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!