Buffalo Soldiers

We were out early this morning. We were on the road at just before six. It was the first misty morning we’ve had over here that we were actually out in the field. There was a very eerie feeling to the place. The mist drifted up from the ground and all around we could see the dew draped webs of millions of spiders. There wasn’t a sound from the bush initially and then the dawn chorus erupted. We could hear a vast array of birds all rejoicing the fact that they had lived through the night! Africa is a harsh place and I do not say that in jest about living through the night. We made our way West into the bush and as our eyes and ears became accustomed to the dawn we began to focus on the various fauna around us.

We used our senses and could detect a strong odour on the wind. What was it? There are so many different smells over here that it’s not easy to decipher. We act more like detectives now to figure things out and we could smell musty urine, could see spoor on the ground and hear the faint echoes of animals carried on the breeze. Then the dawn was shattered with the unmistakable sounds of Buffalo. Not just one though. This was a mass. We were in the midst of a massive herd. All around us now we could hear the sound of branches breaking and the bellowing of the Cows for their calves and the big Bulls bellowing orders.

It was an awesome sight. They came trouncing through the mist. A mass of solid Bovidae. There were literally hundreds of them. They came from all around us. We also noticed Zebra, Impala and Warthog intermittently. The Buffalo’s though were intimidating. It’s not like a herd of domesticated cattle. These guys mean business. They present a unified front. Big “Dagga Boy,” dot around the periphery of the herd while the Cows and Calves stay in the middle. We were not so much of a curiosity as a nuisance. We were parked in their way but they kept a respectable distance. It was perhaps the fact that the wind was not in our favour.

It was strange to notice that there seemed to be some kind of invisible line that they would not cross. The animals of both sexes would walk up to a certain point and turn sideways and skirt around us. They were unwilling to challenge our position. Even the big Bulls showed the same submissive behaviour. We were obviously a big stationary beast but with a human smell. We weren’t to be taken lightly and we were perceived as a threat of some description. We noticed the herd consisted of mostly healthy individuals but there were a few unhealthy looking ones too. Some were obviously suffering from some form of disease. The herds in this area are rife with TB. The problem has become so great that a disease free herd is much sought after. The statistics show that up to 80% of Buffalo in this region are carriers of TB. This also affects the predators that prey on the Buffalo. Lions in Kruger have been affected to the same extent. It eventually leads to loss of condition and death. A TB free Bull will set you back one hundred and sixty thousand Rand. That’s the equivalent of fourteen thousand Euro. That’s a big investment in any man’s language for a Cow and you certainly don’t want any Lion taking down that investment in its first few weeks!

We watched the Buffalo stream by us for well over an hour. The time seems to pass you by so quickly. We spent the best part of six hours out in the bush and it went by in the blink of an eye. Everywhere you look there are items of interest. Life is so vibrant here. Even the ants have their own story. ( I think Spielberg made it into a film!)

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday

The party went on well into the night! We had partied after the sports day events closed up and nearly everyone was well hung over the next day. I always say that alcohol is the best drug ever if it wasn’t for that nasty hang over/ write off of the day after! Unfortunately you can’t just order a 3 in 1 or Domino’s over here! We passed the day chilling out and nursing our wounds. The food here of late has become next to inedible so I decided I’d hold out until the evening time and hit town for a burger or something palatable.

It was pretty hot during the day and I’m not a big fan of being out in the sun for too long so I stayed indoors and let the fan do its job. There is something inherently relaxing about a ceiling fan just spinning around in a room all day. I can’t seem to get the scene from Apocalypse Now with Martin Sheen in a hotel room in Saigon out of my head.
We headed into town later that evening for a bit of dinner but this is Africa and typical of a small town most of the places were closed. We ended up having to go to a Wimpy! I couldn’t believe there would be one here but there is! Maybe there is room for a Domino’s as well! I wouldn’t like to be the delivery driver though!

Day 44

Game day

It was all for the jersey and the pride of the parish! Well, not quite but myself and the lads did want to win the tournament scheduled for today. In fairness to the college, they had pulled out all the stops for the annual sports day. We had the pitch marked and new nets put up. They even filled in the gaping holes at one end of the pitch. We had to remove a Puff Adder from the netball court but we couldn’t pull down the tree so the girls had to play around that!

