Shocking stuff!

We headed to Kruger over the weekend after having a night out in town. We had a good time out. It certainly started out well. We were literally 10 metres out of the gate when we had to stop and let a herd of Elephants pass. They didn’t really want to leave the road so we stopped and waited for about 10 minutes and just enjoyed watching them stripping the last branches from the bushes outside the campus. That’s one thing that doesn’t happen at home on a Saturday night! We had good craic on the night out. We ended up in an Afrikaan’s bar. There were a few meat heads in the bar and it reminded me of a South African version of Heaven in D Blanch! At one stage this big steroid head had a row with a black guy and actually threw him out of the bar. It was really bad form as the black guy was minding his own business. A few people started arguing with him and one girl in particular took him to task. I thought he was gonna give her a belt at one stage. Luckily things calmed down and peace restored I went and tried to get a game of pool.

The same aforementioned beef head was playing pool. Myself and “Special One,” teamed up and played the Afrikaner lads. We played some cagey games and ended up winning 4 games in a row. It was sweet and we were delighted with ourselves. Laura though decided to rub it into the lads and started slagging them saying that she couldn’t believe an Irishman and an Englishman had beaten them at pool in their own bar! The lads luckily enough were fairly hammered and probably stoned at this stage so we didn’t any guff from them.

We got up the next morning early enough and I had a bit of a fuzzy head. We headed to a reserve called Manyeleti for a drive without the usual crowds that you get in Kruger. The reserve was very peaceful but to be honest there weren’t many animals about. We decided to call into the Honey Guide camp and see what it was like. One person from our course will be sent there on placement. It was a nice place and very open. The staff was friendly and it would probably be a nice place to work. There weren’t enough animals for my liking though. The main camp looked like a bit of a concentration camp as well so I’m kind of glad the powers that be aren’t thinking of sending me there!

I went to try and book my driving test on Monday and drove the guts of 800 klicks in one day round trip. The result of that journey was that when we got to the centre there was a sign on the counter saying that they weren’t taking any more bookings for the whole month. I wasn’t very happy. We had gotten up at 5 to drive there! Anyway the less said the better and my “fixer,” had made the proverbial cock up. I’m not very impressed with his fixing skills but these things happen I suppose and I’ll just have to go and make the booking some other time.

We woke up again today at 5 and I decided to wash the auld teeth and wash the face. No shaving at that time in the morning for obvious reasons! I turned on the tap and I started to get shocks through the water! Now I’m not that au fait with physics and I thought I was somehow imagining this! So I tried it with the shower and the same effect. It was like the shock you get when you put your hand on an electric fence on a farm in Meath! I needed to have this phenomenon confirmed though so I enlisted my room mate and asked him to check to see if I was going mad or not! I was thinking at the time to ask him to put his head under the tap but that would be “bad!”

He put his hand under and the surprised look on his face confirmed my suspicions. I heard a number of “yelps,” from the rooms further down the block. I thought the night before that I had felt a bit of a belt of static through my feet at different stages but put it down to being tired. This was hilarious. I’m still not sure how the electricity passes though the water but it was happening. It’s safe to say that the teeth didn’t get a washing in the morning from that sink. I was just thinking afterwards while I was on the drive that I was lucky I didn’t need to take a pee!

We reported the problem to reception and with typical African chilled out ness, the girl at the desk said “thank you,” and wrote it down in her maintenance book! At this stage I didn’t trust that this problem was really gonna get sorted because of an entry in the maintenance book so I reported it to a few people higher up the chain of command! As I’m writing this blog I’m walking around in my rubber soled flip flops not really tempted to take a shower! I’ll let the guinea pig return from the library and see if he gets a belt before I try it again! I guess its learned behaviour then that keeps us from putting our hands on electric fences! I’m lucky I haven’t had the pacemaker put in just yet! TIA my friends, TIA. (Time in Africa)

We headed out on the vehicles with various stories of how bad we had been shocked and we were lucky to have spotted a massive herd of Buffalo. We followed them for a while and they headed in the direction of the watering hole. We got some great shots of them bustling along and eventually getting to the watering hole where they were met by the disconsolate roars of the resident Hippos. The sight was awesome and I’ve attached some photos of the event. “Battle at Kruger,” eat your heart out!

