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.

------

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. 

-----

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

Officially Qualified!

Hi All

Apologies for the lack of a blog update over the past month. Since getting back to selati from my leave the focus has been passing my level 1 qualification. We had a couple of weeks to go over everything as well as 1 week of first aid and wilderness medicine which was a unique experience in itself. The guy running it taught us first aid by scaring the living day light out of us! Video clip after video clip of very stupid people doing very stupid things with guns, knives, fire, wild animals etc etc. you name we saw it.

It was actually a very well taught week and i learnt a lot as well as completing the course with a level 2 qualification. Our final test was a pretend rescue situation. A guy had been walking in the river bed outside our camp and got bitten by a crocodile! it was pretty realistic with blood and amputated arms etc! As a group we had to assess the situation and address the wounds appropriately, perform CPR and stretcher him back to camp. Needless to say we all found it rather funny but also discovered our bandaging needs a little work!

Our final week in Selati camp brought new challenges for me specifically as I had been bitten by something other than a mosquito and  started to feel a little off. But the exam and practicals we in the next couple of days so i held off whatever the problem was and focused on getting through the next few days. My practical assessment was a 3 hour guided drive  in which i had to cover a whole host of topics including, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, amphibians, climate, geology, history of the area, stars (on a morning drive!) grasses, animal behaviour, trees, situational awareness and scenarios the list goes on! I got lucky with my assessor, a guy called Les who was a great guy and always had an interesting story up his sleeve. It went well and I felt pleased at the end of the 3 hours which felt like 3 minutes. Feedback at the end was very positive and i was give the green light of passing!!!! over the moon and on to the exam!

THe exam was a couple of days later and as long as I kept the neurofen pumping round my system the fever was kept low and the headaches at bay. The last few days of cramming definitely helped as the exam was a particularly strange set of questions which are pulled from a database of over 1000 questions. We had some real easy ones and then some super difficult ones! Definitely not your standard exam like the mock papers we had been given to practise.

15 of us sat the paper in the morning and had a nervous analysing couple of hours where by the  "what did you write for this one and ......oh no i didn't put that i must have failed" usual post exam chat every single one of us has experienced pursued! Just after lunch we got called in one by one for the results, each person coming out smiling and returning to the group to a big round of applause. Unfortunately 2 people didn't make it through but we have every faith that they will pass in January when they re sit. Luckily for me though.......

I PASSED AND AM NOW OFFICIALLY A QUALIFIED SAFARI GUIDE!

Job done you are probably thinking. well not quite, the purpose of the one year course is to get a whole range of qualifications making you very employable at the end of the year. Next up was our advanced rifle handling in the stunning Makuleke camp in northern kruger park. 

But first stop was straight to the doctor to find out what was wrong with me, I had shown my now black scabby bite the size of a 20p piece to the Head instructor who almost immediately said i had tick bite fever. Not life threatening but a pretty nasty virus to have and has to be treated by antibiotics. So that night whilst everyone was busy celebrating I was lying in my tent feeling close to death as my body temperature soared and fell every 30 minutes. The doctor in Phalaborwa (45 mins away)  in the morning ran some tests and confirmed tick bite fever, prescribed me antibiotics and some fairly strong painkillers and sent me on my way! 

6 hour drive north to the new camp through kruger park was stunning and we arrived in a very remote location where "no one can hear you scream" so to speak! not even cellphone reception! the camp is located in a private concession area of Kruger, meaning not even tourists are allowed in the area but the animals wonder freely. We had the place to ourselves and it was stunning. The purpose of being here for this week was to go through our Advanced Rifle Handling course and take our exam at the end of it. we had 4 days on the range and had to complete 6 different exercises, each one increasing in difficulty. You have to passed each one to proceed to the next. By day 2 I had the first 5 exercises under my belt and completed which was a great feeling to be ahead and shooting well. Unfortunately I had to spend day 3 in camp whilst many of the group still had the majority of the exercises to complete and need the day on the range to catch up before day 4 of the final exercise. 

This meant i had a day when i could have been practising or attempting exercise 6 but was unable to, frustrating but this did mean i could go on a walk with Bruce Lawson - one of the best regarded guides in the business and incredibly knowledgable. I jumped at the opportunity and joined him on a 2.5 hour walk where we covered 6 kms. We walked through a fever tree forest, amongst a huge herd of buffalo, got surrounded by nyala jumping through the forest, watched zebra drink at the waterhole below us and watch a beautiful african sunset over the floodplains. It was the best walk in the 3 months of the course and one i will not forget in a hurry!

The exercises we had to complete were:

1. load a magazine blindfolded in 15 seconds

2. fire 5 rounds into a 15m target and hit the bulls eye zone

3. Shoot at the 15 m, 10m and 5m target each time scoring 10 in 14 seconds

4. Fire 3 rounds into a 10 m target dealing with a misfire round in 13 seconds

5. Shoot the bulls eye on a 12m and 8m buffalo in 12 seconds (don't worry not a real buffalo!)

6. Simulate Lion charge - controlling your guests, getting down on one knee, chambering a round and firing hitting the bulls eye before the charging lion reaches the 10m target! 

