Camping in Pongola


So today 4 of us researchers (Tom, Kari, Maren & I) and Amanda, one of the co-ordinators, are heading off to Pongola Nature Reserve for 2 nights to help out. Its about 1.5 hours north from Thanda and they specialise in rhino conservation. John is the main man there and he was one of the founding members of Operation Rhino back in the '60s and Letitia is his right-hand woman, formerly a guide at Thanda. 


We set off at 6.30am and made the all-important stop at the in-between town of Mkuze for tennis biscuits and beer. Made it in good time despite a good half hour in Mkuze looking for beer  and arrived at around 8am. We were camping right by Lake Jozini for 2 nights. Now, I am not really a camper, but this was ok, it had actual beds and electricity in the tents including a fan, and a good selection of ablution blocks. Normal I would not be excited by the prospect of an ablution block, but I was told that they actually had water for their showers, and I would rather have an ablution block with running water than my own private shower with none!

Inside the tent

Our campsite, Lake Jozini in the distance

After settling into our campsite it was off for some conservation work! This time it was chopping up some acacia trees to use the incredibly thorny branches to form a roadblock to stop visitors to the reserve going down roads they weren't supposed to. It was quite good fun actually, but very hot work as the temperature was in the mid-high 30's.

We then met our vehicle for the duration of our stay, Blue, the Landrover. Part of the fun of Blue is that 2 people get to ride around on top of her. I wasn't convinced that this would actually be fun, considering how hot it was and that all that was on top of Blue was a bum-bruising roof-rack to sit on.

Blue the Landy

Anyway, I bagged an inside seat as the 2 Norwegian girls can't get enough of sun-worshipping so they were happy to sit on top. Our 2nd job of the day was to chop more acacia along one of the roads in the reserve to make it easier for vehicles to pass along. Did I mention we had 2 pairs of secateurs between us? And our other tools were machetes. Blunt machetes and acacia thorns do not work well together!
So there we were, stop-starting our way along the road with 2 sat on top of blue using the secateurs and the rest of us doing our best to get at the main bit of the branch of the acacia to get to work with the machete without getting torn to shreds by the sometimes 2-3 inch long thorns. So far the acacia was winning this battle!

How many volunteers does it take to trim an acacia?

Tom & Kari on rooftop duty

After an hour or 2 of that it was time for a break and some lunch - toasted cheese sarnies, which were quite a treat! Even though the kitchen tent was so hot I kept checking that the hob wasn't on, even the fridge door was somehow red hot!




Off again at 4.30pm for a research drive to track & monitor some rhino, we had some good sightings including a very young giraffe and lots of rhinos. No predators on this reserve, so to keep the animal numbers under control they allow hunting, which made the animals very skittish whenever we got near. They said they would sometimes have to kill an animal just to leave the body for the vultures to feed on, since they would starve if they had to wait for one of the herbivores to die of natural causes before they could have some dinner!






Toilets and Rhinos


We ended on a good night in camp, chatting and drinking as had become our usual custom. At least it had cooled down so sleeping in the tent wasn't so bad. Tom & I were the last to bed and decided since we had heard that the animals, including rhino, often graze very near to the tents at night, it would be safer to use a 'bush-toilet' than wander up to the ablution block in the dark.  I did have to avail myself of our bush bog (really it just involved squatting around the other side of the Quantum minibus we had driven up in! and hoping that if you felt a tickle on your bum cheek it was just a leaf and not a scorpion or worse!) during the night and as I walked to the spot behind the Quantum, searching my flashlight about, I could make out some zebra up towards where the ablution block was, and hear all kinds of snuffling noises that came from who-knows-what. As it turns out, it was probably this group of rhino that were sleeping not too far from our tents in the night!  

They seemed quite surprised to see us all come out of our tents in the morning!

45 degrees and counting!


