Winter is coming as is the end of my course!

June

Winter has definitely set in, with temperatures reaching about 4 degrees at night, making the early morning starts a little tricky! But it is nothing in comparison to winters in the UK knowing you were getting out of bed at 7am to look at a computer screen for 9 hours and negotiate with nasty ASDA buyers. Now i get out of bed at 5am knowing i am going to spend the day driving and walking in the bush looking for animals, what is tough about that!

After my 4 days off I had another group of americans for 3 days, once again lovely people. I feel very lucky that in my 6 weeks of guiding i have had nothing but lovely guests. unfortunately we didn't manage to find leopard or lion which was disappointing but sometimes it just doesn't go your way. Plenty of the small stuff though and the guests seemed to be happy. The tips have been fantastic and no complaints in that department, i actually have heaps more money now than i ever did working for J&J in london. With no rent, food, taxes or other expenses to pay, the cash in my pocket at the end of the month is by far and away a lot more than i ever expected.

I had a few more days off from guiding although not holiday i must stress. There is plenty of "other" work that has to be done when there is no guests to guide. Megan and I found ourselves pulling out hundreds of Detura plants, which is an invasive green plant species with quite a pretty flower that grows along the river bed and around the lodge and has to be painfully pulled out. In true gardeners style we worked our way along the river pulling at every plant we could. After a mornings gardening we thought it only right that we have the afternoon off. Lucikly Dan and Brian were also off so the 4 of us packed a cooler box, heaps of blankets and headed to Lanner Gorge, one of the most beautiful spots on the reserve. From here we watched the sunset and the full moonrise with a savanna (a famous brand of cider) and a great bunch of friends. Another tough day in Africa I hear you say!

we headed back down in the direction of the lodge with a little (newly named) canopy surfing along the way. The boys thought it would be a great idea to climb on the roof (a big piece of canvas attached the the metal frame of the land cruiser by a few pieces of string!) and canopy surf as we drove down the steepest bumpiest road in the whole of the 26000 hectare reserve. A little dangerous maybe but after 6 beers anything seems like a good idea!! A very fun night and megs and i were just glad we didn't bump into a breeding herd of elllies along the way!

I was almost at my 6 weeks and my leave was looming, until Enos the head guide tells me i need to go on leave tomorrow as he needs me back in 10 days when we are busier. Mad panic to book a flight out of camp to joburg, make plans to see friends and book a hotel. Flew out of camp on wednesday 6th June and flew to joburg. Awesome taking off from our airstrip in a 10 seater little propeller plane and flying over the reserve to johannesburg. It looks so different from the sky!

Arrived in joburg and had 3 days of shopping, getting my much needed hair cut, going to the cinema, eating whatever i felt like and generally vegging out! Met up with Hillary and Sam, both Eco training friends which was nice. Picked up a hire car and drove to the Sabi Sands in Kruger to Singita Ebony Lodge, where Ricardo is working.

 I haven't really mentioned Ricardo in my previous blogs for a number of reasons but I have been in a relationship with him for the past 5 months and had some of the best times of my life with him. Sadly it has all come to an unexpected abrupt end and by the time i got round to updating my blog with the past 3 months of news  it just didn't really seem right to mention him when it was all over. But hey ho i have done so there we go. He was also on the 1 year eco training course (but started 3 months before me) and is from Mexico. (yes i know what you are all thinking what the hell is an english girl moving to south africa to train to be a safari guide doing with a mexican guy) haha it all seems a little strange until you meet him and then everything just seems right. Sadly things are not meant to be so I just came to visit him to say our goodbyes and move on with our lives. The lucky devil has only gone and got what is considered the best guiding job in the industry working for Singita. The world renown best safari lodge in the world!! But if you meet him it is really not  a surprise at all, he deserves everything he has worked so hard for and I wish him all the success in the world.

Now I am heading to a new conservation project near Phalaborwa called Marakapula which is being run by Marnus Roodbol. Marnus used to run the volunteer project at Harnas in Namibia and is actually the reason I am sitting in South Africa today as he was the one that introduced me to Eco Training and the one year guiding course about 4 years ago! It will be good to get a completely different perspective on conservation and see how other projects run.

I am drawing near the end of my course now with only 3 weeks left of work and then 2 weeks with Eco Training. It is incredible how quickly this year has gone and now it is off out into the big bad world to find my own job! Who knows where I will end up. I don't think my future has ever been so uncertain! Exciting and terrifying! But first I get to head home to the UK for a couple of weeks to catch up with family and friends and i really can't wait to see everyone. Living in a largely male working environment makes you realise how much you need your friends even if they are in a different hemisphere!