Back to the range for the final day - Simulated Lion charge, the exercise known to rip your ARH qualification from under your feet. And it did just that, I had two attempts and missed the bulls eye by a couple of centimetres. Very frustrating as I had been shooting well all the way through. So I didn't pass and out of the 17 of us attempting ARH only 4 got it. So i will take it again on the 5th jan and hope this time i can nail it!

3 months of training in the African bush are complete, with my FGASA level 1, Wilderness medicine and first aid and my track and sign level 2 i am pretty happy with all i have achieved so far. Now its time for a decent break and 3 weeks off over christmas. I am now in Namibia and have already had 4 great days at Harnas catching up with friends and animals alike (Harnas update to follow!). The next few weeks will be spent between Pattricks farm (Vergeneog) and swakopmund where we have rented a self catering apartment on the beach for the 4 days of the christmas weekend. It will be a little different to the usual big family christmas in cold and frosty England. But absent friends will still be toasted at 2.15pm, crackers will still be pulled and the obligatory bread sauce will still be created! As for the turkey stuffed by granny, mums pheasant casserole and the huge pile of presents under the usual 16ft christmas tree well ....maybe next year!! Dad is also heading out soon after christmas for 10 days of touring Namibia, we are heading up to Etosha National park where i hope to dazzle him with my newly acquired knowledge, just please let the birds be the same!!!

This experience has been everything I had hoped and dreamed for the past 3 years, no regrets only assurances that i made the right decision to move here, the next 6 months are going to be pretty exciting and who knows where i will end up on my lodge placement in february, but no doubt it will bring new adventures, new birds to identify (oh gosh i am turning into a bird nerd!) and more awesome people to meet.

I hope you have all had a fantastic 2011 and have a very merry christmas!!

More from me in 2012 and maybe even a trip home in July to see you all

lots of love

xx

Tracking and the first holiday!

Now sitting in Windhoek Airport (Namibia) at the end of my 6 days leave which has been fantastic and a much needed break from the bush and the intense learning environment!

The last few weeks at Karongwe were great, the camp was really beautiful and the wildlife was fantastic. We completed a week long track and sign course which involves learning the tracks of pretty much everything that moves in the bush, including the grass! After 4 days intense training from 2 of the top trackers in the country we under took a 2 day test to determine what level track and sign we had all reached. This involved the instructor circling a track on the ground and each of us individually identifying it. We were tested on everything from hippo, lion, leopard, frogs, civets, genets, human footprints, beetles, tortoises etc etc! Even the mark that the grass leaves behind when it blows in the wind! Not only what animal it was but what foot it was and what direction the animal was travelling! So it was a challenging couple of days especially in the 40 degree heat!

I came out with a level 2 track and sign qualification which is recognised all over South Africa, i was really pleased as thought i would only get level 1. six people out of the 16 of us reached level 2 and the rest level 1.

After finishing the course we all went on our 6 days leave and managed to spread ourselves far and wide across southern africa, with some people heading to capetown, durban, botswana, kruger, joburg and me all the way to Namibia which is actually closer than london to birmingham in terms of travel time! I spent the 6 days with Pattrick and we headed up to the erongo mountains for a couple of days which was really beautiful, climbed the obligatory mountain for a sundowner and chilled by the pool. Then headed out to the farm near swakop where he is based and spent a couple of days playing with the 3 month old black lab stoffel who is just the cutest/naughtest puppy ever, and finished the time off with a day in swakopmund dipping toes in the ocean whilst looking at the dunes followed by a lovely fishy lunch at the end of the pier!

Now heading back to Selati camp feeling refreshed and ready for some more facts, figures and bush knowledge to be drummed into my head before we take our exam and practical assessment in the first week of december.

thats all for now!

Hope all is well with you all wherever you are all in the world now! 

xx

Exams, Birthdays, unbearable heat, oh and 2 leopard sightings in one morning!

It has been a full on few weeks since my last blog and it is almost impossible to write down everything that has happened but i will try my best.

We are now 6 weeks in to the course and spent week 5 writing our final Eco training exams which involved a 2 hour theory paper on everything we had learnt in the first 5 weeks and a 1 hour practical assessment out in the bush. My exam went really well and i managed 88% which was awesome. But my practical was a little difficult as i was 2nd to go in our rotation which meant i started the drive in an unknown location and one which was full of mopane trees and little else. Unbelievably i didn't see a single animal and only heard 4 birds call in the hour. As you can imagine this made talking about everything in the bush pretty difficult! I managed to link as much in from vegetation to birds and from poo to mammals as i could. I was pretty thankful to come to the end of it and passed all the exams and assessments with a final score of 80% which is pretty good and in the upper end of the group. Huge relief that it is all over and now we can all relax a bit!

We rounded off our time in Selati with an awards ceremony, written and produced by sarah and myself. Everyone received an award for what they had become best known for. I was lucky enough to receive the worst volleyball player award! As we have a volley ball court on the dried up river bank outside camp! very well deserved i must say!

The final weeks at Selati provided us with some awesome game viewing (although not when i really needed it!). And we had 5 rhino (white and black) encounters, including mother and calf, as well as lions, elephant, genet and bush babies. Mainly the Leopard that continued to escape our grasp and much to our frustration we had one in our camp several nights running!