We were all set for a day of fun, passion, pride, ambition and above all else hope. There were medals to be won and we weren’t messing around! We played the first games and won convincingly with a few goals to spare and then we came to the final. The other team works in the Kruger National Park and they were certainly looking the part. They had a full set of jerseys anyway. The shorts and socks were a bonus. We didn’t even have a full set of jerseys so subs had to wear sweat soaked jerseys from a team mate. Not very hygienic and it reminded me of my early career playing outside right with Castleknock Celtic. At least back then we were given oranges at half time.

The heat was starting to get to me. It was tipping over the forty C mark and I was more inclined to stay at right back strangely enough. There was a big Marula tree casting a lovely big shadow there for me. Unfortunately I kept playing their forwards on side by standing there though and I wasn’t flavour of the month with the sweeper. We played well though. It was tough and competitive. I got a few nice belts for myself. Mind you I was putting my head into situations where my foot should have been. Some things don’t change! We had a few chances that we missed by inches and in the end there was nothing between the two teams. We had to decide the match on penalties. I volunteered and up I stepped and planted the ball in the bottom corner. One nil and the advantage with us. Up stepped the captain next and he struck it well into the top corner. We were going quite nicely thank you very much. We watched as the next lad walked up to the ball and sometimes you can tell when the person lacks the conviction. We missed that shot and the following one and the dream was over. No picture in the paper and no victory dance for the crowd. Everyone was genuinely gutted.

There are sometimes silver linings though and ours was the winning team buying us a few beers. Thanks very much lads! We ended doing what only men who have been through the heat of battle know how to do best. We got Banana’s! ( Borrowed that from Craig Kilmurray )

Day 43

I wake to the sounds of Lions roaring most mornings. Some days they are more considerate and leave the chorus until a more Godly hour like 6 AM but most of the time it’s around 4. This seems to stir the Hyaena’s into action as if it were some kind of contest and he who shouts loudest wins. We were out at 6 AM on a game drive this particular morning and we had been given clearance by Ngala the game reserve closest to the campus to use some more Northerly roads. That was great news for us as we keep hearing the Lions from the North East of the Timbavati and I reckoned that there might be a good chance that we’d see signs of them here.

We took off with my good self driving. I’ll be honest about the driving. I couldn’t be arsed. It’s funny, the other group are all fighting about the vehicle and about who wants to drive. Our group being a little bit more chilled out are fighting not to drive! The reason being that when you are driving you don’t get to see as much as when you are not. I think that some of the guys in the group could do with a bit more practice but I think overall we are all fine. I’m not aware of any of us who have actually “bought,” their license which can’t be said for the other group.

We set off on our merry way and there was definitely an air of anticipation. We hadn’t used these roads at all and we were bound to find something of interest. We hadn’t travelled far when we caught wind of a very pungent odour. It smelled like a carcass and we followed our noses. Now I’m not pertaining to the fact that we have super sensitive senses of smell now just because we’re over here but a rotting carcass does possess a unique olfactory character. As my field guide book so aptly put it, the smell was “rank.” It was a big male Buffalo that had been taken down very close to the road. We scanned the area for any potential danger and dismounted. It was funny as we surrounded the carcass. It could have been an episode of CSI. The Bull had been tackled by a number of Lions judging by the claw marks and general devastation around the carcass. The scavengers had all had their turn on the carcass as well. There were Jackal, Vulture and Hyaena spoor and evidence such as scat and feathers. It was amazing how efficiently the carcass had been cleaned. The bones were all clean as a whistle. Nothing goes to waste here and I’d imagine by this time next week there will be a lot less to look at than today. We reckoned the kill was 3-4 days old. It was only about 3 KM from the College. You wouldn’t want to be walking around at night that’s for sure.

We hopped back into the vehicle after grabbing some hooves for class and kept our course in a North Easterly direction. We were tipping away nicely when our Eagle eyed Tracker spotted movement in the undergrowth. I thought it was Lion but it was something ten times rarer. It was a Pangolin. These animals are considered to be one of the rarest sightings around. Our two instructors had only seen 3 between them in over 15 years. The more unusual aspect was the fact that these animals are generally nocturnal. We watched it’s antics. It is a really cool mammal. It’s very unusual and to be honest probably inspired characters in Star Wars films. It has a scaley look and when frightened or for defence rolls up into an impenetrable ball of scales. It’s considered in the top 5 rarest animals in Kruger so we were really lucky to have come across it. We spent a long time with it and by the time we left the clock was against us once more. We needed to get back to base for dinner so we headed back. We were delighted though with our sighting. The Lions will just have to wait…………

Day -1

Driving School Day

Who would have thought that we would all have to go back to Driving School! I mentioned all of us even if some of us have our full licenses since our teens! I received my full license when I was seventeen which is quite a while ago! Myself and “Fixer,” were up at 4 A.M. to try to be the first people in the queue. We arrived at the test centre in Mhala at 5 to be greeted by 50 or so others who had been there since 6 PM the previous evening!

