounding and unequivocal yes, I absolutely love it! As you can imagine, I was very nervous going into my first ever drive. and to make matters even more nerve racking, the 4 South Africans from Johannesburg were extremely experienced as far as safari's are concerned, having been on 5 big safari trips every year for the last 30 years! Pressure much?!
Riddled with nerves right until the moment I stepped into the car, I had visions of the whole thing being a disaster. But as soon as we pulled away from the lodge, I relaxed, and began doing what I'd been trained to do for months - guide. We didn't see much on that first drive, a few zebra, impala and kudu, so i focused on other things like birds, vegetation and history of the reserve - almost all of which was new to my guests. It was hugely rewarding being able to pass on new information to people who had been on so many safari's, and I learnt quickly that these smaller things had never been touched on with them. I suppose when your sitting watching a lion kill, no one really wants to know how you can tell a lion and leopard track apart, but when you don't have the animals to see, it brings a bit of excitement into the drive knowing that those animals are still around. We had a lovely sunset overlooking a huge flood plain with buffalo's grazing, guests enjoying their gin and tonics I made for them. After the sun went down, I packed all the snacks and drinks away and drove off. It was my first ever attempt to have to drive, guide and spotlight on my own, all at the same time, and of courseI made my life as difficult as possible by chosing the worst road in the whole concession to drive on! However, I made it through, spotted some nice things on the way back (a genet, lesser bushbaby, courser and african civit). When we pulled back into camp, Norman, one of my guests asked "what is that?" hanging from my front bonnet and dragging on the floor...whoops, that "thing" was my white table cloth, now not so white at all and more rather a off brown colour....whoops. A few other lessons i learnt in that first week of guiding...
1. If your going to pack a bag with sundowners to walk to a gorge, make sure you pack EVERYONE's requested drink!
2. Don't stop right on the edge of a rocky washed away bit of the road that has been transformed into a drainage line to explain the flood damage and look at the new river bed, all the while letting the land-drover slide (at an alarming angle) down into the side of the huge hole. Thank goodness for low range!
3. If your guest says they have a bad knee, don't let them try and scramble up into the back of the landrover "just to see", where-by they become stuck and have to stay there for the entire drive, including sundowners, a bit like being stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean, and you then feel obliged to stand next to the land-drover to keep them company.
4. Don't leave your binoculars on the front bonnet only to drive off, drop them and have to embarrassingly go back to find them!
Epic experience, loved every minute and I can't wait to have a permanent guiding position in a lodge!
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| My first guests! Me, Mike, Blanche, Shirley & Norman enjoying a drink at the Limpopo River |
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