Pressure is for tyres!

Exam time is coming. We are all studying hard now and knuckling down to it. It feels like I’m back in school again studying for exams. Everyone remembers when inevitably the sun started to split the stones around the end of August slash start of September. You were forced to be inside reading books about geometry and square roots of something or other. Well the only difference here is that we have the occasional scorpion or snake to avoid while were studying in our rooms! I suppose being on that subject I’m actually studying everyone’s favourite, Spiders at the moment. It’s quite interesting and actually going out and trying to catch them is even more fun. Lucky I don’t have a Spider phobia!

The weather is starting to heat up here and the temp is regularly topping out at over 40 degrees. The auld mercury is starting to come under pressure. It gets up to 50 degrees here in summer but at least you don’t have to deal with humidity. Well not just yet anyway because it’s a dry heat. I can understand why the Spanish take a siesta in the afternoon now as the heat tends to drain the life out of you.

We went out on a couple of drives recently and we had two cool sightings. The first was with a small herd of Elephants. The big Cow had her two young calves with her and she was scoping us out. She didn’t seem too nervous about us in the vehicle. There was no note of aggression on her part. I think she was educating her calves. She steered them away from us a few times as they were getting a little bit too comfortable with us for her liking. I would call it having a healthy respect for us in the vehicle and we certainly had lots of respect for her. She probably weighed in at 4.5 tonnes and could easily have turned us over on our roof. It seemed to be a day for mothers because a short time later we came upon another mother and calf. This time though it was a massive female White Rhino. We had actually gotten out of our vehicles when I decided I needed to use the bathroom. I found an obliging bush to take a leak behind and as I was zipping up I thought I saw a bit of movement on the horizon but to be honest, I was keeping a look out more for Lion than anything else. I headed back to the vehicle and as I met up with the group Sean spotted the female and her calf about 200 metres away from us over my shoulder! God bless Sean’s eye sight because I wouldn’t have even noticed her. She made a bee line for a track just a little bit downwind from us. We made a bee line for the vehicle. She stopped 50 metres away from us and started sniffing the air. She has about as good eyesight as my good self and she was trying to work out what the smell and sounds were. She strutted on purposefully and didn’t pay us that much attention which was cool. I thought she would have been a little bit more skittish but she seemed chilled out. So two of the big 5 in a half and hour. That was fantastic.

We met up with the course director during the afternoon to discuss our progress and to plan where our placements will likely be. It looks like I’ll be heading down South to a region called KwaZulu Natal. There is a park down there and a couple of the lads from the last course are already working there. They seem to be enjoying themselves and getting on well so the Omens are good for January. All I need to do now is pass my FGASA guiding exam in October!

Later on that evening we could hear the Lions roaring loudly again. I hadn’t heard them for a week or so. It was great to hear them again and it never ceases to amaze me how awesome and chilling that sound is. The bad thing about my potential placement is that there doesn’t seem to be Lion in the reserve. I guess I’ll have to make the most of the next few months. That might be good news to hear for some at home though I suspect!

Animal magic

Wakey Wakey


I was woken this morning at 5 A.M. by the sounds of squirrels calling out to mark their territories. It’s not the first time this has happened and they tend to be very incessant. It actually gets quite irritating after a while so I decided to get my own back. We have some CD’s that are compilations of African wildlife and their various vocalisations. I decided to see if this particular squirrel would react to my playing of another squirrel in his territory.