A week ago we moved to a new camp - Karongwe. Which is just an hour west of Selati and the transfer was in our open top landy's so it was a little wind swept to say the least! Karongwe is a commercial reserve with about 7 different game lodges on it. There are all of the big 5 here although the Buffalo are in a breeding pen right in the north so we are unlikely to see them. The camp is awesome and our tents are pretty big, none of this hitting your head on the roof of your tent anymore which is a nice. We even have 2 shelves each to unpack! What a luxury!! I am still sharing with Sarah, who is really nice. Also english, also went to oxford brookes to study business and also went to harnas 3 years ago where i met her there! small world! 

It was my birthday on the day we arrived and so we went out for the obligatory sundowner where we watched the sun set over the Drakensburg Escarpment  with the hippos playing in the waterhole in front of us! Savannah in one hand and very happy days!

Karongwe has already been full of surprises and we are only 1 week in. The focus of the next 3 weeks here is to recap on everything we have learnt and enhance our tracking skills. Day 2 has been the highlight were we went out on a drive and by listening to the radio (which the guides from the lodges use) we heard about lions and cheetahs. We raced over to the lion sighting and waited our turn to view. After crashing through the bush we came across a pride of 7 lions including a mating pair. The lions were very relaxed and didn't seem to mind us being there, we sat with them for about 20 minutes and it was awesome to see them. Next on the radio was cheetah so off we went again and found 2 male cheetah just off the road in the bush, so we walked into the sighting (guide with rifle of course!) and managed to get within just a few meters of these 2 wild but very habituated cheetahs.They were two males in a coalition and looked like they had just had a good feed. Another awesome sighting and to see lion and cheetah in the same day is almost un heard of.

Karongwe is very different to the wild selati where little roams there and no tourists exist. Karongwe does have many tourists although we don't see them too often. But due to that and the use of the radio the animals are pretty used to people and easy to find. This does take some of the thrill and excitement away but it also provides us with fantastic viewings. 

Last weekend was a scorcher and we hit 45 degrees in the sun. I think the only time i have come close to that is in dubai where we could escape to the air conditioned car, house, building!! Not our here in the wilds of africa. We had to sweat it out and carry on learning and going out on activites in the heat! Luckily the instructors took pity on us and drove us 20 mins down the road to a lodge where we could watch the rugby world cup final (very average game) and take a dip in their pool! It was a bit of light relief before heading back to the sweats of camp! The next couple of days were similar and people have started to feel the effects. Water intake is at an all time high and rehydration salts are in well use! Finally the heat has cooled to a balmy 36 degrees!  at least there is cloud cover now so that provides some escape!

Just yesterday we were very lucky indeed as we headed out on our morning game drive as usual. We headed to the northern end of the reserve, it was a cold and damp morning which was a refreshing change from the crazy heat. We drove down one particular road and came across a beautiful female leopard lying in the tree like all perfect leopard sightings should be. Sadly she got up and jumped down before we had a chance to take photos. But we felt very lucky to catch her, it was our first sighting of leopard in the 6 weeks we had been on the course. So we were happy with our sighting and headed back south towards camp. Chris (our instructor) out of no where shouts Leopard! of course we thought he was joking, there is no way we could see 2 leopards on one morning! But there he was a beautiful big male just strolling through the bush! He was really relaxed and so we could spend about 10 minutes watching him. Highlight of the course!!

Leopard, Lion, Cheetah, Rhino (black and white) so its just buffalo to go to complete the big 5!

The group are all in good spirits despite a couple of tifs here and there which is normal when 17 people spend 6 solid weeks together in each others company!

Life is still good in the bush, off out leading a game drive this afternoon so hopefully we come across something good.

Huge thanks for all my birthday messages, i managed to get into my Facebook to read well over 100 messages which was lovely to receive.

Love and hugs to all. I should be in more contact on the 10th november as we have our 5 days leave then!

xx

Eco training - bush life at its best

So its week 4 of the bush life and all is going very well.

I met up with the Ecotraining group 5D at nelspruit over 3 weeks ago now and I can't quite believe how much we have achieved and more than that how much we have learnt in such a short space of time. Our first 3 days were spent in nelspruit filling in forms, registering with DEAT and FGASA (the governing bodies for field guiding) and also taking our rifle competency test which to pass we had to fire 10 rounds (bullets) into a square target on an A5 piece of paper 15 meters away with a .22 rifle. Easy some of you may say, well not when you haven't handled a rifle for a few years!! Luckily I and several others passed first time.

After the first 3 days we drove 4 hours north of nelspruit and entered Selati Game Reserve, which is a 33,000 hectare private game reserve in which no other lodges are present other than the Eco training camp and some lion researchers. The Eco training camp consists of 15 dome tents and an open air lecture/dining room. No electricity and hot water is sporadic, but this would be our home for the next 5 weeks and it was more than adequate. The biggest bonus is the cell phone reception which is only available at the top of a 5 meter termite mound!

Selati is home to the big 4 (Lion, Leopard, Elephant and Rhino, just missing the Buffalo from the big 5). It is a beautiful area full of undulating hills and flat open areas as well, although bush is pretty dense throughout the reserve. We have seen more giraffe than impala, which for those of you who know africa is pretty crazy! The Selati river runs through the reserve and right in front of our camp. Although it is dry at the moment so it is proving to be an excellent volleyball court on soft beachy sand. In just a few months it will be a free flowing river in which we can swim in. We return to selati at the end of november and hope it will be ready for us to cool off from the 40 + degrees it is going to get.