2nd day in Pongola started with a game drive at 6.30am to search out more rhino. Since it was nice and cool at this time of day I was happy to sit on Blue's roof for the drive, and even though we didn't see much Tom and I had a great time. How often do you get to drive around in the bush sat on top of a Landrover?? And we even drove like that briefly on the main road as we crossed to the other side of the reserve. It was quite fun playing 'how quick can you lie down flat on a roof-rack to avoid losing an eye to an acacia?!' And I did actually end up with a bruise on my bum after 2 hours of that!!

Just to give you an idea, Amanda & Maren riding on top of Blue.

The day was turning into a real scorcher but we set off at 9am to do more conservation work. We drove along the main road that runs through the reserve and our job was to clear yet more acacia to reveal the sign that said 'Pongola Nature Reserve'. As part of the reserve isn't fenced in and the main road runs right through it, there was always a danger that people wouldn't realise that they were actually in a game reserve and drive too fast and knock over a hapless animal that decided the cross the road.






We set to work with our blunt machetes and had sooned cleared a good patch of acacia to reveal the sign. We packed some of the chopped up acacia into the back of the bakkie (like a truck with a open flatbed type thing on the back)  and Amanda & Letitia took 2 loads away to be used for more road blocks, while we sat on the side of the road waiting for them to come back for us, feeling like a chain gang!

Machete's in hand after clearing the acacia to reveal the sign for the reserve. Maren, Kari, me, Tom, Amanda & Sarah (works with the Elephant project at Thanda)

On the drive back to camp we did some more roof-top acacia trimming and it was a hard slog as by now it was nearly midday and was easily 40 degrees.
Just as we were all wilting badly it was announced we were heading back to camp for a rest in 'the heat of the day' before litter picking along the train tracks at 4pm! Now I really did feel like I was in a chain gang!! 
Back at camp it was getting even hotter as we all made more cheese toasties and attempted to rest. 

Hanging out at camp

While the fans had been useful the day before, in this heat they just swirled the air around the tent and made you feel as though you were sat inside a hairdryer on full whack. Gave up on napping after a stressful 30 mins of feeling like I was suffocating on hot air, so decided to try and find a shady spot outside. Kari had bagged the only 'safe' shady lying-down spot, on the bit of tent floor outside Tom's tent, which was the only one to have a bit of shade. Since there was nowhere else to go, I dragged a camping chair over and squigded next to the snoozing Kari, while Tom snoozed inside his tent. Must have looked like he had a harem, all the girls sat outside his tent!!


Just as I was thinking I would have to plead heatstroke (which wasn't necessarily an over-exaggeration) to get out of litter picking at 4pm, Letitia sent a message to say it was cancelled as there was a heat warning out! Yay :)  45 degrees in the shade it was, no wonder we were all flopped about like soggy lettuce!!






Beer will make you cooler..


In our heat-addled brains we decided that the only way to feel better in the heat was to have a beer, as then we wouldn't care that it was too hot, and since we were having a sundowner drive it seemed a perfectly good idea!! Amanda pretended to debate whether she should have a beer as she was technically in charge and responsible for us, but once we promised 'what happens in Pongola, stays in Pongola', she was more than happy to join in! The first sip of luke-warm beer went down a treat, until 10 minutes later when John & Letitia arrived to take us on the evening drive and we more or less had to surreptitiously down our beers! 


Letitia said the news had the temperature at 45 degrees, but the temperature gauge they had at the house said 52 when taken into the sun! 52!! You can more than cook an egg on the pavement in that temperature! Well, it would be a gritty egg, as we had no pavements, only dirt roads!!


So, off we merrily set for our sundowner drive, Amanda and Maren on top of Blue; Tom, Kari & I in the back of the bakkie. Tom perched on a pillow on top of the spare tyre and Kari & I on camping chairs. Probably not the safest way to travel, but we were over-heated and probably dehyrated from the beer, so we were having a great time!
The light couldn't have been more perfect as we split off in opposite directions to meet up at lakeside in time for sunset.


As we drove over the long waving grass to the waters edge, there were several rhino grazing by the shoreline, as well as some zebbies and lots of birds. 

