Merry Christmas

Ok, so it has been a long time since my last post-lets see how we go.

I spent a lot of time studying for my trails guide exam, which I didnt feel I went well in, and wasnt sure I would pass (there were 3 sections and you had to get a minimum of 60% in each section and an overall average of 75% to pass. One section, on rifles, only had 20 points so get one question wrong an you would fail, considering I made a lot of those answers up, my confidence wasnt high!!!) The result is I did actually pass!!! Miricles do happen :)

Almost as soon as we had finished our exam we all headed off on our placements. I am just down the road at Karongwe, with a volunteer organisation called GVI, doing research. This involves two drives a day (spread between all the staff, so I am not on two drives a day every day), trying to find all of our focus animals each drive. Our focus animals are a female cheetah called Ketswiri, two male Cheehtas called Jabu and Djuma, and 4 lions, Maggie, Lisa, Zera and a sub adult male. We also collect data on any sightings of leopard, elephant, hyena, or anything unusual such as pangolin, honeybadger etc.

I have had some really great sightings, we walk in on the cheetahs every day to check on them, this is an amazing feeling to be so close to a wild animals with no rifle etc. The other animals we only view from the car. For the first two weeks I was here I was just a passenger, learning the roads etc, but for the last week or so, I have been driving, and really learning the roads, the next step is actually trying to use the radio which I am slightly scared of.

I have had some amazing sightings while being here already. I have seen a leopard make a Jackal kill just next to the car, seen baby hyena who are so cute, a 2 day old buffalo calf, leopards trying to mate, lions on a kill, cheetahs on a kill. No matter how many times I see the animals, I always love it.

Assessment Drives, Snakes, Elephant rides and Kruger

Ok so it has been a while since my last update-where does the time go????

The last two weeks of semester was spent madly trying to study and get ready for my assessment drive, where we had to take a 3 hour game drive, trying to cover all the topics that we have learn over the course.

Over the two week period we also got to go on a lot of other peoples assessment drives, which were good as you got to see how other people did their drives, and got to eat their really good food on the drinks break, but after doing 5 drives of the same route you also got to know all the trees things that they would stop at.

My drive was on the Thrusday night of the first week, which convienently also happened to be in the middle of the pouring rain. Trying to do a game drive for 3.5 hours, in the rain, with people who really didnt want to be there, and not seeing any animals was very difficult, but the result was I passed!!!

The Friday was then spent on an overnight stay at GVI, for an interview on placement, where I was subsequently offered a placement and where I will now be spending the next 7 months.

The second week was then spent on more game drive assessments and after the final ones, a few days relaxation, before we started our week off.

The first weekend of our week off was spent up at a fellow students house, having a farewell party, and then I headed back to camp and as I had hired a car with Lukas.

Monday was spent relaxing at camp, then Tuesday Lukas and I headed off to a snake handling course together. This was so much fun, we got to handle several very venomous snakes (Snouted Cobra, Mozamique Spitting Cobra, Boomslang, Black Mumba) as well as a couple of Rock Pythons, one of which was 4m long! The most scary was the python as it went for you while the others tryed to move out of your way.

Wednesday Lukas and I headed off to do an Elephant Back Safari, which was also fantastic, it was great to see the bush from another prospective. While it wasnt very long only about an hour or so, it was peaceful and lovely to be out in the bush in a different way.

Thursday we headed down to Kruger for the day, leaving camp at 2.30am, and getting to the gates as they opened at 5.30, driving round all day (and seeing some really amazing things, Hyena cubs, Lion cubs, Impala babies, a Leopard in a tree with a kill, Elephant babies) and not getting home until about 9.30pm.

The last couple of days have been spent relaxing but it is back to the books now to study for our last exam which is next Friday, and then we head out on placements, and the next stage of the adventure begins.

Hyena cub getting up close and personal

Lion cub

FGASA exam

This week saw us sit our final FGASA (Field Guides Association of Southern Africa) exam, the first of 3 exams we have spent the course aiming towards.

The week was spend doing a lot of study, Monday was totally study, Wednesday afternoon was study, and Thursday was totally spend doing study.

The upside was that we did get to go to Kruger for a day trip this week Team A on Monday and us on Tuesday. While we didnt actually see a huge amount (we did see a herd of over 500 Buffalo which was amazing siting in the middle of them, and three Buffalo sorting out their territorial differences) it was great to get out of the camp for a day during the stress of the looming exam.

Wednesday morning we had an info session on what to expect on the exam, and anything else we had questions on. The reast of the day was then spend madly studying for the exam on Friday, with the result being a late rather late night.

