Singapore Day 1 continuing on from the Africa adventure. Singapore ZOO

Well I'm now in Singapore. Tired but I wanted to post this before bed. Rather than tell you about my awesome day... here it is in pictures!

Singapore Zoo with Azizah! Fun with animals!

The last 2 days in South Africa - Sept 2013

The last 2 days have been good but unfortunately I had a crash and burn on Friday night. It just hit me pretty bad. This is the first time since a major event in my life happened late last year that I have had this much time to think. I’ve tried to keep myself distracted as therapy for me and up until now I have had those distractions but being out here, in the big wide open African savannahs with limited internet, no phone, no tv, and practically nothing to do in our time off (when not working with the animals or cleaning or something) my mind wandered and I had some bouts of depression, Friday night was the most difficult. I cried Friday afternoon and night and just struggled. I prayed, tried to distract myself by reading or watching a movie on my laptop but nothing could deter me from my thoughts. After a drive to the local town Steytlerville, I gained some perspective. This town is a small town but with a big population and the poverty and lower living is very evident. It made me realise how lucky and blessed I am to be Australian, and to have the little luxuries like not sharing a room with anyone else (except my cat) and the things we take for granted. Sometimes a slap in the face with perspective is what I need and I prayed that I would wake up with a better attitude and with ways to distract myself from thinking about the events of my past.

Saturday we took the boys, Jhabulani and Themba hunting again. It didn’t take long for them to catch a duiker (pronounced daeker, it is a type of small antelope, about the size of a dingo, perhaps even a little smaller). Unfortunately for us duiker’s wail and the wails while it was being killed and eaten by the two boys wasn’t a pleasant sound to listen to. Although I don’t know if it is my toughness or not but I actually didn’t feel bad for it or feel like it shouldn’t have happened as a cheetah has to eat as we all do and eventually Gert put the animal out of its misery anyway. The wailing did affect one of the other girls and I also don’t like to see animals in agony but I seemed to handle it better for some reason.

Anyway, we headed back to camp after letting them eat for a bit and getting some photos of them and then we had spare time for pretty much most of the day until feeding time. So we spent some more time with Lukah (YAY!) and gave fresh water to the other cats. I continued reading Part of the Pride by Kevin Richardson (which I strongly recommend) and tried to avoid the windiness of the day.

Saturday night we had a braai which is a bbq on top of a fire and it was the first time that I felt like part of the team here and not just ‘another volunteer’. Lee and Gert joined us as well as Yuko and Mika from Japan that just arrived and Koharu and Eline that have been here with me all week. The food was good, and it was actually quite well organised. I even tried a mouthful of springbok. It was quite tender and the meat was good but I still preferred to stick to my chicken, however I can now say that I have tasted springbok and kudu (earlier in the week).

Today is my last day full day in South Africa as I fly to Singapore tomorrow. Yuko who comes here quite often took us down to Buhle (no cubs unfortunately!) and the boys camp and we spent some time in with them. We then came back and enjoyed leftovers from last nights braai and I finished off my book before heading to Lukah again for last cuddles and time with her. I was lucky in that Koharu and I got to spend some time with Lukah with just us while the others did the fresh water for the other cats. Was nice to sit in peace with her. I am sure going to miss that beautiful cheetah.

This afternoon has been spent out of the wind (which has been terrible the last couple of days) and inside packing and getting ready to leave tomorrow. Tonight we are joining the others again which is nice and I think that it should be like this for the whole time and will be one of the suggestions I make to them on my feedback and we are cooking woodfired pizza and then going on a night game drive. I hope we see aardvark!

Singapore tomorrow brings a whole new adventure where I get to meet Azizah my facebook zookeeper friend and explore Singapore Zoo and other things that Singapore has to offer. Looking forward to it!

Modgaji - South Africa Days 13 and 14

Days 13 and 14

Thursday 12^th Sept – I struggled on Thursday. I think I have been coming down off a mega high being at the Lion Sanctuary and things here are so different than there. In some ways I wish I had done things in reverse. I think I would have appreciated it more here.