The last 3 weeks have been pretty hectic, on arrival we were told we had 5 days to learn 50 birds by sight and by call. Now I will openly admit that i was not the biggest birder (or more commonly known out here as a twitcher!) just over 3 weeks ago. I am now however pretty hot on the birds of southern africa! So we had 5 days of nothing but bird watching and listening, which when you have arrived straight off a plane from new york can be a little challenging for some people, but we all did very well and surprised ourselves. 5 days after starting the birds almost all of us past. I managed to get 49 out of 50 so pretty pleased with that!

So week 1 was 50 birds, and after we were sick of the sight of the fork tailed drongo, the orange breasted bush shrike and the african fish eagles we were told to crack on and learn 45 trees!! Its no rest for the wicked here!! week 2 We started our fgasa (field guides association of south africa) level 1 training which is the basic level you have to achieve to be able to operate as a guide in south africa. In 28 days we have to learn everything from geology, mammals, fish, arthropods, climate, insects, oh and of course how to be a guide itself!! Our daily structure is up at 5.30am every day quick coffee/hot chocolate and off out for a 3 hour walk or 3 hour drive. THe group is split into two so one group walks and one group drives. Then back for a huge breakfast at 10am before a lecture starts at 11 for a couple of hours, then lunch and back out for a 3 hour walk or 3 hour drive (opposite for what you did in the morning). Back for dinner at 7ish and study time if you have the energy. Most of us sit round the fire before going to bed at 8.30ish. so its a start early and finish early kinda day!

We have a test and presentation every week, so far i am averaging about 84% which is fine as pass mark is 75% lets hope i can keep it up!

Some of the best sightings we have had have been a male lion almost walking through camp in the night, naturally we all jumped on the landy to go find it! A heard of 70 elephants we came across and just sat for over an hour whilst they walked past us! Just 2 days ago i was leading a safari drive and we came across about 10 elephants, luckily i had byron (our assistant instructor) in the car with me so he could tell me where and how to drive around them!

The weather has been really mixed couple of scorching days when it has been 38% in the shade but also a couple of stormy days with hectic thunderstorms. The other night we had 17mm of rain in a couple of hours.

The people are awesome and one of the most diverse groups eco training have ever had. We range in age from 18 - 61 and are split 50:50 guys and girls. There is 17 of us here at the moment with one girl leaving in a cuple of weeks as she is just here for the 28 day course. We also have all nationalities from canadians, americans, aussies, french, south africans and of course the brits (6 in total!)

Today is our first day off in 22 days and a much needed day of not studying and a little bit of civilisation as we have headed in to hoedspruit to use internet, have a boozy lunch and buy the much needed essentials.

Apologies for any birthdays I have forgotten so far and also for the ones i am likely to forget in the coming weeks!!

Hope everyone is well, missing you all heaps

xx

second leg of southern africa - botswana to Nelspruit

From the border crossing at Rietfontain we drove north to the Kgalagadi National Park, a game reserve that borders both South Africa and Botswana. This is the only park in Africa that contains two countries. We spent the night at Twee Rivieren  campsite and started the two day drive through the park the next day. We had such a huge distance to  travel that we had to drive faster than we would have liked and couldn't spend as much time at water holes to see the animals. We were lucky enough to see lions though which was a big bonus! We also saw heaps of birds and the binoculars and bird book came into full swing (mum you will be pleased to hear!). We also saw meerkats, mongoose, puff adders, black mambas, oryx, springbok, red haartebeast, jackals and a honey badger. Beautiful landscapes driving right through the middle of the kalahari desert. 

The second day was an eventful one as we drove north to exit through the Kaa gate on the botswanan side, this time no such border troubles. We knew the road would be bad as it was rarely travelled but what we encountered was something of a different kind!! it was deep sand, heavily rutted and more up and downs than a yo-yo!! we thought the drive out of the park and to Ghanzi would take about 6-7 hours. But 11 hours later and we had only arrived in Kang, it was a pretty tough day of driving, I only drove 3 of the 11 hours with Pattrick driving the large majority. The road was so bad that most of the time we could only drive 15kms an hour! there were points on the road/sandy track where we were so remote no one would have ever found us! It was kind of scary but exciting at the same time, that we had to be completely self sufficient and no one would come pull us out if we got stuck! We reckoned only about 5 cars a week travel that road! We stopped for a quick homemade ham and cheese sandwich freshly made from the kitchen in our trailer!  whilst consuming such sandwich we spotted what looked remarkably like lion poo!! And quickly got back in the car! Even though we were now outside of the park there were no fences on the northern end so Lions could quite possibly be roaming in the area we were driving!.

We gave up on trying to make it to Ghanzi and found a motel type place at a service station that luckily had a room spare. Turns out the Harnas phrase of "Expect the Un Expected" can be applied across Africa!!