I know I said no rhino pics, just don't tell the poachers where they are!

Sunset

We met up in a lovely spot, a nice safe distance from the rhino and got out the cool box. We decided the only place to have our sundowners was on top of Blue, so up we all went to watch the sunset, beer in hand, lake and Umbombo mountains (and rhino) in the background. It was one of the most amazing and perfect moments I have ever experienced.

Sundowners on top of Blue

Grass angels

Someone had the idea to make grass angels, rather than snow angels, but Maren & I were the only ones who did, the others were worried about ticks, or couldn't be bothered to get down from Blue (it was quite a long way up, or down, one foot on the back tyre, the other onto the open window, then swing up onto the roof-rack, banging knees and ankles along the way) here is the evidence, mind the unfortunate positioning of my beer, I was trying to avoid spillage and didn't notice how poorly I had positioned my bottle!



Potjie, stars and stealing savannah




Once the sun had gone it was back to camp for one of Letitia's delicious potjies (traditional SA meal cooked in a black, cast-iron, 3-legged pot over a fire) for dinner and an opportunity for some star-gazing under a clear African sky. The only light was from the Swazi border post not too far away but we still managed to do some good spotting. Beers in hand (do you see a theme here?) we crooked our necks up while Letitia and Amanda pointed out constellations who's names I have already forgotten but were very pretty at the time, I can however now spot the Southern Cross. It got a bit serious then as they got out their star-gazing books and entered into serious debate over which one was Aquarius, leaving the rest of us to ponder the meaning of life over yet more beer.  I straggled off to bed at some time around midnight, leaving Tom & Kari the last ones standing. Turns out they stayed up til at least 3am and drank all the beer, plus some red wine and Amanda's stash of Savannah (an SA cider)! This story was soon to become a very well-told one back at Thanda!

Another fantastic drive..




So following on from our brilliant drive with the ellies this morning, we switched over and I was on the predator drive in the afternoon. The others had had great sightings of them in the morning so I was really hopeful that we would see lion, cheetah and the ever elusive leopard.


We heard the North Pride were on a kill so headed straight over there, didn't take Anton long to find them. And a very sad looking Warthog mum and one piglet stood not too far away, who I guess had just lost a family member. The piglet was just a snack though, they had an impala kill too.


 I know a lot of people don't like this part of nature, but its what I love about Africa. Everything has such a clearly defined place and purpose, everything is useful in some way and has an important role to play in keeping life ticking over. Don't get me wrong, its really sad to see a poor little bokkie get taken, but then you look at the beautiful lion cubs and you want them to survive too.




I'll start with a really cute pic of some very full tummies...

We were right by the fence line and she had spotted a guy who had gotten out of his car on the other side of the fence (outside the reserve) who was talking on his phone. She proceeded to stalk him for a bit and then must have decided an impala and a wartie were enough for her lay down. See, golden rule no. 1, don't break the line of the vehicle! She paid no attention to us sat in the vehicle about 5-10m away but was very interested in the guy outside the car!

Look away now if you are a bit squeamish....

Makes you think twice about having ribs for dinner!

And my personal favourite..

*sigh* Its so hard being an adorable lion cub

We left them after a while and came across Thulani, one of the other big bulls at Thanda, he was just chilling out on his own at a waterhole. He did try and show of for us a bit though by pushing down a tree...

Thulani

We then saw the group of 7 white rhino that we had seen hanging out together quite a few times.
I'm not supposed to put any pics of the rhinos up, poaching is a huge problem in Africa, there have already been 52 rhino killed just this year, so they don't like to advertise where & how many rhino are about. You'll have to take my word for it that we saw them!!

And on the way back to camp, we came across the cheetah brothers, yay! They were just lying in the grass, apparently there was talk the cheetah brothers had made the impala kill and the lions had stolen it from them. At least the cheetah's looked quite full so hopefully they got a good feed before they lost their dinner!

One of the cheetah brothers.