The time off is just as important as the time on!

So panic over, the supposed big birding south african guests turned out to be italian and had no interest in birds! However they did come to see the big cats - Lion and Leopard. Of which our sightings are a little scarce so still a tricky few days ahead to keep them happy! They also didn't speak a word of english so that made it even more of a challenge!

It was actually a great group, very friendly people, 6 guests is definitely my favourite number of guests.  We had a very quiet couple of days, then on day 3 in the morning before the guests were leaving we had a fantastic sighting of a male lion who popped out right in front of me in the road less than 2 meters away and walked straight past the vehicle. Awesome! THen we heard the pride were further up the road so we drove on and off road to find them. 8 Stunning lions resting in the shade at the base of the mountain. Just an epic epic morning. It is true that lions sleep for 22 hours a day so if you catch them on the move or hunting then you are very lucky. But just watching the family chilling out was still special and the guests were very happy as well.

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After my Italian guests left I have had 4 days with no guests. Luckily Brian and Megan who run the trails camp have also been off so we have been off exploring and learning and discovering new places. On our first day we  went to find phone signal about 40 minutes from the lodge on the top of a koppie (small hill) so we could make phone calls and connect back with the world which was nice. On the second day we went Rhino tracking, just the 3 of us and 2 rifles walking for 5 hours tracking. So much fun and just awesome to be back walking in the bush,i have missed it a lot from being in a vehicle and driving all the time. I was walking as the back up rifle and so got my first hours and encounters since being a qualified back up so that was pretty cool. After 4 hours we were getting a little frustrated that we were tracking several rhino and never finding them, all the tracks eventually disappeared. Just as we were going to give up we heard a snort and knew we were close. Just about 80 meters away was a female rhino and her calf (about 18months) and a huge male rhino. We approached very carefully as we didn't want to scare them off. We managed to get within 30 meters and sit and watch them sleep under a tree. Every now and then the mother would catch our scent and stand up ready to run or charge!  At which point brian would get me the "freeze" signal (a closed fist). it was like something out of a musical chairs game where the music stops and you have to find a chair except when brian gave the freeze signal you literally don't move a muscle. I got caught out mid step half crouched under a bush meaning that for the 5 minutes we had to freeze for my body was giving up on me and the muscles in my legs were beginning to shake uncontrollably as i held them in such an unnatural position! Luckily once the rhinos were settled we could move about quietly and get in a great position to just watch them resting.

We moved out of the sighting after about 40 minutes. It was just so so incredible to be that close to an animal that you know could potentially be extinct in 5 years if the current poaching rate keeps going. (1.6 rhinos a day are being poached for their horns). And they really do look like something from the dinosaur era!

That afternoon we went after our next challenge, tracking Lion. Luckily Brian is one of the most experienced trails guides in the country so tracking lion on foot should naturally make you a little nervous but with Brian leading the way Megs and I felt safer than driving down the M4 in London between two lorries!! Unfortunately the Lions were not playing the game and we lost their tracks as the light was fading. In the evening there we had our first big social since i started. Brian, Megan, Ants (lodge host), Dan (another guide) and Anna (who is the new placement starting) all happened to have the night off from guests so we had dinner followed by a few drinks and a game of 30 seconds which is just like Articulate and equally competitive! 

The next day Brian took megan and I out for a birding and tree learning session. We spent about 3 hours and drove about 3 km just learning birds and trees. As he is an ex Eco training instructor he is the best person to learn from, so it was a super useful session. Also on this was the first day since arriving in south african when a south african told me I sounded like a south african and not from english!! think i have definitely lost some of my english accent and picked up a lot of SA phrases! 

In the afternoon Brian and I went out to a  place called Palm springs, which is a natural body of water in the middle of rolling hills and forests. We sat close to the water and sat still in silence for the best part of 3 hours waiting for the animals to come down for their evening drink. Unfortunately all that arrived was a Duiker (small antelope) and a Warthog. Until about 6pm when the sun had set  when Brian said " just watch what is about to happen it will blow your mind". Almost as soon as he said that not less than 100 sandgrouse appeared flying down from every tree branch just suddenly out of no where descended on the water for a drink. They all started calling which sounded much like a computer game, arriving in pairs. It was just amazing how they all appeared out of no where so many of them just arrived and within about 10 minutes they all left again! Nature is awesome!! And apparently it happens every night!