We spent the next two days in the Okavango Delta (but based in Maun), camping right on the river which was beautiful but we shared our campsite with plenty of mosquitos!! We spent a day on a Mokoro (a wooden boat pushed along by a local guide with a long wooden pole, much like they do in venice but a little less glamorous!). We travelled for about 7 hours through the delta seeing elephants, zebra, antelopes, lots of birds (still need to learn the names!!) and the odd croc as well, just the small ones though! It was a lovely day out but maybe if we had researched more we would have spent the day in the Moremi game reserve on safari as we might have seen a little more animals. But the delta is about being on the water so it was great to experience that.

Then we travelled to Nata, about 4 hour drive from Maun and stayed in a lovely lodge on the edge of the Maghadihadi pans, a huge salt pan which attracts heaps of birds but mainly flamingos in their thousands. We had a beautiful sunset here and enjoyed the luxuries of staying in a lodge for a night rather than camping.

The next day we drove 300km to Serowe where there is the Kharma Rhino Sanctuary. We decided not to take the main road to Serowe and just and have a bit of an adventure, as if we weren't already! so we took what is marked on the map as "secondary roads"! As you can imagine this is little more than a dirt track and took substantially longer than planned, but we did see a bit more of the country and the back roads took us through some interesting and very remote villages. the locals waved madly at us and then ran towards the car, i can imagine that they have probably only ever seen white people on the tv!

Kharma Rhino sanctuary is actually more of a rhino game reserve with the aim to breed rhinos in a safe environment to then re locate around botswana to the wild. It is a 5000 hectare area with 30 rhinos in it. We camped within the park and could self drive around which was really fantastic. it only took about 40 minutes before we spotted our first rhino in the distance. You are not allowed out of your cars and you have to stay 50 meters away at all times, but when we could only see the bum of the rhino and thinking this could be our only sighting we took our chances and headed out on foot!! We got within about 20 meters and made sure the wind direction was right so they couldn't smell us! Rhino's actually have very poor eyesight so as long as they couldn't hear or smell us we were pretty safe. Right until we realised it was a mother and calf!! this swiftly brought back memories of a walking safari i was on with my family in zimbabwe when we came across a mother and calf and got a little too close for comfort! The mother charged us and came within just a few meters of us! Luckily this encounter was not so heart stopping but a little nerve wracking so we headed back to the safety of the car!

We then spent the rest of the afternoon spotting many rhinos all over the park, on one particular road we turned the corner and were faced with no less than 7 rhinos including 2 babies!! we switched the engine off and just let them graze around us and wonder pass in their own sweet time!! we must have been there for close to 45 minutes and it was really magical to be so close to them and for them to be so relaxed. Another beautiful sunset and a great campsite, braai and bed. In the night i heard the noises of what i instantly assumed was leopard as there are some in the park. Slightly nervous i peeked out of the tent gauze to try and see but to no avail. Next morning looking at the tracks we deciphered it was a huge hyena and he had walked all the way around our tent! Definitely in the middle of all the action!

Next day we drove to South Africa across the border, which i assumed would cause hassle with my visa etc but it was very smooth and quick. Spent the day driving as far south as we could and made it all the way to the Blyde River Canyon arriving in the dark with no campsite booked we took the first one we found which was adequate!! Following day was a short drive to Nelspruit through a very beautiful and mountainous area. Sadly the cloud was low and the mist was hiding the beauty of it so we saw very little. 

Finally arrived in Nelspuit after 14 days, 6000kms and 3 countries of driving through the most beautiful parts of Southern Africa. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to see so much of the area and travel it with such an awesome person! The only arguments revolved around map reading in the cities!!! I was always right!! But huge thanks goes to Pattrick for doing 90% of the driving and putting the tent up and down every night and every morning!

Next step: Eco Training. 1 year living and working in the bush..........bring it on!

Road Trip - Namibia Section

So it was finally my turn for the sad thursday! Except luckily i left at sunrise with Alex and Jimmy, so i didnt have to go through the emotional process of saying goodbye to everyone on the farm, handing out letters and certificates. The process i have managed for the past 3 months! 

We drove to Windhoek where Alex and Jimmy dropped me off at the Hilton, i figured after 3 months of freezing my ass off in a wooden cabin with cold water and with 11 months of camping ahead of me i deserved a little bit of luxury for one night!! It was a beautiful hotel in the centre of windhoek and had only been opened for 2 months. Long soak in the bath followed by a drink on the roof top bar (the highest building in windhoek) and a heavenly sleep in the biggest bed in the world! The next morning i had a swim in the roof top pool and a breakfast with so much choice i didnt know where to start. it isnt until you have that kind of luxury that you know what you have been missing out on. And in all honesty i didnt miss anything whilst i was at harnas, apart from strong cheese and the compulsory pasta and baked beans!!!

On Friday we started our overland trip, I am travelling with a friend from Harnas (Pattrick). The plan is to drive from Windhoek through southern namibia, across botswana and into south africa where Pattrick will drop me in Nelspruit and drive back to Harnas. Thats the plan anyway, but with overland trips you just never know where you are going to end up!

We left Windhoek in Pattricks car which he has been working on for several weeks to ensure it is fit for travel.We are also pulling a Echo trailer, whcih is a 4x4 trailer with everything you need in it (tent, kitchen, gas hob, freezer, shower, etc).  20kms down the road or should i say steep gravel path and the car starts to over heat! Pull over, put the bonnet up and out pours boiling water. Game over!! Unfortunately despite thousands of dollars and weeks of work the car still wasn't in good enough condition to make the journey. So we turned back! Unbelivable that we had barely left windhoek and already had car trouble! but its all part of the process!!