Then it was back to camp to pack for our trip to Pongola. 4 of us from the research team were heading to Pongola Nature Reserve for a 2 day camping trip. Really looking forward to it, though we are only the 2nd group of volunteers to go and when the others went 2 weeks previous they got really bad rain, so fingers crossed for better weather for us!

Ready for week two


Can't believe the first week has already gone. I'll be honest and say the first couple of days were a bit tough and I was counting down the sleeps until 5th February (that was mostly due to some issues with some people more than anything else. The research team had been together for 2 weeks before Tom & I joined and it was a bit hard at times to break in to the tight-knit group they had already formed) but now I was loving it and really sad to think I only had 6 more sleeps by this point!


We set off at 6am for another 5 hour game drive. We had 2 vehicles for the research team this morning which was nice as there are usually 7 of us researchers, plus one or two of the co-ordinators, and Anton the guide, so it can be a bit of a squash. We split into 2 groups, one tracking ellies, one on predators. I was with the ellie group this morning.




Best drive ever.


So we set off on an ellie hunt and found them feeding in the bushes. We left them there and decided to hang out at a waterhole that Anton said they would come and drink at. And they did...

Here they come

This one's had too much fun

We sat watching them drink and play for ages until they all got out and started moving on. We had to make swift exit though when Mpatha the dominant bull (the one who charged the photographers last week) decided that we had been there long enough. He suddenly had a little run at us and Anton got us straight out of there. It might only have lasted 10 seconds, but it was a scary 10 seconds with this coming at you like he means business!!

Mpatha giving us a charge

St Lucia...it might only be one street long but it sure knows how to have a good time!






Its UK Sarah, one of the researchers, birthday this weekend, so we are all piling of to St Lucia for 2 days. Should be good as I haven't been before, and its a chance for real shops, real food, internet and running water!!!


 So, my shower situation at the lodge. I didn't have a working shower from Monday morning to Thursday night, which let me tell you, as someone that washes their hands a lot, this was not easy! But, you have to just remember that there is a severe drought and the whole area is struggling, so I really shouldn't make a fuss. Which would be a lot easier if I wasn't just about the only one who didn't have any water!! So I became a bit of a shower slut, I went to anyone's cabin so long as they had running water! After 2 days of wet wipe washes while living & working in the bush I was ready to get grumpy, so thanks very much to Amanda, Sarah & Sophie for letting me use their showers whenever I needed to! Needless to say I was very excited about the prospect of a whole weekend with unlimited water!!


We arrived in St Lucia at about 5pm and this is it...

The one street in St Lucia

it was actually a really great place and I would definitely recommend a visit. After some initial confusion over rooms we got checked in to relative luxury compared to what we were used to at Thanda, and I was sharing with US Sarah & Miranda, both from the community project. We had lost Tom somewhere along the way, but found him at Ocean Basket (really good seafood) and had some really good grub for dinner, though strangely I was the only one having seafood, all the others were having steak from the adjoining restaurant! Can't really blame them though, South African steak is the best in the world I reckon! Quite an early night for us, in bed by midnight, falling asleep to the sounds of St Lucia nightlife - the karaoke bar across the road.




Saturday morning saw pretty much everyone hanging out at a local coffee shop enjoying bacon, eggs and real coffee, glued to laptops, either editing photos or updating blogs. Or for those who rolled home at 2.30am drunkenly singing 'Happy Birthday' it was spent sleeping by the pool! I had already explored the 'town' the night before but still somehow managed to spend 2 hours walking up and down the street visiting all the shops again and the Spar at least 7 times. It was suddenly so hard to make a decision on the type of crisps to get and how many packets of biscuits, all to be taken back to Thanda for feasting on between bone stew and pap (African dish of maize meal, looks a bit like mashed potato but do not make the mistake of thinking it tastes anything like mash and putting a lot on your plate. You will regret it, it is the most tasteless food ever invented, even smothered in sauce).


Saturday afternoon Tom, Miranda, Lisa (also from the community project) and I took the boat trip to see the crocs and hippos, which was pretty nice just floating around in the sun. This is what we saw...