The signs were ominous. My fixer told me that we would be out of there by 12.30 latest. Now I thought that this was surely an exaggeration but this is Africa folks and it didn’t turn out to be as easy as a half twelve finish. The Saints patience that I have was tested to the full. We had to form one queue after another and it was really mind numbing stuff. Time in Africa they kept telling me. It’s nothing short of a disgrace. The other people in the class had paid a hefty sum to their own fixer in a so called Driving School but this is just a way to grease palms. The corruption is unbelievable. The Driving School’s get to skip all the queues but that obviously comes at the expense of both the ordinary Joe Soap and the people who pay for the School. It’s a bit of a vicious circle.

The hilarious thing about the day was the eye test. The so called eye test is amounts to a sheet being scrawled on by a government employee. The machine I did the test on wasn’t working so when I looked up to inform the girl of this I saw that all the boxes from one to twelve had already been ticked on my binocular eye test. I my friends have 100% vision!! Another funny one I discovered was that at the bottom of the paper it states that you must take your glasses off when doing the test. Three of the girls on the course had glasses on while doing the test and all got passed even though some of them couldn’t see an Elephant if it was standing in front of them! They paid for the Driving School though! I think you can probably see where I’m going with this!

Finally after the biggest waste of time in history we received our booking date for the actual theory exam. This is only the start of the process. We then have to go to the test centre again and if we pass we will be sent out our Learners Driving License! I’m wondering whether the whole thing is worth it but unfortunately you need to get your Full License to drive any game vehicle. Lots more fun to look forward to. I think you can safely say that even with the waiting list in Ireland it’s a doddle compared to here. Ya gotta love it!

Rainy Days

We must be having a similar weather pattern as home. The weather for the last two days has been shocking. The rain continued today. I don’t mean rain in the conventional sense of the word. I suppose it’s more of a drizzle really. It suited the mood though as it’s Monday. People were certainly feeling the Monday morning blues and there was a discernable lack of atmosphere down in the canteen for brekkie.

We were in class for the day so it was pretty un eventful. I came home to find the “Special One,” chasing a Scorpion around the bathroom. He found it on his towel in the Jax. I’ll be checking my shoes from now on. The little fecker could just as easily be in my shoe and I’d probably get a nice little sting for myself! I’ll enclose a picture for your perusal.

Day 43

Today was the first day it has rained since I got here. It was Baltic by African standards and the locals were all freezing. When I say it was Baltic I mean that it was hovering around 18 degrees! The lads and ladies were going around the place with full length trench coats, gloves and hats! We were supposed to play a match as well and the lads weren’t too enthusiastic about the whole game thing. We made the decision to play eventually though after slagging them about being girls and headed over to the local pitch. Vervetedine were waiting for us at their spectacular stadium setting.

I’m only joking about that. It was the worst pitch I’ve ever seen, never mind attempted to play on. We removed more building blocks, wire, glass, broken bottles and other things that I wouldn’t mention on here off the pitch before the game. Oh and to top it off a big roll of barbed wire. We did have nets though! The pitch had massive craters in different places and God only knows how someone didn’t break a leg on it. It conjures images for some I’m sure of a field in Leitrim with a Pig’s bladder instead of a ball and big thick leather boots being worn by big thick Leitrim men!

We did pick up a few injuries between the lot of us but nothing too serious. The game actually turned out to be great craic. We beat them five nil which added to the general feeling of happiness. I wish I had brought a camera to give you an idea of the pitch. At one stage the local farmers Bullocks came hurtling across the pitch and we thought they were gonna take a few of us out. Big Long Horn cattle coming hurtling towards you with the bells around their necks ringing. Another African classic! The hilarious thing about it was that the ref didn’t even bother to stop the game for a few seconds while we chased off the offenders!