Thursday was spent again studying another lond day and late night, with an equally early morning on the Friday for a bit of last minute revision before the test began. I felt that I had done well enough to pass, and we left the tests in the hands of our trainers busily marking them as we all headed into town to head back to the traffic centre and the next step in our licence and PDP application-pick up the result from our fingerprints from one room, walk to the counter 10 meters away and hand the form back in-all in all took about 2 hours, actually quite quick. After lunch in town we headed back to camp and got the all important results of the exam. I was pleasently surprised to find that not only did I pass very well, but also got the highest mark on the course by half at mark at 96%

Satuday I decided to head out on a game drive in the morning with the result that I again didnt get a lot of sleep as it involved an early morning, and then we headed up to Mahlahla for dinner and some relaxing. Sunday was spent doing as little as possible before the study again resumes on Monday for my assessment drive on Thursday, the second of our three major tests

Dragonfly
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Buffalo

Buffalo

Ground Hornbill

Camp at night

Vultures

Bush dinner and study

The time has been flying by, with lots of study being done in preperation for our final exams which are looming

Monday was spend cleaning up the camp after our week off, and then we were taken out on a "Guest" game drive by our trainers to give us an idea on how to run ours for our assessments. We spent quite a while watching dung beetles rolling their dung balls around, then found the elephants and had a lovely time watching them and being surrounded by them. As we were heading home we then found 4 young lions attempting to hunt, and followed them around for quite a while-one of the best game drives I have been on!

Tuesday was spend studying in the morning as and then we hosted Team A in a bush dinner. Considering what we have available to us, it was absolutely beautiful and they really enjoyed it.

Wednesday I headed out on a bush walk with two of the trainers and another student, and we were blessed with finding some elephants again, and getting to watch them for about 45 minutes on foot, but from high up on the river bank as well as up close as we crossed the river. We also tracked and tried to find a lioness on foot but to no avail, but did see th remains of a kill. The afternoon was then spent on a game drive, not a lot was seen this time, but it was great to practice what we are going to have to do on our assessments.

Thursday I again headed out on a morning game drive, where we saw a lot of birds, and I got a much better idea on where I would like to go on my assessment, now I just need to be able to navigate it without getting lost-that should be fun particularly once it gets dark! The afternoon was then spent studying, in preperation for our birding test we had on Saturday.

Friday was a long day of study of birds, ID's and Calls, we have a list of 160 birds we need to be able to ID by sight, and 100 to ID by sound, so it was a cramp session trying to learn as many bird calls as possible ready for our test.

Saturday morning was spent doing bird IDing the visual ID wasnt too bad, but the calls all just sound the same, so didnt go so well. Being just before Halloween we then dressed up (or at least the girls did) and we all headed up to the local bar at the neighbouring reserve to have some fun. A lot of people had dressed up and we all had a great night.

Today it is back to the books, in preperation for my big final exam on Friday

Bush Dinner

Watching Elephants

Watching Elephants

Elephants

Bush Dinner

Dung Beetle

Rifle exams

This week consised of a lot of game drives and our ARH (Advanced Rifle Handling) assessments.

Monday was a game drive in the morning. It was a fairly quiet drive, but we did get a fantastic close viewing of a big male Lion, who was just chilling under a tree. The afternoon we again had placement talks, to check what we were interested in doing.

Tuesday we started our ARH, our group was up in the morning, where I managed to both drop a bullet in my first part of the assessment, pass the second part and completely miss the targets in the third part-unfortunately I didnt manage to get my basic Rifle Handling, let along my ARH. The afternoon was spent on another game drive, where we saw the Rhinos at night, we had been tracking them most of the afternoon and only managed to bump into them on the way home in the dark-lovely to see nontheless.

Wednesday we had another game drive in the morning, where we again didnt see much, but are getting some good practice at identifying trees and getting our basics down for our assessment drives. In the afternoon we had another go at getting our ARH, and this time I managed to do even worse, passed the first part, but then couldnt hit the target with my third bullet in the second part-again I missed out on my ARH.

Thursday we had game drives in the morning, doing more tree ID, and basics. Once again, not a whole lot was seen. The afternoon we chose not to go on our game drive, but instead study as we were had to go to town on Friday to apply for our PDP's and therefore would miss out on a lot of our study.

Friday was spent entirely in town, arriving about 8.30 and sitting at the traffic centre all day, finally getting out about 3.30, and racing round to do our shopping for the week off, before heading back to camp, getting back about 6.

