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!
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!
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