I’m glad to say we all survived that and we are all hoping to play a tournament in the College on Saturday. It was good preparation for the tournament anyway. We should do alright and we have the advantage of knowing the intricacies of our own pitch. There are a few holes in ours too! We are supposedly even getting a ball that actually has air in it. That was another comedy show in itself on Saturday. The lads having to constantly run off the pitch to pump air into the ball. This was without a valve I might add! I had to go to bed early after the game as my auld bones were aching. I’m not used to 90 minutes of running around the place after a half inflated ball.

days 40-42

We had an exam today on advanced rifle handling. It gives us the theoretical background to our practical training on Thursday. The test was reasonably easy but quite technical. Terminal velocity, sectional density and ballistic coefficient. I’m sure the Delta Charlie (Derm and Marty Cahill) and Mike Charlie know what I’m talking about.
It was a strange experience. A few of my colleagues pointed the weapons in our direction as they were walking back towards us. This is one of the golden rules of things that shouldn’t be done. I wasn’t comfortable with the level of “SAFETY,” being adhered to! It certainly gave me more of a respect for the weapons. The recoil when we shot was certainly something I didn’t expect. I can imagine the damage that a high calibre bullet would do to your body on impact. We were put through our paces. We have to be able to load and unload a full magazine in 8 seconds and be able to fire 3 rounds into a target in quick succession. This won’t be as easy as I thought. If it ever happens in reality and we have to stop a charging animal then I think a good few of us would be in trouble. We have a good bit of time to practice though and I intend on visiting the firing range frequently before our practical exam.

The locals didn’t do very well in the shooting stakes either which wasn’t a big surprise. Most of them can’t drive very well as they have “bought,” their licenses over here. I don’t think any of them even hit the target apart from my mate Citi. They couldn’t seem to line up the sights properly so I felt a little bit better. I nailed the target with 11 out of 11 but didn’t hit the bull’s eye. There’s room for improvement there. It’s amazing how sensitive the trigger was on the 303. I didn’t even realize on one of the shots that I had pulled the trigger. Amazingly that was the shot that got closest to the bully!

I headed off to the local Shangaan village after to see where Citi and Ivan are from. I met the Citi’s Granny, various Girlfriends and Brother. The people were very friendly and all smiles. They aren’t in any way affluent but there lifestyle was nice and simple and they seem to be very happy with their lot. It’s a cool little village with a bit of agriculture thrown in. They seem to have a nice community feeling and I guess it’s like village living at home where you know all your neighbours. Lots of goats, cattle and chickens. The animals don’t have it as well over here though. The land is very barren. The goats have resorted to climbing trees to get to the nutrition. Unfortunately I didn’t bring the camera for the pictures of these “spider goats,” but it was quite a sight!

We went on a night drive and did a bit of star gazing when the sun went down. The sky over here is unbelievable. You can see most of the planets at night. We can see Mars, Jupiter and Venus. It’s pretty cool and I guess all these little things add up to a better knowledge of the grand scheme of things. I think it’s the small things that strike you the most. There are a lot of things that you take for granted. Even a simple thing like leaving the tap running when you are washing your teeth. You learn to turn it off when you are here for a while because water is precious. Some days it’s hard to believe I’m really here living in Africa. It’s a great feeling.

Saturday started off with an early game drive. I slept it out and my punishment was washing down the two vehicles. It brought me back to the good old Blanch Renault days of washing cars for Fergus. I even felt the same way when I was doing it. Heavily hungover! We had to celebrate a birthday. Our instructor Sean was 35 today. We made him take a mud bath. It was very funny. All the guys in the course picking up big muck balls and destroying the girls with them. Good fun on a Saturday.

We headed for the Bush Pub again for a bit of dinner. I was the “Dessie,” so that put pay to any drinking. I didn’t mind though because of the two bottles of Stellenbosch I polished off the night before. We met some American hunters in the pub. It was really weird to talk to hunters. I suppose the majority of people I am studying with are very anti hunting. The guys were slagging us calling us “bunny huggers.” I thought it was quite funny as they hit the nail on the head about some of the guys here. I personally wouldn’t be anti hunting. I think that these guys come over here and spend big money to hunt. The money they spend goes into the local economy and the wheels keep on turning.

