South Africa Part 3

My apologies for the delay in posting this. We have been without internet for a little while. But it has meant that I have been more focused on being here and being in the moment. Being in Africa really teaches me that there is more to life than behind a computer screen or looking at my iphone for hours on end. We really need to be more in the moment and live our lives with the people around us. Being in Africa also teaches me that it is only just the beginning of my adventures, particularly with animals. I only started this journey 2.5 years ago and I have a long way to go. I am fascinated by the African animals. Don’t get me wrong, I love Australian native animals as well (I mean seriously how cute are quokkas and koalas!) but there is just something about the African animals and nature of the big big animals that draws me to them. I have so much to learn though so this is why it is the very beginning.

Monday was an extremely hot day. Actually the whole week has been hot. It’s been in the 30s all week (Celsius) and I will definitely be coming home with a tan. (Don’t worry I am putting sunscreen on every day but we are outdoors working so it’s hard to avoid!)  

We started off with some animal checks and then I joined George to fix some electric fences. Hannah and another vollie joined us and we found some faults and George used his expertise to fix them. We then cleaned the north side of the big enclosure. We managed to pick up an entire otto bin full of bones. Skulls, ribs, pelvis, all of the body parts. This is leftover from when we feed the lions. As the big enclosure has no night den, the food is thrown over the fence and the lions are free to take it wherever they like in the enclosure. Therefore a big job to get through it all.

We only got through half of the big enclosure before heading back to the camp for lunch. The food has been absolutely delicious here. I’m bound to come back a few kilos heavier.

In the afternoon we did some enclosure maintenance and watered some trees. I didn’t take many pictures on this day.

Tuesday – another hot one. This morning in the morning animal checks we gave Vayetse and his girls Olivia and Virginia (Livvy and Ginny) a whole kudu carcass as part of enrichment. It was dragged into their enclosure and then the lions released to enjoy. The girls first who played with it trying to kill it (even though it was already dead) and then finally settling down for a bite before we released Vayetse. Some very satisfied lions.

In the afternoon, Hannah and I joined Lozanne in the North to move some rocks and do some enclosure maintenance and general tidy up and clean. Before we headed to do another load of rocks for the blood pit we also headed to the dam for a swim. Well I didn’t swim but Hannah did and so did Bailey the pup.

In the evening we joined Daka, one of the workers here, and watched the Orlando Pirates play the Black Aces in the South African football league. Aces won unfortunately 2-1. Was good to get a bit of football in though. I’ve missed it.

Wednesday – FEED DAY! I love these days. I joined Lozanne and two vollies in the north enclosures (Meg and Amy, the four boys Icarus, Delta, Aslan and Unathi, and Gandalf, Sibindie and Khussasa along with the two black leopards Nikita and Coal and Geena’s hyena group) to feed and clean. It’s so thrilling to see how excited and worked up they get about food. 

In the afternoon we spent some time with Nicholas, the baby hyena and also watering plants and filling up water holes for the animals as well as the dirty horrible job of fly trap cleaning. Not everything is glamorous.

We spent a lovely evening watching a movie together and eating popcorn.

Thursday – This morning the decision was made to wake early and work from 6-10.30am and then 3.30-6pm. A much better idea and it made moving rocks a little more bearable as the heat had not hit yet. This morning after an animal check we did 4 loads of rocks for the blood pit. I finally feel like we are getting somewhere with it. It was so good relaxing during the middle of the day and then we went on a game census drive and wild lion tracking just beating the storm back to the camp before we got caught in the middle of it. Was kind of scary driving into it. But we made it out.

On the game census we spotted Kudu, Wildebeest, Zebra, Giraffe, Waterbuck, Blesbuck, Thebessa antelope, guineafowl, Jackal, plenty of birds and warthog. Unfortunately for us no elephants and no lions again. Even with the aid of the telemetry it was still difficult to find the wild lions… so I guess that still remains on my bucket list. There is always next time. A lovely dinner and birthday celebration for one of the vollies before going to bed. We have two more days here and then we are off to Madagascar. I won’t be able to blog from there as there won’t be any internet but stay tuned for the blog upon my return from Africa.