The first night & morning

After dinner on the first night the different projects have a meeting to set out the agenda for the week ahead and there was some drama straight off as two of the cubs from one of the lion prides had gone missing, so the usual Monday morning game drive had been cancelled so that everyone could just track these lions, and the researchers (my group) were going to do some tracking on foot! Cool, I think, how great for my first bush walk! But since Tom & I were newbies we couldn't go out until we'd had our induction, which wasn't only happening until 9am the next morning :(  Oh well, that gives us plenty of time to rest up and get ready our first day in the bush.

The first night's sleep in the bush went surprisingly well, despite lots of dreams of being chased by lions, and I managed to have a shower, which was quite an achievement in itself, not just because there was actual running water.

The shower buckets

We have to use the large oval bowl to stand in in the shower to collect the water, as that is then transferred to the other bucket using the smaller water scooper (just seen in the medium sized bucket) and then used for flushing the loo! And that actually ended up coming in very handy!! So far so good.

 And then there were my little gecko friends. Now, I don't mind a gecko, large or small, they are quite cute little fella's and they eat the other bugs so I am more than happy to have a few residing in my cabin. What was a new discovery though, was the poop. OMG, the poop. for such small creatures they make mountains of the stuff, and it gets everywhere. On your clothes, on the floor, on your bed, I was even attacked by some flying poop that came off the curtain as I drew it, which did make me jump around squealing a bit as I first thought it I was being attacked by a giant evil-looking bug, but no, just the ever-present gecko poop.

Our induction had been moved to 10am so I had a lie-in and sauntered over to investigate breakfast. Cornflakes, branflakes, toast and coffee. Not bad. 

Everyone else was already out looking for the lions, so it was just Tom and I for breakfast and it turned into quite an eventful one. One of the guys who works at Intibane pointed out the python in the rafters that was eating one of the resident birds!! Not what you usually see at breakfast time, but a real treat none the less.

python having its breakfast, thanks to Mbob for the image (more on Mbob later)

There were 4 of us newbies, Miranda, Tom, Lisa and me. Tom & I are on the research project, Lisa & Miranda are on the community. We had our induction with the lovely Tasch, Business Manager of African Impact at Thanda, where she explained how AI works, it goals and achievements, what our role would be, and the general rules and regulations of life at Thanda. She did say they often run out of water as there is always a drought on and the water has to be trucked in, so sometimes there will be no chance for a shower (drinking water always available though, in these temperatures you wouldn't last long without that!). That's ok I reckon, I can be grubby for a bit I think. Ha, little did I realise just how 'grubby' I was going to get!

So then the rest of the day was a bit slow waiting til the others got back and for the next drive at 4pm. The others arrived back at about 10am pretty hot & bothered and no sign of the missing cubs.

The way the week breaks down is Monday & Friday morning is a 3-5 hour game drive looking for certain animals; Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday mornings are conservation work, and each afternoon there is another 3 hour drive at 4pm to track more animals. Then back to camp for dinner at 7pm, bit of chit chat and usually bed by 9pm, when you are up at 4.30am its a long day! Until Mbob started corrupting us all with beer (don't worry, I will explain Mbob in a bit, he is a real person). 

Since we are the research team when we are out on drive and we find certain animals, such as the lions, ellies & rhino, its our job to fill out data sheets on them including their location, number of animals, who they are & what they are doing, as well as trying to get some good shots to use for making up the ID kits. Then all the data needs inputting onto the computer to help Thanda collate all the information we have collected into something useful for the two main conservation guys working for the reserve. Its probably slightly more technical than that, but that will do!

The first drive....

4pm finally arrives and off we go on our first drive woohoo! The first one is always a bit bone-jarring, your body just isn't used to being thrown about like you're in a blender, plus you tend to grip onto the bar in front for dear life so as not to go flying out of the car (fast forward to our 2nd last drive when we were happily playing rollercoaster going over the speedbumps, what a change!)

The Game viewer vehicle, full of photography ladies

Another view of the game viewer, thats me in the back looking oh-so-casual despite the giant ellie in front of us!

It was a fairly uneventful drive, though we did see 7 of the white rhino hanging out together, but unfortunately they soon ran off. Then Jabulani, our guide for this drive, said he could take 2 of us tracking them on foot. He took 2 of the researchers who had already been with the project a couple of weeks, and off they went. They were gone for an age, and this is what they saw, Sarah obviously preferring the relative safety of a tree for a view point, and who could blame her!

Sarah & Jabulani stalking rhino

So that was our first drive done, back to the camp for dinner, with just a small stop along the way to avoid running over four giraffe who stared at us disdainfully as we dared get in their way on the road! It was quite dark by this point so in fairness we didn't actually see them until we were nearly on top of them!

Tried to wash up before dinner but still no water, there had been none  in camp all day, but there were chinese whisper-style rumours that some people had water, so we lived in hope of some for a shower after dinner!

Dinner was something I have already forgotten, probably more chicken & rice (always very tasty though) and then it was beer time as Tom had discovered that you could buy a 6-pack from the management office to keep in the fridge and drink at your leisure (or in Tom's case, 2 days. Tom is Mbob by the way). And then another short walk with my torch in the dark to my cabin, as you can see from my picture below, I didn't actually have far to go!

View of main house from my cabin

So time for bed, but first a shower. Placed my first bucket in the shower in anticipation, turn the taps....and met by a lot of noise but no water. Hmm. Ok, so I'm not that dirty, just sweaty, I guess I will need to take my first swim-shower! It was pretty good considering it was in the frog-orgy pool (frogs and tadpoles long since gone) with amazing views of the stars in the African night sky not marred by any light pollution. So, in the immortal words of Miranda, I wasn't clean, but I was fresh!!