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Name: Heather Rawle
Programme: South Africa Conservation Course
Hello everyone - this is a mammoth message so maybe you'll want to read it in stages!
Finally they've got internet/email properly at my camp so should be easier from now on - except if there are electric cuts which we've had a few of.
I've been here for 2 and a half weeks now and feels like ages. The camp I'm staying at is on outskirts of Greater Kruger National Park, about 20 mins drive from Hoedspruit in South Africa.
KNP is 2 million hectares and mostly open bush land/savannah so animals should be able to roam freely (although there are some small closed game reserves where tourists can come and be guaranteed viewings of animals around waterholes/feedings).
We've got a high electric fence surrounding the camp, which is designed to keep the animals out of camp. However, once we go through the gates, we are in the wild. The only other fence is the main Kruger one which surrounds the whole of the KNP, which keeps the animals off the roads and towns that surrounds the park. |
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My camp consists of the house that belongs to the owners, a big wooden structure including dining area, lecture area and watchtower, and about 10 small huts and caravans where the ‘students' stay (i.e. me).
There's about 15 students here, staying anywhere between 2 weeks and 5 months (the latter are doing placements as part of Wildlife Management degrees and are good at answering all my questions). A couple of older Dutch ladies have just left after 2 weeks here and were fun to be with. |
A lot has happened since I've been here. Typical day for me starts at 5.30am when I get up in time for the monkeys to start chattering and I watch the sun rise from the top of the watchtower. The animals are the most active between 5-6am and 5-6pm so it's a good time to keep a look out for movement in the bush. It's rained a bit since I've been here so the bush has grown again which makes spotting the animals difficult.
Then we go on a bush walk for up to 3 hrs led by the daughter of the owner of the camp (Letitia). She knows the bush inside out and carries a gun, but she points out to us that we should never rely on it and use our skills instead.
| We also go out in the bush in smaller groups later in the day to do ‘work' so we need to know how to protect ourselves. The idea is that we all learn to understand animal behaviour so that we predict potentially dangerous situations and know how to react appropriately if it becomes dangerous. Easier said than done! Apparently you are supposed to climb a tree if charged by buffalo or rhino, run in zigzags or up or down hills if charged by elephants, and just stand your ground if a lion decides to leap on you!!! |
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After the bush walk, we lounge around for few hours then do some ‘work' e.g digging waterholes, repairing roads, managing erosion of the soil. Then is time for dinner that is prepared for us by Letitia's mum. It feels like we are a big family as opposed to tourists and everyone is incredibly friendly.
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We've seen a lot of animals since we've been here. There's been a few highlights already. The usual animals around are giraffe, zebra, impala, warthog and kudu, but there are a lot of elephants around at the moment, as well as lions. There are 2 prides near the camp and 2 males who go round by themselves.
After a few days of getting here, we were lucky enough to witness a pride eating a huge waterbuck just outside our camp fence. |
It happened at night after an evening out for us. A few of us returned early to hear growling and snarling, then we worked out lions were feeding and watched them from the tower for few hours. The spotlight made their eyes shine which was very spooky in the dark but they were so engrossed in their meal, they didn't seem too concerned about us.
| We could hear them roaring at night but they seemed to have moved away for a bit. Lions have caused more excitement in the last few days - a few days ago, I was having afternoon nap when I heard a shout of ‘lions' and we all rushed out to get on the open top jeep as they were on one of the rough roads near the camp. I sat at the back of the jeep for some reason, thinking it would give me a good view of the lions in the distance - I hadn't realised how close they would be to us. At one point, Letitia reversed the jeep as there were 2 big male lions sat in the road behind us. |
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Then the lions got up and started walking towards us. I just closed my eyes as everytime I looked around, the lion was just walking closer to me and staring. It was completely relaxed though and just bypassed the jeep at the last moment and then I plucked up courage to start taking photos. There were a few others either side of the road and they were clearly preparing to go hunting given their level of activity during the day. These lions (as with all the animals here) are completely wild and not used to hundreds of tourists driving through like in a lot of game reserves.
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I thought that was the last of our close encounters with lions then last night I had just got to sleep and then around 11pm I heard the shout ‘lions' again from someone in camp - again we all rushed to the jeep. We raced out of camp and along the dirt track to go out of the main security gate onto the main tarmac road into town. The Kruger fence runs alongside this road and is designed to keep the animals in the park - however a pride of about 13 lions had hunted a buffalo which had broken through the fence and half of the lions were now roaming around on the main road. Letitia had nearly run one of them over on the way into camp and had come to get us so we could help deal with the situation and also rang the head ranger.
| Apparently lions escaping is unusual, but I expected the game ranger to have a decent plan to put into action. After a few minutes, it was obvious this was not the case. Letitia was getting very mad with them as they clearly had no understanding of animal behaviour and decided we would be able to herd the lions along the road and back in through the main gate, as if they were sheep! He certainly wouldn't be given advice from a woman. It was really sad to see what a mess he made of it and again confirmed how important it is to understand animal behaviour when managing an area like this. There was a female with 3 cubs and one of the cubs had gone through a different fence so there was no way we were going to turn our backs on it. |
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A few of the students stayed out all night trying to help but by the morning there were still 3 lions on the road, and a few on the wrong side of a different fence. We hope to find out tonight whether the pride have made it back together and if not, may have to go back to the road to help warn vehicles passing through.
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The only other close encounter with animals I have had (apart from the usual frogs, lizards and insects) was also yesterday - we looked up to see a huge elephant with huge tusks step out from behind a tree right in front of us. |
You would have thought that elephants would make loud noises walking around but they have special gel in their feet which means they are mostly silent when walking and the only clue to them being around is their smell, hearing a branch break, and seeing their dung.
The elephant just carried on walking across the path infront of us, but not before it shook its head and ears, and snorted which are warning signs to us.
It is so different walking through the bush compared to being in a vehicle. You use all your senses to detect any animals that may be nearby, and you can track the animals too. Bush walks were cancelled today due the lions that are around (and apparently there is a very grumpy buffalo around too that the lions took a chunk out of yesterday). 2 of the locals were sat up a tree for 3 hours apparently after encountering it. |
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I've been writing this for ages so really need to finish up now. I've got 2 more weeks here then I”ll be off to Zimbabwe to another big national park to do general conservation work, then the final month will be at the lion rehab centre. I feel I've had quite enough excitement for the time being here and will be quite happy to see a few giraffe for the next few days! Also, i have some more excursions to do like horse riding through a game reserve (without predators), a sleep out with a tame hippo, and a visit to a reptile park which will be useful to help me identify what I keep seeing and the things I'm not seeing as they have ran a mile as soon as they detect humans (mambas and cobras are quite common but are incredibly shy thank goodness).
Bye for now!
Heather
 Further information on the Wildlife Conservation Course Kruger
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