After the test on Saturday we started our week off, the rest of the Saturday was spent being lazy, and then Sunday I started doing some work to finish my workbook off and begin my revision for our final FGASA exam, practical assessment drive and Birding exam.

Monday, Tuesday and today have also been spent as lazy mornings and study in the afternoon and often late into the night-as will the rest of the week, not the most enjoyable week off I have had, but neccissary.

A moth decided my leg was the best place to sit, and it was huge so we wanted photos of it

Beautiful Male lion

Some of the smaller animals-Dungbeetle

Cats Cats and Rifles

It has been an interesting week.

Monday we had conservation all day, a lecture in the morning on conservation and reserve management, and then a DVD in the afternoon on the history of conservation in South Africa-it is very interesting, but I am not sure that I would want to take on the responsibility.

Tuesday we had our last lecture of the course, History and Culture. To make it more interesting (learning about the stone age and iron age just doesnt grab me the same way as mammals, or reptiles etc do) we had a waterbuck sprint straight past the lecture room. We thought it was a bit strange, but didnt think anymore about it, until 2 cheetah followed the waterbuck stopping just outside the classroom-that really did distract us from the lecture. As good prospective guides, we all headed outside to have a look at the cheetah which had decided that they were tired and wanted a lie down under the trees. We got a fantastic sighting of them, managing to get about 10m away. The rest of the lecture was a little more difficult to concentrate in after that, and not quite so interesting.

We then headed out on our sleepout for the semester in the afternoon. We went to a new spot, a small drainage line. It was a pleasent time, and then at 2am the people on watch found a lion with the spotlight only about 4 meters from where we were sleeping-that certainly got us up, we had to wake the rest of the group up and get into the cars where we would be safe until the lions moved off. Needless to say after 2 very cold hours in the vehicles, we headed back to bed at about 4am, but as I was on watch at 5, there was no sleep that night-it was all worth it though.

Wednesday afternoon we had our last rifle dry runs before we got to shoot our first rounds on the Thursday, just to check we were capable to do our AHR (Advanced Rifle Handling) next week.

Thursday we had a game drive in the morning, where although we didnt see much was good, and managed to find a few new road, and learn some more about the trees and animals. The afternoon was rifles which I found quite fun, never thought I would say that about guns. I managed to do quite well, didnt really feel the kickback from the rifle but clearly dont have enough muscles to hold the rifle up for long, I started out quite well and then my shots all started to go low-my best effort was getting two bullets through the same hole, so I thought I had missed with the second on!

Friday was another long day of study, ready for our test on Saturday.

On Saturday a couple of us headed into town where we had organised to do some rifle practice, to see if we improve our aim. Afterwards it was back to camp for our test and then a lazy afternoon in my room watching movies.

Vulture

Cheetah near lecture room

Sleepout

Birds Birds Birds

This week was our birding week, a whole week of nothing but learning about birds, and trying to identify them.

Monday and Tuesday were both spent in lectures learning about birds, their beak structues, how they eat, their feathers-who knew there was so much to learn about birds!! We also spent quite a lot of time trying to identify birds from slides-some were easy, some were quite difficult=especially when you dont know what species you are actually looking for let alone what the bird is called.

Wednesday and Thursday were both spent out in the field doing game drives trying to identify as many different species of birds as we could-needless to say there was a challeng put out as to which team could identify the most birds, Team A or Team B.

We both did really well on both days, Team A ended up with 76 birds on the Wednesday while Team B ended up with 74.

Thursday we cleared the slate, so we started our counts again, this time Team B ended up with 91 birds, while Team A only had 88. (As I am on Team B, Thursday is the only day that really counts for us. Especially considering we had a slight mishap with our car breaking down, so had to tow it back to camp and get another one, thus losing us valuable searching time)

Zorbing at Rocking 4 Rhinos-so much fun!

Drivers test!!!!

This week has felt very long, and while I am glad that it is over, tomorrow we are going to the Rocking for Rhino's festival (a festival to raise awareness and funds to help fight rhino poaching which is a massive problem here at the moment) to run a kids stall. I am on face painting which should prove to be quite hilarious!

Monday we started off with a camp clean up after our week off, and then I headed into town to drop off the car and pick up supplies for the next month. The afternoon was spend in an weather and climate lecture, which made absolutely no sense at all, and as a result I spent the rest of the week attempting to understand what warm and cold fronts are, anabatic and katabatic and berg winds, the summer and winter weather patterns of South Africa, all the different cloud types and what type of weather they bring, wind, the coriolus effect, high and low pressure systems. By Friday morning I had give up and resorted to rote learning!