The result of my little experiment was hilarious. I played the call outside the tent and after a few seconds the squirrel came racing over, tail bobbing and lightly calling. He was looking around wildly for his competitor. He obviously wasn’t sure about the size of this newcomer and wanted to suss him out. He was sitting on the top of the tent looking around the place for this invader but couldn’t figure out where the sound was coming from. The amazing thing was that when I played the call again he actually shut up and stayed quiet. The only thing I can think of was that the call i had on my CD had come from a big dominant male in his territory when the recording was made. It solved my morning wake up problem though and now I just have to sort out the Elephants!

Speaking of Elephants. I was out for a run with my earphones in and practically bumped into an Elephant taking an auld drink at the river that runs down through the valley. This dry riverbed sometimes has a little water and it meanders to an end nicely in a pool on our side of the college fence. I don’t know which of us got more of a fright but I didn’t take long to back track the way I had come! A bit of trumpeting ensued and I had obviously upset the poor beast a little bit. I’ve attached a picture of the bridge with the aforementioned Dumbo drinking after obviously recovering from her earlier ordeal! Needless to say I’ll be paying more attention on my next run!

Shoot em up!


We went back for a second helping of Ramboesque shooting at the firing range this morning. There weren’t too many takers so myself and James ended up going on our own. We met up with Piotr de Leowe. He’s an old school Afrikaaner who runs the range. He has a lot of military background so he showed us how to use the gun and the best way to aim and hit our targets. The targets were placed 25 metres away this time as opposed to 15 the last time so I found it a little bit harder to hit the Bully. We benefitted from the fact that there were only two of us so Piotr gave us some good tips. I found the shooting quite difficult as I held onto the gun while reloading without letting the muzzle drop. My shoulders were literally hanging off me by the end! I enjoyed it though and it gave me a little bit more time to see the correction position to stand and hold the weapon. The kick back wasn’t too bad as we were only using .303 rounds. We have to shoot for our practical FGASA test with the .458’s though which are a lot heavier and give an extreme kick back. I’m looking forward to that though and see if my aim has improved. I blame the auld eyes regardless as they aren’t what they used to be! I wouldn’t be winning any teddy bears just yet!

Study Study Study

The last week has been spent traversing the Kruger National Park looking at the geological formations throughout the park and identifying which vegetation adapts to soil types. Yeh I know even I’m bored writing about it! It’s not the most interesting subject I must admit and to top that off we are being tested on botany and trees as well. The test is getting every body down as I don’t really think that too many of us are massively inspired by any of it.

It does form the basis for the make up of the rest of the park though so it’s worth knowing. It’s the economics of the bush as far as I’m concerned! We are heading to the shooting range on Saturday to break up the weekend as we have our test on Monday and that puts pay to any chance of relaxing over the weekend. I’m hoping we get to shoot some high calibre guns tomorrow. It should be fun either way.

We had to move back to our rooms that we had originally when we arrived here today. I was happier down in the tents. They were cool. I guess I liked the peace and quiet. You were right beside the fence line and you could hear all the animals passing you by. Things could be worse though. Roll on Saturday morning and the .458’s!

Dublin weather, well not quite!

We got up on Wednesday morning and it was cold and overcast. A cold front had blown in from the Cape and we were in for a few shitty Dublin style days. We were on the beach though and the water was still warm so we decided to just grin and bear it for the day and discuss our options that night. It was an energy filled day and I went for a long run on the beach and did a lot of swimming and body surfing.

We headed for dinner that night and made a plan for the next few days. Some of the group wanted to head for the border which would be the easy route. I was for that strategy on the first morning but with the aid of a few days of chilling I wanted to conquer the sand and give it a go at breaking back out of Ponta D’ouro. We eventually decided to give it a go and headed North. We asked a few African lads at the camp site if they minded escorting us as far as the dirt roads. They agreed and we set off. We let a good bit of air out of the tyres and I was adamant that I was gonna stop for nothing. We were going great guns until the lads in front slowed down to much and we lost momentum. We ended up getting stuck and had to start pushing. It was completely freaky as the next thing out of nowhere the guy from the first night turned up looking for his rope. It was mad, we were 5 klicks out of the town and he just turns up as we get stuck. At this stage we told him we were alright but he wanted his rope so we gave “Dumber,” the rope back and kept going. It didn’t do his popularity any good when we heard the first morning that the he had told his boss that we didn’t pay him the night we got pulled out of the sand. The little scammer pretended he no hav any englis!! when we confronted him about it. He knew the game was up fairly quick. After getting lost about 5 times and nearly blowing the engine in poor auld “Fixer,” we got to the dirt road. Boy was I happy to see some kind of solid road. We ended up kissing the ground like the Pope. We were relieved!