It was a great chance for reflection of recent times and of the last year in Africa as I approach the 1 year anniversary since leaving the UK for Africa and what an incredible year it has been. Never have I had a year where so much has happened, both life changing moments and huge achievements. huge amounts of happiness and of course always a little bit of sadness as friendships and relationships end and new ones begin. I am just so grateful for every day I spend here and long may it continue.

Leopards Luck

The last 5 days have been pretty awesome in terms of game viewing, I had a group of Indian guests which were very entertaining! They saw lions on their drive from the park gate to the lodge and then had elephants in camp outside their tents for the whole of their first night so the pressure was on to show them some good stuff. Luckily as ever Makuleke didn't disappoint. Their group was split between me and Dan (the other white guide, guy in his 20's also been through Eco Training and is my main buddy in the lodge). So we started having a bit of a competition between us who could find the best sightings! Dan found Leopard on his first drive and I got nothing more than impala and baboons! Day two worked out a little different with the morning drive producing a Giraffe sighting which might not sound too impressive but we haven't seen giraffe in this part of kruger for 2 years so it was an incredible sighting and fantastic news that we are getting giraffe back in the area. Dan - 1 Eve - 1. The icing on the cake came that evening when I drove along the Luvuvhu River and had an incredible sighting of a breeding herd of 50 elephant playing and swimming in the river, then proceeding to dust bath themselves in the evening sunlight, just magical. As we headed back I caught sight of white spots deep behind a bush, yes you guessed it female leopard! Bingo!!  We spent about an hour with her as she patrolled the area before leading us to an impala kill she had made earlier that day! No words could describe how happy I was, she was a beautiful cat and very calm with us around watching her feed on her kill. We left her in peace and headed back for dinner at the lodge. Of course upon arrival we had the usual showdown between dans guests and mine and who had seen the best sightings, needless to say I had won gold, silver and bronze in this competition! Thanks must go to the African bush for the providing the goods!!

My latest guests were a swedish family, who it turned out were really here to go hunting (Kudu, Waterbuck and Nyala) Not the big 5 but still against everything I believe in and I found it incredibly hard to keep my mouth shut when the father was eyeing up the horns on one particular magnificent Kudu and asked me how many inches I thought his horns were!!!!!

Despite the conflict of interest we did get out first Lion sighting since my Guiding career started 2 weeks ago! The Pafuri Pride as they are known, a pride of 8 Lions in stunning condition, 2 adult females and 6 sub adults sauntering through the bush almost underneath the walk way of the lodge. Truly awesome to see such a huge pride, we followed them for about 20 minutes before they headed into the bush. Definitely a top 3 moment since starting the job and the guests were happy which is important despite their otherwise intentions. 

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I have had 2 groups of OATs (an american travel agency organised group, which stands for overseas adventure travel, although we call them old american tourists which is exactly what they are!) average age is about 70  and my oldest guest was 78!! half way through their stay he informed me he had a heart attack 2 weeks ago!! just what you need when you get mock charged by elephants an old guy topping it!  

Sightings have been a little thin on the ground recently and very frustrating as we are hearing and seeing signs of lion and leopard every day but not actually seeing the animals themselves. Now i have 3 groups of guests staying for 3 nights each back to back for 10 days so its pretty hectic but good to be busy and generally the people are nice. Tomorrow I am getting my first south african guests who are rumoured to be big on birding so thats a recipe for disaster seeing as they will be sharing the vehicle with first time american guests as well! watch this space for the worst combination and its going to last for 3 days!

Learning the Hard Way

First week complete at Wilderness and worked out I only have 7 working weeks here so need to make the most of every moment! My second group of guests were great, still old americans who knew very little about the bush which made it easy for me! Found the same female leopard on our first drive in broad daylight which was awesome, such a beautiful cat. Also had a good elephant bull sighting so happy guests! 

Enos the head guide has been pretty difficult to work with and doesn't make life easy which he reminds me of in those exact words every day! But it seems if you play the game then you can get by without too much trouble. Although i have a test on all the trees in camp (bear in mind its a 2km walk from one end to the other) on their common names and botanical names!! looking forward to that one!

Had a pretty scary elephant encounter a couple of days ago, got stuck in the middle of a breeding herd and had a huge ellie bull in musth coming right at me and i had no where to go. We were in an area called ambush alley for that exact reason! so turned around and then got caught by a very protective female who would not let me pass! escaped in the end though and the guests seemed to enjoy it! Also saw the cutest baby elephant lying down and then didn't have the strength to get back up so just wiggled his trunk around in the air not knowing what to do with it! very cute! moments like that make me realise how lucky i am!