Tuesday was a game drive in the morning where we saw the two cheetahs 100m from the gate and got a fantastic sighing of them for about 45 minutes. we then got a brief sighting of a large herd of elephants towards the end of the drive-perhaps our luck is changing and we are going to start seeing some stuff! The afternoon was spent doing rifle dry runs again, this time we moved onto another couple of the tests we are going to do-it is hard to practice loading and aiming and shooting (slightly difficult due to the lack of bullets, our dry run turned into more of a "imagine you are putting a bullet in here" and air and pretend to pull the trigger run, but was still good to get some idea of what we need to do, and the time we have to do it in)

Wednesday was game drives all day again, as half the group were off doing their drivers tests. We didnt see much in the morning but as we were heading back from the afternoon game drive we saw some lions again, and got quite a nice sighting of them resting and playing in the grass.

Thursday sarted with our Biomes lecture, which was quite simple, but has a lot of information to remember (9 biomes with species, climate, vegetation type, geography, location). As our test had to be bought forward to Friday we got the afternoon to study.

Friday I had my drivers test, which involved a nice long day, leaving camp at 5.30, sitting at the driving centre all day studying, doing the test (which only took 30 minutes) more sitting and studying at the driving centre as the rest of the group did their test, then getting back to camp at 4.30 in time for the weekly test at 5! The positive was that I passed my drivers test (got told off for speeding as I was doing 30km which is apparently the speed limit, not the 60km that our instructor told us, and certainly not between 2 and 3 on the rev counter in third we were told to stick to as the speedometer didnt work in the truck. Mind you that didnt help me much as the steering wheel was so out of alignment I couldnt actually see the rev counter or speedometer anyway!)

Today we have off as half the group has gone to help at the Rocking for Rhinos festival, while the rest of us will go tomorrow.

Two cheetah brothers

Cheetah walk

Kruger

4 of us decided that rather than hanging around camp for our week off we would head to Kruger for 5 days and spend some time going round. It was a lovely week, we started off in the North where there are less animals but the scenery is beautiful, and worked our way south to where there are more animals.

Although we were spending long hours in the day (about 10 a day) it didnt feel like, it and we got to see some amazing things. Over 150 elephants, 18 Rhino, 5 Ground Hornbills, Lions, a Leopard, Buffalo, the Big 5 on our last day, too many birds to count, mongoose, kudu, impala, sable, waterbuck, hyena as well as an adorable hyena cub! The time flew by, all too soon it was time to head bakc to head back to camp.

Friday a couple of us headed in to Hoedspruit to do a lion walk, which actually turned out to be a cheetah walk, but considering cheetahs are my favourite animal, im not going to complain about that! It involved another early morning (leaving at 4.30am) but was well worth it.

Today and tomorrow some serious study needs to be done, in preperation for Bioms and Weather and Climate lectures next week.

Photos when the net decides to play nice

Pied Kingfisher

Lilic Breasted Roller

Buffalo

Impala

Impala

Rhino

Purple Roller

Ground Hornbill

Waterbuck

Elephant

Vulture

Where does the time go?

Clearly time has been speeding up, not too sure where the last two weeks have gone, but they have certainly disappeared quickly.

We started the last week of semester with a reptile orientation at a local reptile park-where I hope to be able to do my reptile handling course sometime soonish. The course was more of an onientation and not so much on learning, but we had a bit of a lecture then go to hold a large python, a lizard and feed some monkeys-life is so hard here :P

Then the hard work started for the week, we had lectures on fish and arthropods, which not being my favourite subjects so far, I found slightly more challenging than some of the others-there is also an amazing amount to learn on arthropods, that was always going to be along week-the chapter in the book just kept going and going!

The weather deteriated during the second half of the week so by Wednesday it was cold (15 degrees) and raining, which when you are prepared for summer is not terribly pleasant. We had another rifle dry run, and an aborted game drive, the positive being that we got some extra study time!

Thursday we braved the wet and headed out on a game drive, getting soaked and frozen in the process, and seeing nothing more exciting than our first Leopard Tortoise. The afternoon game drive was again cancelled as we were not going to see anything in the raina and everyone was cold and wet.

Friday was still pretty miserable but we headed into town to pick up our hire car for the week off-4 of us were heading to kruger for 5 days. We had been expecting something like a Corolla, but somehow ended up with a BMW-who can say no to that!

Saturday finally bought some better weather, it had stopped raining and was beginning to get a bit warmer, although still overcast. After the test the rest of the day was spent relaxing, by the end of the semester all we want to do is relax we are so tired!