Luckily one of pattricks friends had a spare 4x4 car that he could lend us, so after camping out in his back garden (not quite where we were planning on spending our first night!) we left early saturday morning with the new car. This time we made it 150km before the car broke down! Yes i can hear you saying how unlucky can we be! The whole rear axel of the car had come loose and the car was going no where. We were stuck on a steep incline and had no way of fixing the car. After being towed to the top of the hill pattrick spent the next 2.5 hours tightening the axel back to the rest of the car! (this man can fix just about anything on a car). Off we go again, 10kms down the road and the axel comes loose again!! At this point i was ready to hire a car for the trip!!! We managed to make it to the nearest farm and lucky use their welding machine. Another 3 hours later and Pattrick had welded the axel back togetehr and we were finally on our way to Sossusvlei.

Arrivng in the dark we found our campsite and pitched the tent.. When I say pitched the tent the whole thing pretty much pops up at the push of a button!! very easy and doesnt even feel like camping! The next morning we got up early and made our way into the sand dune for sunrise. Absolutly beautiful as the sun pops up over the top of the mountain range and shines onto the dunes, one of those take your breath away moments! After a morning spent in the national park we started the long drive south to Fish River Canyon (about 7 hours drive). I was given the worst gravel road stint of the journey to drive but pattrick tells me it is all part of the experience and i need to learn to drive on gravel!!! This time it wasn't us breaking down but we must have seen at least 10 cars on the side of the road. I had to drag pattrick form each and every one of them as he tried to help and fix the problems!!

We made it to fish river after  what felt like the longest road in the world finally ended! "pitched" the tent and could finally relax with a beer knowing the trip was underway and excited for what the next 2 weeks would bring.

The next day (lost track of days, dates, time as it all seems pretty irrelevant!) we headed to the canyon which is stunning, it is the second biggest canyon in the world after the grand canyon, over 500 meters deep and over 100km long with a river winding through it.  We spent the day driving along the edge of the canyon and eventually watched the sunset over it which once again was magical.

The next day we drove through Ketmanshoop where we met up with Alex and Jimmy, who had also been to sossusvlei and fish river at the same time as us but staying in different places. After a sad goodbye and an awesome week spent with them on Harnas we left to drive to the border post, rushing madly to make it there before it closed at 4.30pm. We made it with minutes to spare and there ensued the usual border post hassle. Questions like "why do you have 40 litres of diesel spare in your car, are you going to sell it on?" and why do you have a bag of fire wood in your car?". If it wasn't obvious by the huge trailer and tent we were pulling we had to spell it out to them that we were on an overland trip and need spare fuel!!  They also struggled to understand why a Namibian guy and an English girl would be travelling together! Pretty funny but we made it through to South Africa!!!

last few weeks on Harnas - a sad goodbye

Well it has been a rollercoaster couple of weeks. Where to start......3 weeks ago i was standing in the village lapa and managed to trip over and tear a ligament in my ankle! Luckily I had 3 nurses on hand within seconds applying ice and strapping it up! The next couple of days were a bit of a struggle but its almost recovered now luckily. I can't imagine having to trek for 4 hours a day on Eco training with a injured ankle being much fun so fingers crossed it continues to repair.

Alex and Jimmy arrived a week ago and it has been awesome to have them on Harnas, we spent time with pride in the lifeline, cuddled the leopard and cheetah cubs, watched the sunset at Dam house, went on tour and outside feeding, walked Jannie the baby baboon and had many lovely evenings at the lapa. It was lovely to see them and spend time with friends that have heard me talk about harnas so much but never seen it. Now they understand why i love it so much!

In my last week on Harnas it was hectic, but hey when is it not hectic!! I managed to go horse riding on my last day which was great fun, once in 3 months is pretty shocking! The film crew wanted to do a leaving interview with them and pride in the lifeline, so we drove out and found her. I sat down next to her and within seconds she was licking my face and neck all over! pretty awesome way to say goodbye to Harnas and so happy it is on film, maybe one day it will make it on to national geographic. Watch this space!!!!!

The last days were also filled with lion roars, fence patrol and spending as much time with the people and animals i love. It was a pretty awesome last week and i was finally allowed to drive! It only took 2 months 3 weeks and 4 days for them to allow me to drive but hey it happened!! Once i was given the all clear i became a taxi driver on harnas! haha

Last lapa night on wednesday and Herman made a really lovely speech about me saying i was his right and left hand and really i did his job. He seems to think he is really going to struggle without me which is a lovely thing to say but that man is stronger, tougher and more capable than most men in this world and i know that he will be just fine! Sadly there is no one to replace me, Harnas is really struggling for coordinators at the moment as everyone seems to be staying for 2-3weeks which is just not long enough. 