We bowled along after that at a good click and then we came to a Police checkpoint. I knew we were gonna be scammed the moment the cop stepped into the road. He was looking for a kickback like all the rest of the cops we ran into in the country. They target tourists because they know we carry a bit of money. I guess we’re easy targets but it was more a case of pay the fine and move along and not waste some of your time down the cop shop. “You must pay for your freedom,” he kept saying!

On all our trips we have a dickhead of the day comment prize and the last trip I went on the “special one,” my roommate cleaned up but Danielle did all of the cleaning this time. There were numerous dumb American moments but the best one was when she asked Kev to divide 1000 by 4 in his head and he gave the answer as 250. She replies and I quote “Wow! how did you do that in your head?” She then proceeded to ask him to divide 6000 by 6 and got her calculator out! “I was never good at Maths in school,” she says. Enough said!

We got to Maputo the capital of Mozzie without much of a problem and found the hostel. After paying another fine for pulling an illegal U-turn (As if I would!) we settled in for the night and had a few drinks. The Backpackers was pretty dirty and the mossies were everywhere. They were worse here than at the beach but I drowned myself with mossiie spray and let them do their worst. We decided to go out that evening and we met a couple of English lads who run a dive company a little bit further along the coast. They advised us to visit a couple of bars so we took off for them. We went to a Blues bar first (Rourkey would have loved it) and then went to a nightclub. The place was full of NGO staff and we had a great night. Mind you the ringing in my ears didn't stop for a couple of days after!

Myself and James headed out in the morning to check out some markets and we hit the fish market and food market downtown which was quite cool. It was full of very colourful merchandise from wooden ornaments to exotic fruit and lots and lots of fish. I began to feel a little queasy after a while in this section and we moved on! We didn’t get any hassles here and we had a good morning. The other guys went somewhere else and they got out of the taxi back at the hostel raging. They had been hassled by the cops again. Great fun!

We had talked about running into some of the people at college on our trip and I didn’t want to run into my room mate “Special One,” the most. He was off to the North of Mozambique and I thought it was safe enough to assume he either didn’t make it on his own over here or he was back in college. I assumed wrong and I suppose to an extent I was surprised and have to give him a bit more respect for being able to deal with travelling on his own. He came into the room in the hostel just after I had woken up from a snooze and I genuinely thought I was hallucinating. This dopey fucker with his stupid hat down the end of my bed! Then he shook the bed and I knew I wasn’t dreaming! Luckily I had a good book to read and then we went out after for our dinner. It meant he didn’t annoy me too much.

We did it all again that night but not to the same extent with the notion that we were getting out of Maputo the next day. We headed to a nice Thai restaurant and Dee decided she needed money but the ATM swallowed her card! She hasn’t had a good run with that but luckily we picked it up from the bank the next day. The Thai was excellent and cheap as chips! It was funny because we sat in a corner of the place and I hear this accent behind me. I kind of ignored it and Kev the Scot goes that the guy is Irish. After a second I realize he’s speaking with a bit of a mix of an Irish brogue with something else. I overheard him talking about Waterford and their chance in the All Ireland Hurling final and I was just thinking how small the World really is!

We headed back over the border without any hassle and we all felt like we were coming home when we got to Kruger and then on to the Wildlife college.


The end of an adventure. I’ll be back but I doubt the rest of the guys will!