We were in Kruger for a week last week and when I was in a place called Letaba I read an article in the local newspaper. The article was about a local farmer who had been found gored to death on his property. The farm was very isolated with no running water or electricity. The Police were called out and trackers were sent to the scene. Foul play was ruled out and the conclusion was that a “ Dacha Boy,” or single male Buffalo had killed the farmer. The hunters actually shot this Buffalo on Wednesday. John from Michigan described how the Bull had been shot 5 times before he finally gave up on life. It was quite a story. They had been hunting him for 3 days and finally they got the opportunity to take a shot. The guys didn’t want to take a brain shot as they were looking for a trophy for home so they tried to hit the old Bull with heart shots. It was an amazing story and I suppose just confirmed for me what I’ve heard about how tough these old bachelors are. Sean used a great expression to the describe the look they give you when they see you. He said that they give you a look like “you owe them money!” They are not an animal you want to bump into while out on a walking trail! The hunters offered us some of their Buffalo meat. It was very tastey indeed and I guess when you know the story behind it it makes it more surreal. We were eating meat that came from an animal that killed a man. That’s what makes Africa such a visceral experience for me!

We were driving home and we saw all these flashing lights ahead of us. We thought it was a Police checkpoint but it turns out there was a car crashed into the reserve fence. The car was totaled and the guy was standing outside the car looking pretty dazed. If you could pick a place to crash (not that you’d want to) this would probably be last on my list! It looked to us like he had taken a nice leisurely drunken game drive at night and had written off his car. Not a great place to crash considering the reserve he crashed in has all of the “Big 5.”

The Drakensburg Mountains looked majestic as we drove through the night. There was some fire break burning going on. The whole mountain side was ablaze. It looked eerily beautiful against the black sky.

There is supposed to be a game on tomorrow against Vervetine. (The local village Citi and Ivan are from) That should be fun and I can put some of those skills I learned playing with Caslteknock Celtic into practice!! I’m sure I’m gonna get battered but sometimes that’s half the fun!

Days 38 +39

Day 38

Rifle training!

“Good things happen to those who wait!” I like that quote. I’ve been looking forward to this part of the course. We get to fire rifles. Not small calibre mind! None of those .22 etc, these are proper high calibre rifles. Elephant guns to be precise. We use .458 rounds which I’ve been told will knock a 7 tonne Elly right off its four feet! Mind you, I hope I never get into a situation where I’ll have to use one but we’ll be trained to a high standard regardless. I’m looking forward to actually shooting them this week but first things first. We have to know how to use them safely! We will actually shoot some rounds off this Thursday but we just have to go safety procedures today for the day.

We became pit lane mechanics this morning as well. We had to change a tyre as part of the course. Not that it’s very difficult but when the jack nearly recoils and hits you in the jaw it can warrant respect! Good craic though watching some of the girls trying to push the jack down. It hit nearly 40 degrees today so any amount of effort takes its toll. I can’t remember the last time I changed a tyre in that heat!


Day 39

Myself and King Moses tried to get our Driving licenses sorted out today. The other group went to the driving school and with their bribes paid they will probably get their licenses sorted before us but I’m gonna try and get mine an alternative way. As we left the other group our supervisor Nelie told Moses not to lead me astray into any Shebeen’s or any such like! Moses has a great rep here as you can probably tell!

Unfortunately King Moses’s contact didn’t pull through for us in the end and we had to make alternative plans for the day. Spur of the moment plans are always the best. “Wing it dot com,” is a favourite strategy of mine at this stage and so we went looking for a taxi that could bring us to a car garage. After the week in Kruger and the friction that resulted I decided to err on the side of caution and do my own thing from now on. There will be a more select crew going on any further trips!

Being the only white person in a taxi rank with hundreds of other African’s can be quite unnerving but everything went well and my “fixer,” King Moses organized a taxi for us. If you’ve been to Thailand and have been in a bus or taxi there you will understand how people get rammed into all kinds of transport. Actually if you’ve been on the Maynooth to Connolly train in the morning you’ll know what I mean when I say “Sweatbox.” We had all kinds of wares being transported with us from chairs to at one stage a front door of a house. I think it was number 22! A few of the passengers weren’t in great health as per the constant coughing and spluttering from the back. I had to close my eyes a few times with the mental case driving speeding up when he saw Baboons on the road! Eventually after 4 hours of switching to different cabs I finally told Mossie that I’d had enough. We bailed in Lyndeburg and went looking for a car. We had originally intended going to Phelaborwa but that would have meant another two changes of taxi.