I am hoping to return at christmas but just for a couple of weeks. It really has been the most incredible 3 months, i had hesitations at first that it would never live up to the previous 4 visits. But it really did, it was the best 3 months i could have hoped for. Highlights would have to include: leopard release in southern namibia, Vergenoeg desert trip, the leopard and cheetah cubs, being in charge of feeding elsa (a 21 yr old lioness), managing the whole process of rescuing and releasing samar (cheetah) in bushmanlnd and tracking his progress, working with jo on various projects and laughing till our stomachs hurt in the office, working alongside the most amazing volunteer project manager herman and being inspired by his love of animals and people, flying in the gyrocopter with schalk, and watching over 90 sunsets and sunrises in my favourite place in the world, with every one of them being different from the last and beautiful in its own way. Africa is in my soul!

Herman always says "when you leave harnas i want you to say: i did it, not i should have done it." I can most definately say I did it, i achieved everything i wanted and was given so many great opportunities over the past 3 months. Now the next adventure begins!!!!

I am spending the next 2 weeks on an overland trip with a friend driving from Namibia to South Africa via Botswana camping all the way. Next blog will be from Nelspruit

Keep the news coming would love to hear what you are all up to

lots of love

xxxx

A sense of normality but only 3 weeks to go!

I have now been on Harnas for 9 weeks, i can't quite believe how quickly the time has flown by, yet at the same time it feels like i have been here forever and normal life involves playing with leopard cubs, releasing wild dogs, throwing donkey heads to lions and only showering twice a week!

It has been another awesome couple of weeks but my father has recently commented on my over use of the word awesome so instead i will use the word .....awesome!

We have been working with 5 wild dogs to prepare them for release so over the past 10 days we have been darting them, microchipping them and fitting them with radio collars. Tuesday this week was the big day and a group of volunteers headed out to the enclosure. Marieta and Schalk also joined us, this is the first time we have ever released wild dogs so it was a huge moment for Harnas. We tied a spingbok carcass to the back of the car, opened the gate to the enclosure and drove with the springbok dragging behind. The dogs took a little persuasion but after about 10 minutes they worked out what was going on and took their first steps to freedom! (see photos above) it was a pretty amazing moment and they followed us all the way down the road and into the bush. The 5 of them are now happily living in the life line, they even made a kill on their first night!! Now we just have to watch out for pride (the cheetah) to make sure they dont come into any conflict.

The other big part of my week was made up of writing a proposal for the MET (minister of environment and tourism) its a huge proposal and takes a lot of time, so its pretty difficult to sit down and write it when there is so much excitment going on at the farm and every 5 minutes i get interupted to help with animals etc.

we also had a couple of sad deaths on the farm this week, the decision was taken to put lasse the Eagle to sleep, she had lost the use of her legs and one wing and there was no hope for recovery so rather than let her struggle for the rest of her life not being able to walk or fly she was put to sleep yesterday.

Winter the springbok also sadly died unexpectedly yesterday, we are still unsure of his death as he seemed fine in the morning and in the afternoon he was found dead. Both were buried this morning.

Some key people have also left in the last couple of weeks; Rikki and Owen left to move to australia, Erin left very suddenly to go back to the US to be with her family, Hannah left last week back to germany and today astrid left to go back to Norway.

Now we are a coordinator team of 3! Herman, Vicky (animal caretaker) and myself. Orton is injured, Pattrick is in Vergenoeg and then on leave and Juanita is also on leave! Running a project of 54 people with 3 coordinators is kind of stressful! but we are getting by!

Frikkie is back on the farm and doing much better, he is currently running the mature volunteer project and seems to be very happy being back running a project.

Everyone else is doing good - cheetahs are all well as are the baboons, vervets, dogs, lions, wild dogs, meekats, mongoose, caracals.etc etc. you name it all are doing well!

Only 3 weeks left on harnas, i can't quite believe how quickly it has gone. making the most of every day now! I will be sad to leave, but also very excited about the next phase of the adventure!! But before then Alex and Jimmy are coming out to visit in 2 weeks which is very exciting.

obviously you all have heaps of letters, parcels, presents for me etc so please feel free to give them to alex to bring out. ahahahahahahahah

missing cheese the most!

Heard about the riots in the UK, sounds pretty insane. hope you are all keeping safe. Just move to africa its the safest place ever, the only risk is the thorns and bushes here!!!

love to all

xx

Life only gets better!

Firstly apologies for the delay in the blog, the past two weeks have been pretty much non-stop. But I won't bore you with the detail and just pick out the highlights from what has been the most incredible two weeks. And you are probably thinking how does it get any better than releasing leopards, sand boarding in the desert and cuddling baby leopards.

Well lets start there I guess, yes can you believe it we have 4 baby leopards, the cutest cubs in the world. They are 8 weeks old now and just the most adorable bundles of joy you could imagine. 3 males and 1 female and about the size of 2 bags of sugar. At the moment the volunteers are on leopard interaction rotations but us lucky co-ordinators get to spend time with them when we want which is pretty awesome. It has been amazing to watch them grow up over the past 7 weeks. They already have really sharp claws and teeth, not quite drawing blood yet but it wont be long before the monsters become trouble!

We also had an incredibly sad day last week as the time came to say goodbye to the greatest cheetah that ever lived. Goeters was 24 years old and had spent most of his life on Harnas from the day when Frikkie picked him up on the side of the road as a cub 24 years ago. Over the past few weeks his quality of life massively deteriorated and it became increasingly hard for him to stand up, walk, eat and in the end even breathe. The family took the very tough decision to put him to sleep and it really was felt that this was the right decision. We had a beautiful memorial and burial for him which Frikkie led and the family attended. Marieta's tears were the trigger for most of us to start crying too, just seeing how much he had meant to her was heartbreaking. But we all knew he would go to a better place.

