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!