Camping

We decided to move to a less expensive location. We ended up setting up camp on the beach. It wasn’t luxury by any stretch of the imagination but it was gonna be home for a couple of days so we’d make do. We decided to go for dinner in a place down the beach but that meant we had to drive there. We got stuck a few times again and the local kids came to the rescue. We gave them a few bob for their efforts and it was actually a bit of a laugh as we knew we would get out this time. We had a nice seafood hotpot and took off back to the beach. We started to unpack and low and behold there were only two tents. Birdman had forgotten to bring the other one. I wasn’t impressed. I decided to sleep on the back of “Fixer,” for the night. It wasn’t too bad as myself and James stayed up and drank a good bit of Rum and Coke and told campfire stories till 3. It’s amazing how comfortable the back of a Bakkie will feel when you’re half cut!

No Cowboys here I think?

Indian Ocean,


I woke up at ten the next morning and I felt a little bit less shook. It had been a hard day on Sunday and I was ready for some chillaxin on the beach. We talked to the owner of the lodge and I think he felt sorry for us because he arranged a bit of breakfast for us and sorted out a better rate for the night before. It as decent of him and he gave us some advice about where to stay next. We headed down the road to another lodge and threw our bags on the floor and hit the beach. It was great to be on the sand again ironically enough. The Indian Ocean was beautiful and the water was lovely and warm. The waves on the beach were nice too and the sand was a lovely whitish brown. I did a bit of swimming initially and saw some cool fish. We did some body surfing and had a few cold ones on the beach and the sea washed all our troubles away. I had my first Dos M or 2 M which is the nice beer in Mozambique. The two M’s stand for Mac and Mahon and I’d hazard a guess that there is some Oirish connection there! They tasted good anyway!
We met some of the guys from the college who had come down to do some diving and they had had a similar experience in the sand to us. They had to sleep in the car one of the nights. Not nice having experienced a few hours of it ourselves. They didn’t think they would leave the same way as we had come and were planning on going further south and exiting the country at the border with Swaziland. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience for them either but I guess that’s all part of the adventure.

Travelling

Mozzie Mozzie Mozzie

Where do I start? It was a bit of an adventure. We decided to break ourselves in gently to our week off by going through the Kruger Park for some game viewing on the way to the border. We booked a backpackers lodge just outside the KNP. It was a little conservancy where all the lodges and homeowners had access to a fenced in area where they had all of the “Big 5.” The place was called Marloth Park and it was at the very Eastern Border of the KNP. It was quite a cool place and as we were driving to our accommodation we encountered Zebra, Giraffe Kudo and plenty of Warthog. We were told that we couldn’t walk around at night because of these animals in case we frightened them! I thought that was ironic considering they could all do away with you by some means or other if they felt threatened. In fact most game rangers feel that to be done in by a glorified pig (Warthog) or cow (Buffalo) would be the ultimate embarrassment! The guy who owned the lodge was quite knowledgeable and he gave us the ins and outs of the area. He was actually studying for his field guide qualification as well but was struggling to find the time while running his business and doing tours. I’m sure he envied the time that we can commit to passing our exams. We headed out for a bite to eat up the road to a nice traditional Afrikaans type pub. We had a few beers and Kev our Scottish tour member nearly got into a brawl with one of the locals who was well sauced. He spotted a Genet which is a type of cat and started to tell Kevin that it was very rare and that it was a Bush Cat. Well that started Kev off as he knows his cats and in the end Kev had to walk away after being insulted. It didn’t help that Kev told yer man that he was a field guide and gave him the scientific name of this so called “BushCat.” The locals don’t like foreigners telling them about their wildlife! We got a good nights kip and woke bright and early for a bit of game viewing in the morning. Unfortunately we didn’t see much in the few hours we were there and we headed on for what was to become some adventure.