Two Pied Kingfishers having a domestic

Some crocs

Not so much hungry as happy hippos

Since it was UK Sarah's birthday all 20-odd of us were going out to dinner together to the Italian called Alfredo's. Really good food again, I had a super steak, and a couple of people even had impala stew! Lots of wine and good times, followed by a trip to Babooshka Sports Bar, the place to be seen in St Lucia. So there I am, partying on a Saturday night in flipflops and unstraightened hair, just a tad different from Leeds on a Saturday night! But actually a lot more fun! Much dancing and merryment was had, even though I left at about 1am, some others including the birthday girl (led by, more like) were out til 6am!






Part of the reason my little group were early to bed is that we had booked to go on the Isimangaliso (say that 3 times fast) wetlands tour from 9am-2pm. It involves a drive through the game reserve where we saw more hippos, some lovely kudu and a great troop of baboons wandering across the road. The drive takes you down to the most gorgeous beach, where you can snorkel, but it wasn't the right tide, so we had to just lie on the beach for 2 hours instead. Its a hard life.

Baboon hanging out

Isimangaliso Game Reserve

Sophie, Tom, Me, US Sarah, Sam, Miranda

Well, it was a bit hard actually, our driver for the day said there was water & snacks in the car, so I went back to get some only to find the vehicle full of vervet monkeys who had eaten whatever snacks he had brought! I wasn't too pleased, and I'm sure one of the monkeys hissed at me as I reached in to get a bottle of water (not so interested in that!), unfortunately I didn't have my camera at that moment so no pics. We were a tad hungry but had to make do with a bag of crisps and some chocolate chip cookies between us, but we managed!


Back to St Lucia for 2pm, time for a quick shower, some lunch, some last-minute desperate internetting & binge-shopping at the Spar and back to Thanda at 5pm. It was a much quieter drive home as all the hangovers kicked in. 


First week done, Thanda already felt like home, and I was thinking I was wishing I had booked 4 weeks instead of 2!

Golden rules...




Our first 5 hour game drive this morning starting at 6am, had to plan the fluid intake very carefully as I didn't want to have to ask Anton for a bush break! I would guess he would have to escort me to a suitably safe spot and stand guard, think I would rather be dehydrated, thanks all the same!


We came across the South Pride brother & sister again and they were still mating! 

The look of love

One of the golden rules of game viewing is not to break the outline of the vehicle. The animal can see a large object (the vehicle) and usually gets used to it and realises its nothing interesting but if a person in the vehicle were to stand up or move around, the animal would see it was something smaller and individual and might see it either as a threat, or a snack. I was sat at the back, on the outside and was trying to get my camera out of its case and get the strap around my neck and in doing so lifted my arm up, ... and broke the outline of the vehicle! And boy did the lioness notice! They had been calmly lolling about until this point where she immediately locked eyes on me and moved up to a stalking-crouch position and took a few steps closer. Anton said in his calm voice 'watch out at the back there' as my bowels loosened ever so slightly (one for my soon-to-be brother in law there). Thankfully she soon lost interest and went back to lolling.

Erm, is she looking at me?!

We hung around for a bit but it just seemed rude to keep watching and once a Thanda main vehicle arrived (complete with 2 very posh rich-looking looking older women, one of whom dropped her lens cap outside the vehicle and I swear she was going to try and pick it up until her driver said not to! The lions were very interested by all of this!) we decided to move on.




We tracked the ellies for ages but couldn't find them, we even drove to the top of a hill and got out to stretch our legs and have a good binoc around to see if we could spot them. And we did yay! Quite a way in the distance and in terrain that our vehicle couldn't easily get to, so we decided to try and get closer to a rhino that we had also spotted in the distance. By the time we had driven round to where the rhino had been, it had of course moved on. Anton decided the best plan was to find a nice spot and just sit and wait for the ellies. Golden rule no 2 of game viewing, patience is a virtue. We sat for what seemed like ages in the blazing heat (well, partly shaded by an acacia, but have you ever seen an acacia??) but in reality was probably only 20-30 mins, having some snacks and a snooze, being entertained by a lovely journey of about 11 giraffe (that's what you call a bunch of giraffe on the move) while we waited.

