Time Flies

Time flies by. I did my practical assessment on Monday and did well. Sure the Irish can talk or so they say and I had to waffle on for 8 guests for 3 hours. It was a weird experience because we’ve been used to just observing the animals as opposed to forming opinions about them and relating those opinions to others. It was an early start for me as the drive started at 5 so I had to be up at 4. Gone are the days when I was just coming home from the Sporting Emporium or Colossus or God forbid a Coppers lock in! I’m in bed by 9 these days. Nine O’clock here is like midnight at home. I had to shave, pack up breakfasts for all the guests and make sure there was a hot box for a coffee break. All this after waking up and actually dressing myself! Not easy at 4 in the morning and the shaving took all my concentration.

So I arrive down to the reception at a quarter to five. The game drive is at 5 and I had Margaret’s words of wisdom about the early bird catching the worm and all that ringing in my head. Ready to go and now all I need is my guests. James “Pretty Boy,” Slade was the first to arrive. In fairness to him he was quick to spot my deficiency. I thought I had all the i’s dotted and T’s crossed but it’s always the small things that you overlook. He asked me where was my car? Shit! I forgot the most obvious thing on a game drive!

Lucky for me I’m such a good blagger! The moderator didn’t even think anything about the game vehicle when James jumped out of it. He did give me a weird look but he didn’t realize I had asked me auld Canadian pal “Pretty boy,” to grab the car so I didn’t look like a tit! It worked out in the end as it always does though. When I got back to base I was debriefed and told I had passed. I was also given my result for the exam the week before. 92%! Not bad for a fella that failed economics and accountancy. I must revert to my Brother Pete’s observation on hearing the news, and I quote “92% must be a strange feeling!” Yes Peter quite, a strange feeling but one I could get used to! And they say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit!

A few funny moments have passed since then. On another assessment drive we went on for our Yank colleague, she came up with the best quote of the week. She was going well on her assessment. Her driving was good and she was doing well in her observation. We stopped for a tea break and she tells us “ya’ll (She’s from Alabama) have to make yourselves your coffee and tea because I don’t know how to because I’m American!” Then as she was digging herself into a bigger hole she says when we asked her how she couldn’t know how to make tea, she replied, “well I don’t live in the Victorian era or anything like that so how do you expect me to know how to make it!” It reminds me of hearing about a certain Ashley Cole who plays right back for Chelsea asking his Girls Aloud wife Sheryl Tweedy how to make Pot Noodles! Eh, teabag, hot water job done Alabama!

One of our tasks the other night was to host our class mates for dinner. We had good craic on the night and I think we worked well as a team. It was quite a cool job we did. I’ll stop patting myself on the back now. The “clients,” were happy and we had a blast. Myself and “Pretty Boy,” got mangled while we were serving so it made things a lot easier. We used our restaurant knowledge to good effect! I’ve included a few pictures of Pangolins Paradise restaurant staff for your perusal.

Oh and before I forget, I’m going to queue for my driving license test application again tonight. We drove up to a tiny little hick town called Graskop on Monday to queue up for our license. We left the college at 3 in the morning and got there at 4. We started to stand in line. After a while I decided to go up and check on the opening time. The office didn’t open till 7.45 A.M. The sign also read, we only process 7 applications for driving license test per day. Guess what? We were 8th, 9th and 10th in the queue! TIA (Time in Africa!)

There are also a few video's on Youtube that have been uploaded,

Check them out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lerhlxk_KQ

A lot can happen in a week!

So how high can a Kudo really jump?


I picked Alex up from the little regional airport called Hoedspruit Eastgate. It’s a great little airport with a tractor pulling the bags to the plane and off again. The runway is patrolled by Cheetah’s to keep the birds off it! Well that’s the way the story goes anyway! A line of khaki clad field guides eagerly awaited their guests off the flight and of course I lined up behind them all. I regret not writing out a placard with her name on it now. She arrived safe and sound but was a bit hot when she got off the plane. It did happen to be 35 degree’s though so I can’t blame her. It wasn’t long until she spotted her first wild animal. A big male Giraffe! I hope it wasn’t the same one that greeted me 3 months ago but I couldn’t be sure.

Bush baby with good taste!


We arrived into the lodge and it was fairly spectacular in the room that we had been given. You have your own private pan. (Waterhole) One and all the animals come to visit it at night. They are a bit flighty though and it was only after talking to the ranger from the lodge that I found out why. That’s for later though! We had our own visitor on the balcony every night as well. As I’ve written before, the Bushbabies over here are great time keepers. They keep time like clock work. I think it was around six O’Clock every night that one would arrive on the balcony, check the place out, have a bit of a gawk at me and take off again. This happened for three nights in a row. The only thing about the Bushbabies is that they actually don’t just limit their activities to the night time. We went out on a game drive for the morning and when we came back, there was a chocolate melted on the floor. It was strange to see it there and then I went over to my bag. Alex had brought me over some chocolates from home from my Mam and herself. The Bushbaby had ignored all the Twix’s though and had gone for the Butlers chocolates. He scoffed a few by the looks of it, puked up one of the coffee ones (don’t blame him) and then to top it all off left us a few little brown coloured presents on the balcony! Classic!


How to eyeball a Giraffe and live to tell the tale!


“They don’t bite but if you got a kick you’d know all about it.” That was one of the lines used by Sean our instructor in the college. With this in mind, I was wary about running into a Giraffe on our way back to the room at night. We had a few drinks to finish off a great day and started to head home. As your eyes adjust to the dark you can start to see shapes in the dark. I carry my head torch with me now at night so that I don’t accidentally step on a scorpion or snake. The great thing about having the torch is that you can pick out the eye shine of animals when the light is shined on them. We had 3 Giraffes lying down in the grass beside our tree house. It’s not often that you walk along at night and are at eye level with these beautiful animals. We were amazed by how chilled out they were. They didn’t even make shapes to get up never mind making any attempt to.