The books when describing places sometimes don’t really do them justice in terms of beauty, topography and of course people. They often provide good tips to the honest traveler which can prove invaluable. In the case of the Lonely Planet they were way off on their description of how to get to a place that we ended up heading for. You tend to put your trust in these books because generally seasoned travelers have been adding advice. I would love to know how the girl who wrote the advice section got to where we went. She must have been helicoptered in! I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here. I’ll start at the border. We arrived at the border and like most borders there was lots of hustle and bustle and a little more of the hustle. Of course we had all kinds of lads offering us their services for filling in forms and getting forms and did I want insurance or someone to watch the car etc etc…..

I’ve seen this before and they got short shift in terms of helping me out! There are scammers everywhere I guess and Mozambique is no exception. We got our stuff sorted out anyway and headed over the border with relatively minor fuss. We all got hassled for something but mostly money. They even have a young fella on the door of the jaxx who only charges tourists to use the toilet. All the locals were walking by him! Administration out of the way we headed for the coast. The road to Maputo the capital is relatively straight forward. It’s a tolled road and it’s better than the M50 by a long shot. A sweet road into any capital. We weren’t heading for the capital though. We were heading down south to the coastal village of Ponta D’ouro. This looked relatively straightforward on the aforementioned Lonely Planet. A straightish road of about 120 klicks or so. I didn’t think it was gonna be a major problem getting there in about 2 hours. We crossed the border at about 4 so that left us 2 hours at a push to get there before dark. Little did we know what lay ahead. We were fine up until a point and when I say that I mean as the road was tarred up to the town of Boane. This was a tarred road of Aughavas in Leitrim standard. Not too bad but if you hit too many potholes your fillings will be hitting the back of your throat!

We thought it best to start as we meant to finish and decided to continue even though the road was deteriorating rapidly as we went further south. We got to a dusty holed road which was literally shocking on the joints as we started to make very slow progress indeed. It wasn’t so much road as more holes with bits of road in between! It seemed that this road swept on to eternity and we were all getting a bit depressed to be honest. Things weren’t looking very rosey. We had travelled a total of 67 klicks in just over 4 hours. It was dark and the townsfolk we encountered on the way had no English and of course between the 5 of us we hadn’t a word of Portuguese! Great craic! We belted on and then things got a whole lot worse. We ended up on sand! Now “Fixer,” has diff lock but it’s not Range Rover or Toyota Landcruiser. It tries it’s best through sand but this stuff was 3 and 4 foot deep. I floored it because I thought that the town must be just around the corner! Corner after corner stretched on and we were all a little bit demoralized and then we hit monster sand. Fixer started to begrudglingly give in and we were rightly stuck. The wheels and chassis were wedged in sand. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere in Mozambique and to top things off. We hadn’t seen another vehicle for ages. We tried to dig our way out but we had gone so far in that we needed to gain serious momentum to have any chance of getting back out. This didn’t look very likely considering we hadn’t been able to budge the jammer in either direction! A little bit of panic set in and people started hearing Lions and all kinds of stuff. Machete wielding marauders was the next thing to come into peoples heads! Now to be honest I was a fair bit depressed myself but I just resigned myself to possibly having to sleep in the car for the night. The mozzies didn’t help matters as they started attacking us in the car! How they hone in on us is mad as apparently they,re attracted to carbon dioxide that we breath out so it’s as if they were just waiting for us there! We had my home phone with me luckily and sorry Domino’s but there will be a hefty bill next time! We called all the backpackers and lodges in the place we were staying but only one answered and ironically it was the most expensive place in the town. They were very decent though and we owe them our debt of gratitude as they set about organizing a tractor to come out and pull us out of the sand.