I’m finding that I don’t get along with one of the girls here and so we hardly speak to each other. It’s mainly differing opinions (in that she thinks she is always right) and if I’m being really honest it’s putting a slight downer on my time here. I’m trying to stay positive and remember that I can’t possibly get along with everyone in the world and that I shouldn’t let it get to me because lets face it, I’m in SOUTH AFRICA and hanging out with CHEETAHS! Which pretty much makes up for all of the other stuff. I’m finding I have a lot of time to myself which I have been able to use to build my relationship with God.

Ok… so moving on… Thursday we took Lukah for another walk. This time we were out for 3 hours! And again she wasn’t successful. She tried a couple of times but there also wasn’t much around for her to try with. It was a tiring walk, up and down hills but the exercise and fresh air is very good. Though I did find myself singing “Climb every mountain” from Sound of Music for some unknown reason. LOL

We finally made it back to camp and had a break. After our break we cleaned thoroughly cleaned the cool room with bleach. I got a few head spins from that but it’s now clean ready to have another carcass thrown on the floor! Lunch was more left over spag bol… They have been very unorganised in providing us with food, not to say that I have been starving, but they were meant to shop on the Monday and its now Friday and we still don’t have many fresh ingredients. In fact Wednesday night on the menu was a chicken stir fry however we had no chicken so instead we found ourselves eating kudu. Yep, you read right… kudu. Kudu is a type of antelope here with very long horns. I was game enough to try to game meat (haha get it?? LOL oh wow my jokes are lame… Ian at Welgedacht would be laughing though… ) It actually tasted a lot like beef and it was definitely palatable.

After lunch we headed to the boys enclosure and to check on pregnant mumma Buhle (means Beautiful in Afrikaans). No cubs yet. We cleaned the camps and also cleaned the serval, caracal and Lukah’s camp. We had the rest of the afternoon off so I read a fair chunk of Kevin’s book. I’m thoroughly enjoying it and it’s challenging a lot of my preconceived ideas of lions. Loving it.

Friday 13^th – Unlucky for some… not so much for me. This morning we took things relatively easy. Giving fresh water to the cats and spending some time with the Sakura the caracal who didn’t want to say hello to me and then to Lucky and Dexter the servals and on to Lukah again. I love how she just flops down on me and rubs her head against me then licks my hand with such affection. She is adorable. We then cleaned the hyena camp and spent some time with the male cheetahs. While this boys are handsome and beautiful, they won’t come to you like Lukah does. They are also older and probably wiser but it was good nonetheless to have a bit of time with them. Oti thinks that Buhle will have her cubs this weekend as she has already begun lactating. I am not so sure. But it certainly would be very exciting if she did.

There are many vervet monkey’s around and I’ve been trying to get a good picture of one of them but they are just too quick for me.

This world out here is very isolated and sometimes is way too quiet. I feel peaceful here but at the same time am craving other people. Well people that I want to be around anyway. J

So funny story while I have your attention and this actually happened about a week and a bit ago. I had my cheetah manual out at the main house at Welgedacht and Gerald the owner found it and asked if he could read it. Of course I said yes. The next day we meet Kevin for the first time and my manual gets handed over to him. OH NO! My amateur manual being handed to a big cat specialist???? I panicked naturally but it turns out Kevin thought it was good and well written. It now sits at his home as my exchange for his book. Perhaps I’ll do another one on the lion one day…

Here are some photos from the last couple of days. :)

Days 10, 11 and 12 - In South Africa!!

Days 10 and 11 – Firstly just a note that this will be more text than photos as I have limited availability on the internet. Sorry!

A new adventure awaited me on day 10. I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know how different it would be.

Ian, who laughs at all my jokes (though not sure if he is laughing with me or at me… LOL) and my South African husband Wayne dropped me off at the airport after some melancholy goodbyes at Welgedacht. It quite honestly was the best week I’ve had in a long time. Got photos with the boys and said goodbye to my Italian, Berlin living husband, Daniele, (the other volunteer) and Christian, the German Croc man as well. LOL. Was a fun week and I’ve made some wonderful friends both human and animal.

Arriving in Port Elizabeth I immediately had to put a jumper on. It was COLD. And windy but being a Port city I could understand that. Hopes that it would be warmer on camp quickly faded when we arrived. I am now with 2 new volunteers, Koharu from Tokyo and Eline from Holland. The dynamics are completely different with two girls rather than me and two boys. Growing up with 5 brothers has made me more comfortable around boys most of the time so this is good but different.