Now i have a night off before my next guests arrive for another 3 days. So plenty of time to catch up on my trees and watch movies. 

Its a Guide's Life for me

Started at Wilderness Pafuri Camp in the Makuleke concession on 27th April and never has the phrase "thrown in at the deep end" been so  apt!! Wilderness were short of a guide and had an over booked lodge for the weekend so instead of a 2 week long induction shadowing guides and learning the ropes i arrive on the the friday night and i had 9 guests arriving on the saturday lunchtime ready for an afternoon drive. Lets just say quick learning and a thick skin was needed as most of the staff were less than friendly and not willing to show me anything more than here is the "kitchen and your room is down that walk way some where". It was pretty daunting as my first guiding job but there was nothing to do but get on with it! No time to worry or ask questions. We have a saying here which is "make a plan" you can pretty much apply this phrase to any situation you are unsure of or any problem you need to fix! I made a plan and fast!

Anyways my guests arrived and were a group of 9 americans all over the age of 50 and for the majority of them it was their first time on safari which really made my job a whole lot easier! We stopped at every single impala for the first 2 hours with as many ooohhs and ahhhhhhs as at a magicians show! (impala are a very common antelope for those of you non african bush go-ers!) It was a great first drive, i had a lot of fun showing them all the small things and the big things, highlight was having sundowners over looking the Luhvuvu river as a huge breeding herd of elephant crossed in front of us! Needless to say job done on day one and the guests had no idea it was my first real safari guide drive with paying guests! The elephant that charged us on the way back to camp in the dark was a little more unexpected and slightly less professional! haha

The next 3 days with the same guests went well and I have really got into the swing of it now, my average day is: up at 5am, wake up guests at 5.30am, tea at 6 and out of the lodge on morning drive by 6.30am, back at 10am for brunch and then clean the car, report the sightings, empty the drinks box, sleep for an hour and then start the process again, out on drive at 3.30pm back at 7.30pm eat dinner with guests in bed by 10am repeat repeat repeat for the next 6 weeks!!! 

Its full on and barely anytime to chill or socialise with anyone but your guests, but its awesome i have no complaints and i totally love my job and don't even feel like i am working! Which is what i have always wanted in life to do a job but not feel like i have worked for a single day!

This evening I found my first Leopard, driving back to the lodge thought i would just swing by the airstrip to see if there was anything going there. Within minutes of entering the area I caught sight of the most beautiful female leopard, we disturbed her and she ran off, managed to find her again and this time she was crouched down and in the stalking position.........not only had I found my first Leopard but a leopard hunting at night =  big jackpot!!! After a bit of bashing through the bush and driving off road we followed her as she chased after impala unfortunately she didn't make a kill but no doubt she is sitting with a full belly now!

Totally awesome evening and very happy i found my first leopard, rounded the evening off with a beer bought for me by the manager to congratulate me on finding my first leopard and on my 3rd night of my guiding career which is apparently a first for wilderness pafuri camp!

All in all a great start to an awesome job and a career I just know I am going to love!

first job in the bush

After my Trails guide course at Makuleke, I started my first job in the bush at a lodge called Billy's Lodge which is part of the Ezulwini group. A beautiful family run small 5* lodge in the greater Kruger National Park. I was there for just over 2 months and it was great fun despite the role being as a Host rather than guiding. It was good experience and a good job to have on my CV.

But it wasn't the dream job, that was the second part of my lodge placement due to start at the end of April. Mum came out to visit and we had a great 10 days in the cape starting in the wine region of Franschoek and then driving to an ostrich farming town then down to the coast and driving the garden route back to Capetown through plettenberg bay, storms river and George. Very nice to show her round my new life in the bush even if she didnt really get to see me guiding. that will have to wait till the next trip out here!

Trails Guide in Makuleke

Well its been more than 3 months since I updated my blog so I guess it is time to catch up and tell you all about my latest african adventures!

My last blog was just before christmas, I had passed my level 1 guiding exams and just missed my advanced rifle handling by one exercise! Wow that seems a long time ago now and so much has happened since! I spent a lovely christmas with Pattrick in Namibia and then a great 10 day trip with my Dad where we visited Etosha National Park, the Waterberg Plateau and Damaraland to see the Desert Elephants. Great to explore more of that amazing country which feels like home now! We spent New Years at a waterhole in Etosha National Park and at the strike of 12 there were 4 Rhinos only 40 meters from me, no doubt having their own little new years eve drink!!