The very same day a baby cheetah arrived, 1 month old and named Athena. She is adorable and very tame so people can spend time with her. It is strange how the world works that on the same day we loose Goeters a new baby cheetah arrives.

The other major highlight of last week was when schalk called me on my radio and asked me to meet him at the hanger. A little strange I thought but hey this is the CEO of Harnas I should probably do as he says! So i met him at the hanger, where the Gyrocopter (very small helicopter) was sitting and Schalk says get in. To put this into perspective hardly anyone gets to go up in the gyro with schalk just randomly. Normally volunteers pay huge sums of money in donations to be able to go up in it with him. So I felt pretty damn lucky to be able to go. He wanted to test the telemetry on Pride's (cheetah we released last year) VHF collar. so in we got to the tiniest hair dryer of a machiene and off we went, it was so so awesome to see the farm from above, i was a little hesitant at first mainly because this thing doesnt have doors! we flew over the village and the outside enclosures and then to the lifeline to look for pride, my job was to listen to the beeps of the telemetry to work out when we were close to her location. 10 -15 mins in and I spotted her from the air only about 30 - 40 meters below us. Awesome to see her running free and from a gyrocopter! Then we flew around the perimeter of the farm and spotted tons of animals; Eland, springbok, Oryx, Impala, Kudu, Vultures and even a brown hyena! It was one of those moments when you realise just how lucky and fortunate you are. I said to schalk through our head sets "how much would you like to see your lions running free out here" Schalk is a man of few words but he did say "more than anything else, that is my dream". Hopefully one day his dream will come true.

Right when I didnt think my week could get any better we had a phone call from a local farmer saying he had caught a wild cheetah in a trap and could we pick it up. This was awesome news for many reasons, the first being that the farmers are educated enough to phone us and ask us to take the cheetah away from killing his livestock but also it means we have a wild cheetah to release in Bushmanland so we can continue to build on our release project up there. So Pattrick, Hannah and I set off to rescue the cheetah not really knowing what to expect. When we got there there it was a massive male cheetah in a box trap, really beautiful but very stressed out with the situation so we had to act fast to minimise the damage he would do to himself in the trap. We put our box up against the trap and opened both doors he was pretty aggressive and charged at us a few times, thankfully the trap was in the way! He took a bit of persuasion but eventually we got him to move into our box and back in the rescue car.

Once back at Harnas we darted him and Erin carried out a medical check up, we were also supposed to put a GPS collar on him but after a very stressful couple of hours we just couldnt get the collar to give out a signal. So we didnt want to take the risk of putting a collar on him that might not work. In the meantime I got to name him Samar (named after Jo and Schalks son). We took the decision that we  wouldnt release him the next day and instead wait until the collar was working correctly. Luckily on Friday a new time release collar arrived and we could now release Samar on Sunday.  This collar is the collar that we bought with the money raised from my London fundraiser last year so I had a pretty strong connection to the cheetah already from rescuing it and now from the collar. There were 7 spaces in the car going to release the cheetah and they would be auctioned off to the volunteers to raise money for the next collar to release another cheetah. Schalk yet again made my week and told me that one of the seats in the car was mine! So saturday night we auction off the seats in the car and raised N$ 12,200!! (£1200). Incredible! We darted the cheetah once again to fit the collar, Schalk called me to the clinic and asked me if I would fit the GPS collar as it was my blood sweat and tears that had resulted in this cheetah running free. On Sunday morning we left early and arrived at Tsumkwe at about 10.30am we met up with the bushmanland group and drove for another hour into the Nyae Nyae conservancy to the pans where there is huge lakes of water right in the middle of a very very dry area of Namibia. It was an awesome location and after unloading Samar, we opened the door and hoped that he would run free. It wasn't quite as easy as that and it took 45 minutes and a lot of persuasion to get him to leave the box and run free. But it eventually happened and Samar ran across the open plains and into the bush to start his new life! An incredible moment and very rewarding. Now we just had to hope that he stays safe in his new environment. I have been tracking him these past couple of days and he had walked about 10km south so far, its awesome that the cheetah can be 500kms north of us and I can still see where he is on the computer. So there we were in the north of Namibia, cheetah released and ready to return back to Harnas when we stopped for Diesel. But this is Africa and it was a sunday whcih means no Diesel anywhere and not enough in the tank to get home! New plan was to stay overnight but we had nothing with us, no sleeping bags or mattresses, no food and very little warm clothing. So we were in for a rough night, luckily we were with the bushmanland group so we could share their food and share their bedding. We lit a fire, had a braai and settled down for a pretty chilly night. It was actually not too bad and awesome to be out in the bush. Expect the Unexpected became true once again! Monday morning and we headed back to Harnas 6 hour drive back stopped at a massive Baobab tree and arrived back at about 3pm.

Oh and of course in the middle of all of that I did the induction for 17 newbies and continued my job as volunteer mum!

so thats my news what have ya'll been up to hey?

hope all is good with you guys, sorry i havent been able to reply to your mails yet I will find time!

xx