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  Campfire Safaris, Nr Hoedspruit, South Africa
Saturday, September 8, 2007

Well, sitting here in the lecture room whilst the field guide students (not us common or garden volunteers!) are undertaking revision -they're currently discussing what the correct name for "animals eating  faeces is" HR this isn't!
Whilst I had thought hilariously that 7am starts would possibly be challenging, we've either started (physical ) work or had a bush walk at 6 or 6.30am!! for the past 4 days and that will be the case thruout the project. Our 2 pieces of work have been  looking for snares left by poachers - (none found yet whihc is great although they often are) and getting rid of non indigineous plants , the most common of whihc is prickly pear (and there's a clue in the title) -it is an absolute bitch and even if armed with gloves and a spade it's impossible not to get the tiny hairlike but incredibly sharp needles in you -there's a lot of swearing during this exercise! The other task we've undertaken is digging and shovelling baked dried mud from the base of the empty ( I hasten to addd) dam and relocating it to fill in ruts in the roads around the preserve -back breaking ? you bet

Dung beetle @work

! All of us were desk drivers so finding it a bit of a change! Strangely enough , its's not difficult to get up in the mornings as there are usually monkeys (vervet) charging over the roof of the rondavel (small hut) and/or poeple shouting at them as they try and  nick your food quite literally from under your nose -they are bloody irritating!
As well as learning about the animals there are of course loads of birds and we've also been doing quite a lot of tree identification this week -so many of them look the same/or similar and because of the time of year many of them have few or no leaves which makes it extra tricky! We also have lectures -this week we've had ecology, mammals and animal disease to name but a few!
Us 4 girls have been in hysterics at regular intervals because  we seem to have lost the power of articulate speech and we keep coming out either with rubbish or partial sense-luckily we are developing psychic powers so as to be able to communicate! We reckon it's a combination of the heat (about 30c some days and the fact that we're learning so much!)
Every time we do a bush walk (and the camp is in the middle of the bush) we look to identify animal and bird tracks and their spoor  (poo) -see I wasn't joking when I said I would be poking rhino poo! Actually, no rhino poo yet but yes to elephant and lion ( both of which  I haven't seen yet in the flesh yet) warthog,  zebra, kudu, impala,waterbuck (all types of antelope) giraffe - which are stunning and we regularly see around camp, and wildebeest

Giraffe Track

. Yesterday out on our daily bush walk we came acrosss fairly fresh lion prints and one of the other groups found some with cub size prints too. We haven't seen them as yet but we did hear them roaring the other night around 10pm so12 of us piled into an open top bokkie (van thing) and went off searchlight an' all to look for them -we didn't find them but we saw loads of other stuff -amazing! and bats flying overhead all the time ; oh , and the stars -don't get me started -absolutely stunning!
Blimey , there is SO much to tell you, we are learning and seeing SO much -it's fantastic!
I promise to enclose some photos in the next entry - I need some assistance and the person required is revising at the moment!
Africa Sal signing off for the moment!
xx 

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Linda digging in the dam

Maria- domestic help

Zebra

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