January brought new challenges, more studying and some of the most incredible animal encounters of all time. I started my Trails guide course at Makuleke which is the northern most part of the Kruger National Park in SA. The aim of the course is to get qualified to walk in the bush with guests as a back up trails guide, behind the lead guide. This requires you to be able to identify dangerous situations with big 5 animals (Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, Elephant and Rhino) and learn how to react whilst being confident enough to fire your rifle should the situation arise where you need to protect your guests. It is a lot of responsibility and quite a daunting prospect not knowing what is around the next corner or if you might have to fire! 

We spent 28 days walking 8 hours a day on average in 35 - 38 degree heat, with a few days off to rest the weary legs. Over the 28 days we clocked up over 230 Kilometers, 130 hours and over 60 encounters with big 5 animals all on foot! It was one of the best months of my life with particular encounters that will stay with me forever. One of my favourite encounters was with 4 white rhino, we had walked to a waterhole and sat down to have a rest whilst studying the animal tracks in the area to see if we could find said animals. Whilst we were wondering around chilling, making jokes and not paying attention what so ever to our surroundings i suddenly spotted what i thought was a rhino walking towards the waterhole, I quickly alerted the group and we all hushed up and gathered together, crouched down behind a log no bigger than your average bench and watched as 2 male, 1 female and 1 calf white rhino appeared not more than 30 meters from us. Luckily the wind direction was in our favour and the Rhinos eyesight is pretty poor. They came to the waterhole and drank for about 20 minutes all within about 20 meters from us. It was incredible to be that close on foot hiding behind a log. Then the 2 males started fighting and moved towards us still unaware that 6 people sat staring at them! Bruce (our instructor) became a little uncomfortable with the situation as we were too close to the rhino to move, if we had got up and moved back they would have for sure charged us as we were in their critical alert zone.  The rhinos came within 8 meters of us at which point Bruce stood up and made himself known to the boys in an attempt to force them in the other direction, he simply stood up, shouted "hey" and took his hat off so cool, calm and collected! I would have had to change my shorts for sure if it had been me! But thats what over 8000 hours (yes bruce has walked that many hours in the bush!)  gives you - invaluable experience!

Luckily the Rhino moved back to the waterhole and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We carried on watching them for another 15 minutes or so before they moved off. Quite incredible!!

And this is an animal that in South Africa is being poached at a rate of more than one a day! Disgusting behaviour that we just cannot seem to get control of at the moment. It has been calculated that if the Rhino poaching continues at todays rate then they will be extinct by 2015 just 3 years away! We have to stop this now!!

We had plenty of other amazing encounters with elephant, Lion and buffalo with only the leopard escaping us! Our Assessments and exams came around quickly, and I passed both my theory exam and my practical assessment, phew! I am now a qualified Back up Trails guide!!

My Lodge placement was due to start in the middle of february and by the end of Jan it was still unconfirmed, Eco Training were confident I would get a place at Erindi Game Reserve in Namibia which I had requested in November. Although they had not had confirmation from Erindi that they would take me they still seemed sure I would get in there and therefore limited the amount of other lodges that would receive my CV. By the end of Jan Erindi confirmed they would not be taking any Eco Training students this year and I was left high and dry with no where to go as all the other lodges had taken students from my year group whose CVs they had received! This became incredibly stressful as our trails guide course ended and all my pals were off to far distant amazing lodges whilst I only had the option of working at Save the Elephants doing research work which might sound amazing to you but when you have moved to south africa to guide and work in a lodge thats really what you want to do! 

Now knowing I was no longer going to be living and working in Namibia, my long distance relationship with Pattrick just became too difficult and the future just too uncertain. I very sadly ended things at the end of January but we remain close friends. 

After a week of phone calls, emails and stressing about where my future lay, Wilderness Safari's asked to interview me. This is the biggest safari operator in the whole of Southern Africa and they have lodges in every country! So a fantastic opportunity and one I jumped at! I had my interview at Pafuri camp which is also in the Makuleke concession and they offered me a place but only from April as they had no accommodation free. Frustrating that I couldn't start straight away but fantastic that I will get to learn from the best and guide for a wilderness safaris lodge!!

Now I just needed to find somewhere to take me for the next 2.5 months! Finally an offer came through from Billy's Lodge in the Balule game reserve which adjoins Kruger National park. It wasn't a guiding job but a hosting role. Still working in the lodge and with the option of going on as many game drives as I could! It was disappointing that I couldn't guide straight off but in hindsight its a blessing getting hosting experience will only strengthen my CV and give me a much better understanding of the lodge environment.

More to come on the adventures at Billys lodge in the next blog!

Hope all is well in England and around the world! And although a little late...Happy New Year!!!

x