More of a tangle than a journey

We could hear the ellies before we saw them, snapping branches as they munched their way towards us. And then they all came wandering out, slowly making their way around our vehicle, looking at us but not really caring that we were there.

And then there were ellies

Just another day in the bush.

Elephant Charge at Thanda, read the post below first...

In the trenches


So today's conservation activity is working on the waterhole. This is the waterhole-in-progress that we saw the lions at 2 days ago! Thankfully when we arrive they are nowhere to be seen, though there is a rather concerned looking giraffe lurking in the distance.


The plan is to create the waterhole so that Thanda can bring in 2 hippos. We arrive and end up doing the usual thing of hanging round for at least 30 mins while the bods in charge make up their minds what to do.

The waterhole

 The group last worked on the waterhole about 2 weeks ago and since then there had been some torrential rain, so we spent the first hour or so with shovels in hand clearing away the little trench that had been dug to surround the waterhole. There is a material called bentonite, which is kind of like plaster of paris and acts as a base for the waterhole so that when the water goes in it won't all slowly seep out into the ground below. The problem being that the team had already laid out some rolls of bentonite 2 weeks ago, and once it gets wet its starts to harden and weighs an absolute ton (it literally does I kid you not), so after much deliberation (Anton being a stickler again, boy, is he stubborn!) we decide to have a go at rolling out another piece. Its a very fine art trying to line up your rolls of bentonite, and after even more deliberation and false starts (including having to drag it into the correct position for unrolling by use a Landrover) we started pushing. And grunting, and lots more pushing and grunting and breaks for 'what shall we do next' discussions, until eventually we got the roll out and in the right place! That was a great feeling, I really enjoyed today's conservation work, it really felt like we had achieved something and the AI & Thanda staff where really pleased with what we had done, so pats on backs all round!

Having a rethink

The end result!

Spider Alley
Yes, it is as bad as it sounds


First night drive tonight yay! We head out at 8pm and its already dark. Anton says we are going looking for lions! And after 10 mins, we find them! Brother & sister from the South Pride. There are few things quite so scary as coming across 2 fully grown lions at night and watching them pass within feet of your vehicle, especially when Anton kept turning off the lights for some reason! And I was sat in the front on the outside, I was convinced I was easy pickings! We followed them for about 10mins and then lost them in the grass. No pics I'm afraid, was too mesmerised to get my camera out!


Night drives are really magical, you feel so close to the bush in the pitch dark flashing the spotlight around searching for the reflection from an animals eyes, hearing all the frogs and crickets singing away. What is not so magical is that night time is also when the spiders like to set up house.


The pic below is not one of mine, but you can see the size of the buggers. And they were everywhere. 

The golden orb spider

Really bad idea to sit in the front on a night drive, no wonder the guys who had already done one let Tom & I have the front seat. So as we drive along we rely heavily on teamwork and shouts of 'spider', or 'look out' or 'incoming' as generally all being animal lovers we don't want to disturb them, and I must say, their webs are pretty impressive, some must have been as big as a fridge door! But still, I don't really want that all over my face in the dark, now do I?? We had quite a few funny moments as we all ducked and dived to avoid having a spider for dessert, not all attempts were successful as both Kari & Tom did indeed get a face full of either spider or web, and boy are those webs sticky and strong! At the same time as playing spider sweep you also had to keep a look out for the ever-present acacia thorn waiting to launch an attack on an unsuspecting eye or arm. Sometimes they'd be coming at you from both sides!
We did see a white-tailed mongoose and some kind of owl (I forget which) and we could smell the ellies but since we were actually avoiding them that was as close as we got. The reason that we were avoiding them was that while the photographers were on their afternoon drive they came across the herd with one of the dominant bulls, Mpatha. Normally that would be ok, but he is in musth, which is the male version of being in heat, and they get very aggressive and protective of their herd during this time. 