Gert met us at the airport and we went on the 2.5hour drive out to Modgaji. Modgaji sits on 5000 hectares of land of which free roam vervet monkeys (one of which I am sure is on the roof of my room as I write this), impala, kudu, duiker, giraffe, aardvark, bush pig, baboons (which we saw on the way in), other smaller antelope and many many springbok.

We settled in and had spag bol for dinner before getting an early night ready for a full days work in the morning. Things are certainly different here. We are very very separate from the main house, it’s all three of us girls are sharing a house and by house I mean a building with a room and three beds. The kitchen and bathroom are about 100 metres from the room and it’s pitch black outside with monkeys and African wild cats roaming around! The kitchen is open and very cold and we are cooking our own meals. Very different than Welgedacht. It’s taking me some time to get used to.

Tuesday 10 Sep, Day 11. An early rise and I wasn’t feeling well either. But nothing that a tablet couldn’t fix. Then on the hunt with cheetahs!! We walked two cheetahs Jhabulani and Themba who are brothers to go and hunt with them. We walked along side of them and let them do their thing. Within 10 minutes they had taken down a rather large kudu. We walked up to where they were and were able to even go right near them when they were eating. They are used to humans doing this so they tolerate it.

Gert pulled the guts out and then William and Gert cut the kudu into pieces so we could all drag it back to camp which was about a kilometre away. The two brothers walked back with us, satisfied with their kill. Buhle the female cheetah got a piece of the kudu. They suspect she is carrying cubs and could deliver any day over the next week to two weeks. I hope it’s this week! These cubs are then raised with the mother and then sold to other game reserves to have as wild cheetahs. (Or at least I hope that is what actually happens).

We gave fresh water to the other cats – caracals, servals and the final cheetah Luka. She is only 13months old and is a beauty. We sat with her for a bit and she came to me and licked my hands and play bit me and then flopped down in front of me and purred so beautifully.

The afternoon was spent cutting up the rest of the carcass of the kudu and avoiding the thousands of ticks that were on it. I escaped with no ticks touching my skin thankfully. We then went for a bit of a drive before coming back to feed the meat to the servals and caracals.

A very different day than with the lions.

Wednesday 11^th Sept.

This morning we took Lukah out for a walk. We walked about 5 kms before turning back to come back to the camp. Unfortunately she was unsuccessful in catching two duikers (small antelope). So hopefully we have better luck tomorrow morning with her.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning and we went to Jhabulani and Themba’s camp and Buhle’s camp to find their left over bones and then feed them to the hyenas.

In the afternoon we spent some time with Lukah again. She is so adorable and even affectionately rubbed her head up against mine. I’m in love! J

We fed the caracals and servals again. It’s so funny how their behaviour changes when food is available to them.

I’ll try to post again in a few days but don’t want to waste too much of my money on the internet here. Hope all is well back home!

South Africa Last 3 days at Welgedacht Game Reserve

So the last three days have been pretty spectacular. There are seriously no words to describe the actually feelings I have. 

Friday - We started off the day feeding the lions, hyenas and leopards. Fed them horse legs! Then cleaned the enclosures while they were eating. Also deticked the lions by using a spray and spraying them through the night pens. We then helped water some plants and went to cut down some alien vegetation. Friday night was spent by the fire. 

Saturday - A morning bush walk followed by meeting up with Lozanne and Dee and the black leopard Duke! He is so beautiful and I got a chance to pat him and walk with him! So amazing! 

Saturday afternoon we went for a game drive with Vian. He certainly knows his stuff. Lots of fun. Saw every antelope possible I think! 

Sunday - Today was incredible!! Almost beyond words but just a few... We headed off early up to the striped hyenas, these boys are a bit shy so we waited until they came to us. Which Dhuba eventually did. There is a video on my Facebook. :) Such a great experience. Then we headed out to Mongena Game Lodge to have lunch and join them on a game drive... I will let these photos do the talking but one thing... I SAW WILD CHEETAH!!!!!!

 Won't be able to update blog for a little while as heading to a place that doesn't have wifi available to me all the time. So I hope you've enjoyed this one and I'll update when I can. Tomorrow I head to the Cheetah Rehabilitation Project at Modgaji. :) More adventures await. And I praise God for all of these amazing experiences!