We went in to a few places and were given the stereotypical car salesman’s lines about careful owners, good condition blah blah. Personally having met a number of these types in my time I wasn’t too confident I would end up getting anything decent. We wandered around looking at various models and prices and I eventually settled on a 4 wheel drive in decent nick but a bit beyond what I originally intended to pay. Fingers crossed “fixer,” as she is to be called will treat me well! So I survived the day just about and drove the car back from the garage whilst trying to avoid maniac drivers, Goats, Baboons, Cattle and the odd native. The beer tasted good at the end of a long day!

Kruger Days

Kruger Days


We have come to the end of the week and looking back it was great to do what we’ve done. We have familiarized ourselves with the KNP and its environs. It’s a fantastic place to be able to visit. The wildlife is spectacular and we’ve had some fun, surreal and downright comical moments over the week. We finished off where we started on Sunday evening with a whistle stop trip back into the KNP for a couple of hours. We had been in town early in the morning and after a great lunch of Ostrich skewers and Strawberry Milkshakes we were all set for a nice evening. We had a local Shangaan lad with us and he sorted the gate administration stuff out in quick fashion and we were on our way.

As luck would have it we stopped close to the gate and saw a lone Cheetah stalking some Impala. Unfortunately the Cheetah had an audience of about 15 cars and she got pissed off with all the noise, engines running etc. It was nice to see my first Cheetah though and she looked really elegant in the setting sun. I’m sure she just waited for us to leave before she headed back in pursuit of her dinner.

The week started off well and we camped in a couple of different camps over the course of the week. I chose to sleep outside for a couple of those as I wanted to really experience the African night. The rest of the guys were in tents. It was cool to be out in the open with just the stars for company. I could hear all the animals during the night and I guess it’s the stereotypical African sounds that I heard but that didn’t diminish it. Picture the scene, being able to see the Milky Way and the Southern Star and all their friends after having a nice T-bone steak cooked on the Braai. All that and having a few tasty beverages to wash it down and then being able to hear Lions roaring and all of Africa’s other animals during the night. SAVAGE!

The next morning we had a great sighting of a Lion kill. I’ve included some cool pictures and hopefully I can work out this uploading thing and I can get some more sorted before long. That was so close to the road that I actually thought I was out in Kepak again with the smell. It was pretty powerful. The Lions in Kruger have started using the tarmac roads to catch their prey. In this case the unlucky victim was an adolescent Giraffe. The Lions just trip the Giraffe up on the roads and they’re not able to get back up! It was pretty awesome to be that close to the whole Pride. We continued on our way and sometimes you take it for granted just how lucky we are to be able to see what we see everyday.

There were lots of fun, slagging, friction and bundles of comical moments. The highlight for me was the Bull Elephant and the Micra incident. We had quite a few more though. I’m gonna try and upload the video at some stage for that though. It’s a classic! No broadband here though so we’ll see! We had the “Pedestrian bird,” incident. “Watch out for the pedestrian behind you,” says the passenger and the retort by the driver is “What kind of a bird is a Pedestrian bird?” We also spotted lots of “Leopard Logs,” and “Granite Rhino’s”! Too many more to be recounted here I’m afraid.

We stayed in a few places that can only be described as the nearest things to a hippy commune. We had Pancakes in the most famous “Pancake Town,” in South Africa. We did some rock climbing. We celebrated the eight of the eight 2008 at 8 minutes past eight and eight seconds. We had some nice drives and walks. Oh and to round things off nicely I did a tandem bungee jump as well! What a buzz and for those who are scared of heights I’ve included a few pictures. I am in the group mentioned by the way and I didn’t exactly like edging along that platform. The guy trying to encourage me to edge back and my partner in the jump, the aptly named “Birdman,” practically pulling me back with him! It was cool though and I think I’ll have another go at it sometime.

We’re back to school tomorrow though but to sum up not a bad week! Not a bad week at all………………

Kruger Days

A week in Kruger is on the agenda. The sparks are already starting to fly. I think the expression cabin fever just about sums up the situation. A lot of different views on things and how they should be done is leading to a lot of tension in the group. I asked Robyn the lady I rented the 2 cars from for a shovel when I was collecting the car. She didn’t know why I needed a shovel and I told her that by the end of the week we’ll probably be so fed up with someone that we’d probably have to bury them out in the park. I didn’t realize how prophetic that statement was going to be.

Enough whingeing, the adventure has begun and we headed up North to a place called Mopani. It is 230 km up North from Orpen gate which is the nearest entry point from the SAWC. We had a few hairy moments with people adjusting to driving the car but that soon passed. The area up North is renowned for its Leopards but as they are the most elusive of the “Big 5,” we didn’t see any early on. We did see plenty of the McDonalds of the bush though. What’s that you ask? Well it’s the Impala. They are considered to be so common that they are a Drive Thru type animal!