We were trying to get a bit of kip in the car and limit the amount of mozzies could get into the car by keeping the windows up. This led to a fairly uncomfortable two hours where by the temperature in the car rose by 15 degrees and the lack of oxygen started to make us feel sick. We rolled down the windows and took our chances! We were giving up hope on this magic tractor coming to bail us out. It had been over two and a half hours and there was still no sign. The magic tractor joke beared its head. ( Did you hear about the magic tractor? It drove down the road and turned into a field) Well to be honest we didn’t think this one would appear at all and then low and behold we see lights in the distance. Our spirits soared. We hear this booming sound getting louder and louder. I was expecting a Massey Ferguson 155 to come trundling around the corner. It actually wasn’t nearly as wide of the mark as I thought as a Big Ford something or other came along with one light working and blue smoke pluming out of the back. Down jump two black lunatics who had only a few words of English between them like, Truck (Tractor) and Push ( Drive ). The guy who was the driver of the tractor was either half sauced or stoned. I couldn’t figure out which but he was mad as a brush. He tried to tie the rope to the steering column at one stage and I had to re direct him and the rope to the chassis. I had visions of the engine being pulled straight out of the car along with the bumper and the bull bar.

So Chico as he called himself started to drive with the more sensible Jonas supervising. It was like a scene from the movie Dumb and Dumber with the two of them arguing constantly. Before we had even started to be pulled Chico nearly knocked down his partner when reversing! The signs were ominous. We eventually got going and to be honest even the tractor had difficulty with some of the sections. We wouldn’t have made it without being pulled. We were going great guns until the lads suddenly decide to stop. We didn’t even see the guy standing at the side of the road. It was 3 in the morning at this stage and he was standing there with an pick axe and shovel. I won’t go into what we were thinking! We make a couple more stops on the way for the lads and it was bizarre to say the least. At one stage we stopped to pick up an errant shoe that apparently had been fallen off Jonas’s foot the night before. Weird! We eventually made it to the town and then disaster struck. The lads tractor broke down. The battery was apparently dead. Chico wanted me to pull him and you just had to laugh! They asked James to help them jump the tractor and that was hilarious. Dumb and dumber were holdijng the leads to the battery and tryijng to turn the tractor over while getting shocked by the battery every time. The funny part was they wanted James to hold one end and he was having none of it! Between the 3 of them they shocked each other a good few times. It was mental. Eventually I had to try and by pass the tractor but it was blocking up most of the road. Another bit of digging and making sand ladders and absolutely gunning the car got us away and up the hill and to our destination. It was hitting half four at this stage! We met the poor lodge owner and he showed us the room for the night and we were all out like lights. The day had finally ended and we hoped we would be able to take some time and just chill from there on!

No brown envelope required

We headed out to the bush for classes about conservation management and weather. It was very interesting to see the different techniques employed by lodges and conservation parks in and around Kruger. The use of fire as a means of fauna rejuvenation in reserves. The studies and research employed in order to find the carrying capacities for areas. It’s similar to Irish farming in a lot of ways but with different flora and fauna. I guess you’ll never have the risk in Ireland of one of your animals eating you!

We learned about the hazards of setting fires and the dangers of bad management of these. A few years ago in Kruger they set fires in an area close to a village and the wind shifted direction. The fire squad appointed to control the fire wasn’t able to contain it and some women from the local village were burned to death. They started to burn area’s around the college last week and the rate at which the fire spread was impressive. It burned out area’s within minutes.

I had to go and sit a written test for a learners license. That was why I went and spent a day waiting to book the test a few weeks ago. It was a lot easier to do the exam than I expected. Mind you it’s not hard to get a good result when you have the answer paper the night before and when you sit down all the answers are already written in your question paper! Fixer did his job today. I have to go back and do the practical exam at some stage. I’ve been told that the practical won’t be difficult to pass either. My fixer said he started to sweat when he saw me taking so long answering the questions in the written exam as he just put down everything that had been marked on his question paper. He didn’t even look at the questions! Classic Africa.

King of the jungle

Weekend with Lions

We were planning on taking it easy for the weekend. We have a test most Saturday mornings so it rules Friday nights out for having a few tinies. We had an exam on Birds on Saturday morning. (Birds being the feathered variety). We get up early in the mornings so it was hard to get out of the scratcher at 5 to do that last bit of cramming. The last time I think I was up at that time was in first year in College back in Dublin. Myself and Steve Keating would get up early and cram. He was a little bit more successful than my good self. Anyway that’s a long time ago and the exams this time are about something that I have an interest in. I could never understand where the elasticity of supply and demand would be of benefit to me in real life! So 11 O’clock comes around and as the man says “job done.”