Mpatha

And Mpatha decided he didn't like the look of the photographers this afternoon, and launched a full on charge on them. That is quite unusual as usually they just do a mock charge to scare you away, but this was a genuine one. And a pretty terrifying one at that, one of the photographers took a video, youtube link should be at the end of this post.


So that is why we were avoiding the ellies on our night drive! After 3 & a half hours of driving around and not really seeing much after the first 10 mins of lions, we finally start heading back, and yay, see the lions again! This time they were mating in the road! I know, shocking on so many levels! After giving the male a fright he soon resumed business and we left them to it.


So finally back at camp at about 11.30pm, to be up for a 5 hours drive at 6am, followed by party weekend in St Lucia. I can see I won't be leaving Thanda a healthy and well-rested person!

Chromolina ain't no picnic but its still better than poles!




Second day of a 4.40am start for conservation, this time chromolina removal. Its an alien vegetation species that none of the animals eat and just grows on everything and so blocks pathways for the animals. We spent at least 2 hours next to a croc-infested river (well, Anton said there was one in there but sadly we never saw it!) Once again the machetes, shovels and my favourite, the pick-axe were out in force, we did a pretty good job actually and cleared quite a good sized area to create a path for the animals to access the river.

The pile of chromolina, not actually from my days work, but you get the idea!

Ellie vs Dog


Was a fairly uneventful day, we didn't see much on our afternoon drive until we ran into a bit of ellie drama. We had been looking for them unsuccessfully for a few hours when out of the thick bushes we heard an ellie trumpet, and it didn't sound like a happy ellie! So we sped off to find them and heard on the radio that the ellies were being bothered by the pack of wild dogs! The ellies weren't in any danger, I think the dogs just enjoyed irritating them! As we came around the corner we could see & hear one of the females giving chase to the dogs in the distance. They were a bit away from us though, and no chance of a photo, and then we looked in the other direction and somehow the rest of the herd had snuck up on us and seemed quite distressed. All the little ones were with their mums and they all hurried past us, ears & trunks in the air, to see what all the commotion was up ahead. By the time we got to them all was calm, we got a fleeting glimpse of the dogs looking very relaxed and the ellies feeding, before we unfortunately had to move on to make way for the proper paying safari guests staying at Thanda main (you remember the pictures of the lodge, even though we were doing important research work you can understand why the guests at the fancy lodge get first dibs on sightings!)


No decent pics sadly but a half decent video that I will try and upload later!

Conservation...not what you think it is...




Up at 4.40am bright and early for my first proper day as part of the research & conservation team - this morning, its conservation work! Slightly concerned about what that might mean as I have already heard some worrying stories but I have come here to try new things, so I shall embrace it!!
Off we all go into the game viewer with Anton, our lovely guide (he wasn't so lovely a few hours later when he was determined to beat the concrete, but I'll get to that in a minute!) and off we  go, driving along in the bush at 6am on a beautiful clear African morning. After about 15 minutes of driving we arrive at our destination and I see the bucket of gloves, and the shovels. And the pick axe. Not sure about all this.


Thanda reserve has recently been extended and they have taken down the electric fence to join to two areas, pole removal is simply what it sounds like, digging the remaining poles that held the fence up out of the ground. So we split into 2 teams, thank heavens I was with the slightly less committed team when it came to their attitude; we could see the other team battling away at their poles and it sure did look hard work. So off we set to our pair of poles, marching through the actual wild bush on foot, quite exciting really! 
But let me tell you, I do not like poles. They are no fun to hammer at with a pick axe when you can barely lift the bloody pick axe off the ground, let alone 'find the swing and let it do the work for you', as Amanda so kindly pointed out. 

Amanda in the centre, cheerful as always!