We have a competition going not too dissimilar to the one with had on our road trip in Australia. It’s called “dickhead of the day.” We give the award to the person who makes the biggest eijit of themselves on the days travel. I can recall that either Tiernan or Murph got most of the awards in Australia and we have a similar type person on our tour. I have nicknamed him the “Special One,” and he reminds me of “Chernobyl,” the guy myself, Karl and Avril lived with in Sydney. Unfortunately he is also my room mate! I have omitted his comments as they are so frequent I haven’t got the space on this page for them. Some great comments also came from the Yank and the Belgian. These were in no particular order, “Do you think we should drive through the Elephant Sh*t so that it can germinate!” and “ Zer zeem zu be no Dicks around ere!” The last one was in reference to an antelope that is common in the area and is called a Dik Dik. The first I won’t even comment on.

We stopped off for lunch in one of the camping area’s and we were lucky to find a lovely big bull Elephant having a mud bath down by the river. He was really enjoying himself wallowing in the mud and getting himself out of the sun. We got some nice pictures of him and then headed further down south. We were feeling a little bit dejected however because we hadn’t seen much big game. We did stop at a few nice waterholes though and I for one wasn’t too unhappy. The Yank however was not impressed as she still hadn’t seen any big cat’s since she got here. I think she was probably the last person on campus not to have seen any but we had a good feeling for the evening. As we were driving back at dusk the action started to really hot up. We came upon a Hyaena and her 3 cubs literally within a yard of the road. We have some great shots of her and I couldn’t believe how chilled out she was. The cars viewing her didn’t faze her in the slightest. The cubs were obviously not bothered by us either and were following the example set by their mother.

We left her and her cubs in peace to continue with their evening snooze and headed on. We were all buzzing at this stage as that was a great sight and we forgot about our days lack of interesting sightings. As these things tend to do, like Dublin Buses they tend to come in 3’s. No sooner had we left the sighting than we saw a huge grey object up the road in front of us. It could only be an Elephant and we were heading straight towards it. We got up quite close and the Elephant was on one side of the road. We pulled up beside an elderly couple in what had to be the smallest car in Kruger that day. It was a little Micra or something similar. Then the Big Boy decided he wanted to cross the road. He took exception to the little blue car in his way though and walked right up to the couple’s car. It was hilarious. We kind of boxed them in and the guy driving was basically staring down the barrel of a 7 tonne Elephant. All this time the wife was video taping the whole thing! As Reidser would say “Dats Brilliant!” We have a great video of the incident and it’s hilarious. I’m sure the couple’s Grand Kids will love the video! Youtube might be getting a copy! There will be a few bad words on the tape though so those with sensitive hearing might need to turn the sound off!

I couldn’t get over the size of the animal. It was massive. That for me was the best sight so far this trip. We were in stitches in the car after that incident. Partly nervous laughter coupled with some nervous tension. We kept going and then the Yank got her sighting. A big pride of Lions crossing the road. There were at least 12 Lionesses and a couple of Lions. What a sight! You wouldn’t want to be hitching on the roads around here! Everyone had had their appetite sated for the day! It’s not over till the fat lady sings and all that and we were delighted with our pictures stroke video’s of the day. I’m sure we’ll have many more of these kind of things happening in the weeks and months to come and I hope the buzz doesn’t wear off! We ended up being late to the gate in the end. We should have been fined but the ladies used their charm and got us off! Things like “ooh we’re really really sorry but we took a wrong turn,” etc etc etc with a bit of pouting and fluttering of eyelashes. It seems to work over here too!

We got away without having to pay a fine so it was time to have a few beers to celebrate our great day. We stopped into a lodge on the way back to our college by chance and asked do they serve food. The guy came back to us a couple of minutes later saying that we were welcome to come in and join them. We had a lovely dinner and a few beers to wind down the day. Funnily enough I got chatting to a chap at the bar and it turns out he’s from Swords in Dublin and that the owner of the lodge is also Irish. Small World! This guy called Kevin runs his own tours so I might hook up with him for my next week off in September.

We’ll be camping for the next few days which should be fun and I’m looking forward to sleeping under the stars for a few nights………………..