Time to chillax! It was pretty hot so we took a few hours off to relax and then I decided I wanted to hit Kruger for some game viewing. We’re so lucky to have Kruger literally on our doorstep. We can head into the park whenever we want and the best thing is that we have these cool Wildcards that mean we can use any of the 88 National Parks in South Africa for the measly sum of 110 Rand for the year. Yes now that’s what I call value. That’s about a tenner in Euro for the year. Sure you wouldn’t get two scoops in Dublin for that! Well maybe in Mellon Balls shop but not many other places.

We hadn’t really any expectations going into the park and as Birdman says “Nature is full of surprises.” We travelled North into the park and stopped off for a coffee and sambo for lunch. Our appetites and thirst sated we headed out to what I know call “Big Cat Alley,” or the S100. We didn’t have to wait long before we see a line of cars parked up ahead of us. We pulled in and patiently! waited our turn to see what the other people were looking at. It looked like it was a big male Lion lying on the ground. We could just see his dark mane from where we were parked. On closer inspection though we realised that there were actually two Lions on the ground. Our luck was certainly in. We were within 5 metres of two Lions mating! What a sight. It was amazing. In typical female fashion the Lioness was just lounging about leaving the male to do all the work!! There was nothing else on their minds. Lions apparently mate for up to two days and the frequency of mating can be anything up to every fifteen minutes! Unbelievable! Sure you’d need a holiday after all that! Well we didn’t have that much time to spend with them although we could have spent all day. The male was in magnificent condition. I’d say he weighed in at easily 220 Kilograms. The Lioness though was in bad shape. She looks like she has TB. Her body was very emaciated and she seemed to have a bit of a limp. It was a pity because it’s very rare to have Lions so close to the road and to have seen two healthy specimens would have been the ultimate Lion sighting.

We were really buzzing after that regardless. Even the “Special One,” was in top form. He was even throwing in some gags here and there! I decided to give “Special One,” a driving lesson on the way back. He was fairly nervous which made me nervous. I told him we were gonna do some emergency stop scenario’s so every now and again I’d scream that there was an Elephant in the road just ahead. He was a bit slow on the take up of this scenario and we would have rammed the poor auld Elephant but he soon got the hang of it and was stopping nicely. These things have a habit of making fantasy into reality and about an hour later a big bull Elephant did actually fly out on to the road ahead of us. I was in stitches as the poor fecker was sweating it trying to pull the car up! It’s lucky the Elephant didn’t charge us because I wouldn’t fancy his chances of being able to find reverse!

We got back to the college in one piece anyway with only a few more grey hairs to add to my Badger Head. We were invited to a Braai later on in the evening so we just had time to collect a few tastey beverages and grab a shower before hitting the Braai. We had a couple of nice T Bone steaks and a couple of cans of Castle beer under the African sky. Not a bad way to spend an evening and then we hear this roaring. 3 male Lions had made a kill right beside the college. They had caught the Buffalo right by the fence and it sounded so close you’d swear the Lions were on our side of the fence! The sound was amazing. It would put the shits up you and it stirs something very carnal in you. A few of the guys from the college decided to investigate further but I had my sensible hat on for once and decided not to go down. Apparently the Lions were down by the drainage line where I run by every day. The fence to be honest wouldn’t fill me with a massive amount of confidence. Consider how far your average domesticated cat can jump and then multiply that by about a figure you pull out of your head. I haven’t seen a Lion jump before but I’m sure they wouldn’t have much difficulty clearing the fence if they were hungry. Anyway the Lions kept roaring all night. I was actually disappointed when they decided to move off and the roaring stopped in the morning. I’m sure we’ll see and hear much more and I could get used to it!

Oh and by the way check out this you tube video we took one day in Kruger!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxHOppq871c