In da Bush

We spent 4 nights out in the Bush. Now this was proper bush. We camped on a dry river bed and had to have night watches for Lions, Leopards, Hyaena’s and Elephants. It was pretty cool and we went on long walks during the days. We came across loads of dead carcasses along the river bank and at one point we literally stumpled onto a fresh Kudo kill. The animal hadn’t even been preyed upon yet so it would just literally have been killed. It was some adrenalin buzz and that was definitely the highlight for me. I prefer the walking part of the experience because you can stop and listen for sounds without having an annoying diesel engine in the background and obviously you are at eye level with everything and it makes things more real. We also did our assessment for our rifle accuracy and I missed my test by 2 points. The auld cross eyed ness definitely caught up with me on this occasion. It was a great experience though to shoot such high calibre rifles. We were shooting a .458 this time which is pretty big. There was a savage kick back from it and one of the girls knocked herself off her feet with one shot early on. That was pretty funny.




Chimp Eden

We took a trip down to a place called Chimp Eden on Monday. Our friend the Yank wanted to see the place as she wants to work there. She only wants to work there because there is a programme on Animal Planet in the States set there and it’s really popular. It was a good way to spend the day and the Chimps have been rescued from all manner of cruelty in their previous lives. Most of the entrance fee goes to Chimp rescue so it was good to be able to contribute. Jane Goodall runs the project and they’ve successfully rescued over 100 Chimps at this stage so it’s been a great success. The funniest moment of the day had to be when the lady at the reception asked me whether “Special One,” was over 14! The guy is 25! I told her that he was my son!

Small World


It’s a small World. We had a bit of a blow out on Saturday night and we felt a bit the worse for wear on Sunday. Myself and Pretty Boy left the reserve with the lads. The two South African lads at the other campus gave us a lift in their Pajero to Hoedspruit. We hoped to get a taxi on to the college and bed after. Jason the guy driving thinks he’s a formula one rally driver. He flew us to Hoedspruit in extra fast time. I don’t think the Pajero at home would be able for him. He ripped the living shite out of the thing. Pardon the French! We got a taxi half way and had to try and hitch the rest of the way. We were there for a good while as loads of cars passed us by. In fairness we weren’t looking at our best after 5 days in the bush and one on the razz so I can’t blame anyone for not stopping. Eventually though a car pulled over. A father and son that were heading a bit of the way. It was better than nothing so we took the lift and got chatting. It turns out that the younger fella was home for a holiday while his father lives in the area. I asked him where he was living and to my surprise he said Guernsey reserve. That’s where myself and Alex stayed for her holiday. One thing leads into another and it turns out that he actually owned the lodge we stayed at and lives in another house on the reserve. I had been talking about the guy to Tom the field guide in Pezulu Lodge when I was there. The guy seemed really sound and he was talking about his micro lighting business. It turns out that I’m supposed to go to that lodge in January on my placement.



Don’t give that man a gun!

Well folks, it’s official. I am legally competent to operate a rifle in South Africa. We did our theory test today. We are approved by the Safety authority of South Africa. My SA experience gets funnier every day. We went to take the test today and we were given our test papers and then the registrar gives us all the answers. So people have been slagging me about my last test result of 92%. Well in this one lads I got a guaranteed 100%! I knew it was gonna happen at some stage but didn’t realize it would take me till my thirties to get it. Oh and Steve (Peanut trading Keating) it wasn’t “multiple choice.”

You gotta love this country. It’s full of comical moments. One of the questions in the test was how long is immediately. No you didn’t read that wrong but officially in South Africa according to the government, immediately means “by the end of the next normal working business day.” That’s what we had to write down for the answer. Sometimes I think that we’re actually efficient in Ireland!