With the help of Martjin the Maniac (who really enjoys hacking away at anything with a pick-axe or machete), we eventually got the crossbar pole loose. Now for the 2 sat in heaven only knows how much concrete! Away we go digging at the base of the first pole, this is hot and sweat work and its only 7am! Were struggling a bit with the 1st pole, so decided to have a sneaky go at chopping the 2nd pole off a couple of inches above ground and seeing if it would be easier to dig out of the ground that way. Turns out not really, so we decided to smash the stump of wood  down and then use our landscaping skills to cover the remaining concrete with some earth, rocks and very strategically placed bits of grass. First pole - done! 


The main aim is to ensure the animals can pass freely without injuring themselves on anything left behind by man, and I think we made a good decision to give in to the cement and allow it to remain! We start the same procedure on the 2nd pole, aware that the other team are having some difficulty with theirs. Figure we'd better make a big show of working really hard and celebrating loudly as if we have finally dug our last pole out of the ground, and then quickly covering up our cheating with the same plan as before. What a lovely rockery we created! Job done!


So we mosey on back to the other team where they are still hard at work on their 2nd pole. It was a beast of a pole, encased in so much concrete that the hole they had dug around it was so deep that they were stood in it up to their elbows!

Look at me, I'm actually helping!

The pic above is the dreaded pole in question. It just wasn't shifting, despite Anton's insistence that we keep at it. We even tried attaching a wire from the pole to the game viewer to try and shift it, but that just broke the wire. So in the end, it met the same fate as the other poles, and enjoyed the benefit of some strategically placed shrubbery. Thank heavens we only had time for one day of pole removal during my time at Thanda!

Maren wielding the pick-axe 

Amanda was determined not to let the pole beat her!

Teamwork!

Cheat Sheet


Bear in mind its only about 9.30am now! So back to camp for Tom & I to have some ID training with Anton. This is where we learn about the animals we will be researching and how to ID them. Not half as easy as it sounds, there are 6 bull elephants on Thanda and they all have names like Majimbos & Masinyavondo & Mpatha and you differentiate between them by a minuscule notch in the left ear, or a groove in the tusk, or a slightly longer than normal tail. Time I went back to Specsavers I think.


We actually really enjoyed this part and Tom came up with the great idea of making a cheat sheet for us to use when out on drive, and we also rechristened a few of the bulls for our own use. So Majimbos became Dracula (he has 2 tusks that point straight down) and Masinyavondo became Mosey because, well, you try pronouncing Masinyavondo in a hurry! The bulls all have Zulu names but I quite liked Amanda's names for the females - such as Tuskless Cow (she had no tusks but was still the Matriarch), short tusk, long tusk, odd tusk etc etc. You can guess how she came about the names, not exactly ethnic but much easier to remember!

Masinyavondo aka Mosey

Majimbos aka Dracula

Training was followed by lunch, followed by a nap and then out again at 4pm for the afternoon drive. We were looking for the North Pride hoping to see if the missing cubs were back, we had heard that one was, but one wasn't. It didn't take Anton long to find them, they were happily chilling out on top of a mound of earth where we would very soon be helping to build a waterhole!! But only 2 cubs instead of 3. The pride is made up of 2 adult females and 3 cubs, 2 girls and a boy.I was so excited to see them, lions are my 2nd favourite animals (after ellies, though sometimes its a tie) and I've never really had a good lion sighting, and definitely not during the day. Anton drove us so close to them, we must only have been 15m away. They noticed us, but were definitely not interested in us. They did look a bit sad though, missing their little brother :(

One of the North Pride female cubs

We moved on from that sighting and saw a herd of buffalo which was pretty good as they are another animal I haven't really seen before. Look at this charmer...

We then drove around looking for the ellie herd and eventually found them at dusk. It was quite dark by now so it wasn't great conditions for photos but it was a great sighting. One of the young juveniles likes to come over and inspect the vehicles, and he did that to us, giving us all a good sniff and actually touching the car with his trunk. Then 3 of the little ones decided to show us how big & macho they were and started practising their best charge faces on us, just about the cutest thing I have ever seen!

You can see how close he was to the vehicle

So the day ended much better than it began!