Day 25

So picture the scene. I'm sitting typing away on a blog and this big red haired lad walks by me. I'm looking at him and his freckles and thinking to myself, definate Paddy! He then opens his gob and this big thick Galway accent comes out! Pretty weird for a Galway lad to be out in the bush. It turns out he's out here for a dissertation that he's doing for a Masters in Trinity College on Bio Diversity or some such lark. I couldn't quite get a handle on exactly what it is he's doing.

So he asks me is there any news from home and I say I heard a bit about this and that and about Sean Quinn losing his Boll8x and all that on Anglo Irish Bank etc etc and he asks me for the article. He gives me his e-mail address and I'm thinking that I know the name from somewhere. I look at him again and then the penny drops. He was in first year in DIT with myself and Steve Keating over ten years ago. We had many a pint with him and the lads in class in the Cornerstone pub or whatever it was formally called. He failed first year and went on to do an accounting degree. How mad is that? So the old expression rings true about it being a small World!

It was the hottest it's been here today just pushing over the 40 degree mark. I thought my watch was gonna melt at one stage and this is winter! The summer is supposed to be wicked hot and you can fry your brekkie on the bonnets of cars! We'll all have to use blankets on the seats of the game vehicles to keep our bums from melting come September. I was sitting in a hammock earlier on and saw this yoke flying through the air above me. I nearly fell out of the hammock with the fright and it turns out it's a Bushbaby. They're somehow related to Monkeys and it's able to jump between trees with ease. They are quite rare and are supposed to be nocturnal and here's this one floating through the tree's like Tarzan in the middle of the afternoon. Every day over here seems to be full of surprises! Keep them coming is all I can say............

Day 24

Study day today so not much happening. I did have to give the Yank some lessons on geography. Man they are gullible. I told her we all drive horses and carts outside the major cities and that we don’t have electricity in our houses. She doesn’t know what Europe is and doesn’t know that Ireland is part of Europe. I asked her how far Ireland was from Europe and she told me 20,000 miles! Classic! Later on we had to do a presentation on Rhino and we had a good laugh presenting it. Our second exam is coming up as well so everybody is in study mode again.

Day 23

Today started off with a game drive. It was pretty cool to start the day with a sighting of 3 Rhino. A female and her two calves. They are funny looking animals and look like little ballet dancers tip toeing away from us. This is kind of cool considering that the female probably weighed close to 2 tonne. We didn’t see much else during the drive in terms of big game but the other group spotted their first Lion in the Timbavati. It’s funny as Cendry, one of the Shangaan guys kept saying to us that there weren’t any Lion on the property. Well he got a rude awakening when he saw the big male lounging under a tree about a mile from the campus! They also saw a Black Mamba on the road on their way back to college. Pretty cool to see and I think that we’ll see more of them as the weather starts to heat up a bit more.

We came back to college to find a big male Baboon rifling through the rubbish bins beside the rooms. He was going through all the bins looking for food. We came out and scared him away after he made a serious mess of the place. These guys are very dangerous as their canine teeth are bigger in size than that of Lion’s. They can do some serious damage to you if you give them no option but to attack. Lots of tourists have been bitten while in Kruger Park when they’ve stupidly fed them. Anyway one of the Canadian lads told me a great story. One of the girls doing some volunteering work over here was coming back from lunch when she thought she’d watch a bit of TV in the TV room. She walked in to the room and thought nothing of the “person,” she saw watching the TV. She thought from the corner of her eye that his movements were a bit strange and it was only then that she realised that it was the aforementioned Baboon sitting down watching telly with a piece of a sandwich that he had nicked from the Bin earlier! She freaked out because she thought the Baboon was gonna attack her and that freaked the Baboon out. He doesn’t know which one of them ran out of the room first. That’s not even the funny part. Guess what channel the Baboon was watching? National Geographic! I shit you not!!

We went out for a night walk around the fence later on in the evening. It was quite unnerving to be looking out into the darkness with a piece of chain link between you and whatever might be out there. At one stage we think we spotted the Hyaena that we had been hearing whooping earlier on. We could see green eyes in the darkness but couldn’t really see the outline properly. I have a fair idea that they were Hyaena eyes anyway. The first rule we have learned is not to back down so we just kept our pace to see if we were being tracked. It was cool to be getting a bit of an adrenaline rush from it. There wasn’t any noise from the bush and at night all you can really here are the crickets. It’s just you and the stars. It is serene. On our way back to the college I saw my first shooting star. It was amazing. I guess I made a wish too!