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