It ain’t Vegas baby!

Sun City is supposed to be the Vegas of SA! We were not impressed with the place. A Casino where the air conditioning is broken, they charge you for your scoops and the croupiers can’t count. No, it’s not the Colossus in Dublin. This was actually Sun City casino. It was a kip to be quite blunt and myself and my lucky charm didn’t stay for very long. The place was a joke and unfortunately when a croupier can’t count you’d think your luck was in but in this case she starts taking your chips off the table even though you’ve won on the roulette table. Not a good vibe. I would suggest it as a venue for a few of the up coming stags but I’m sure the lads will enjoy the culture in Vegas just a little bit more. We did make the trip up worthwhile though by paying a visit to the Pilansberg National park for a bit of game viewing. We saw a lot of animals and for me it was a chance to see some rarer animals that you can’t see in Kruger or around the college. Alex was delighted to see some of the animals but unfortunately we didn’t see any big cat’s. Well any wild big cats that is. We paid a visit to a rehabilitation centre during the week and we saw some captured animals that couldn’t be re released. All and all, a great week but a whole lot of miles travelled and I feel like a long sleep……..



Oh look at the Elephant!

Some people are just plain thick. We went on a night drive in the Pilanesburg national park in the Northern Province of SA on Saturday evening. This auld dear from Germany was sitting on the front of the game vehicle. The guide was a lazy git who didn’t really bother explaining too much to us but I think I know the reason now. A Zebra came trundling the hill towards us. A Warthog came down just after it. This lady says “Can a Warthog tackle something as big as a Zebra!” I thought she was taking the piss and I started to laugh. I think about an hour past and we didn’t see much. I was given the onerous task of using my flash lamp to pick out animals. If I hadn’t stopped the driver a couple of times we literally wouldn’t have seen anything for the two and a half hours. I spotted four big White Rhino bulls. Next thing the auld wan says “Oh my God, Elephant!” The driver didn’t bother to correct her! I still don’t know whether she was that thick or was taking the mickey out of us!






Snake Charmer

We went for a course on dangerous snake handling today. It was a really enjoyable course. We handled a few Puff Adders(Most people in Africa get bitten by them each year), some Egyptian Cobra’s, a 2.8 metre Rock Python, a Boomslang, Vinesnake(No known antivenom) and of course the mighty Black Mamba. It was great and a real eye opener. We even got spat at by a Mozambique Spitting Cobra. I tackled a rock monitor as well for the craic. We lost 2 snakes in the process. One an Olive Green Grass snake will never be seen again and a Snouted Cobra which ended up in the back of a leather seat. We had to take the back off the seat to get it out. The Cobra was the most aggressive and it was difficult to catch. My hands were shaking after this one! I think I’ve conquered my fear of snakes now and although I have the greatest respect for them I won’t poo my pants when I bump into my next one.

Exam day

Pheeeeeeew!

After pulling an all nighter not unlike my days in DIT, the test has been and gone. Fortunately the work paid off and I think I've done well enough. I'm hoping I'm not being too cocky as many a confident young man has been undone by confidence.

I'm off for a week now and Alex is coming over to spend it with me so I should be able to show her around the place and hopefully be able to show her a little bit about what I've learned!

As Ernest Hemingway said, "enthusiasm isn't enough, it can be when backed up with knowledge and skill." I hope I've picked up both over the past 4 months. Wait and see.....

The weather is supposed to be nice for the week with temperatures hitting the mid 40's so this will be by last blog for a little bit................

Cats, cats, come out tonight

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a Leopard before but they have a very distinctive sound. I’m sure everyone’s heard a Lion roar but the Leopard is more of a throaty cackle. I was coming out of the class the other day and all I could hear was this noise. I thought I was going mad because none of us have heard a Leopard around the campus before so I thought I’d go out and investigate. I went down to my room to get my trusty torch first mind you. As I was getting my torch “Special One,” decides he wants to come up with me and see if we can see this Leopard too.

We went up to the fence line and gingerly started to pace down the hill towards the gulley. Every so often we would stop and turn off our torches and listen. I thought that I had actually imagined hearing the animal earlier on. So with baited breath we stood there listening to the African night. Then suddenly very close to where we were we heard it again. As I said, it’s not something you get confused about and it was close. I got a bit of a shiver up my spine when I heard it. Of course “Special One,” being his usual brain dead self decided to run up towards the sound. I grabbed him back and asked him “if he was mad?” (Stupid question!) A Leopard can easily jump a 5 foot fence. They can drag a carcass of an Impala up a sheer 4 metre tree trunk and that’s with 80kg dragging it back! We moved towards the sound at a snails pace and stopped again to listen but to our disappointment we didn’t hear any more calls. I’m sure the Leopard had a nice view of two big eijits walking towards it and scarpered! I’m regretting not having bought the night vision goggles now!

As an interesting anecdote to that story I read an article about a Leopard attack in the very place we stayed before we headed to Mozambique last month. The ranger who’s house we stayed in actually wrote the article. It describes the stupidity of some people very well! I’ve attached the shortcut for your review:

http://www.marlothparkhonoraryrangers.co.za/?p=293

The student life is tough!

Well we have finally finished all the modules in our course to become Field guides. We have to complete a couple of practical exams and our Cert exam next Saturday and then we will be fully qualified level 1 guides. It’s been a tough 4 months and it was hard to get back into the study buzz. I started off slowly and finished strongly so some things haven’t changed. We will see how I get on next week in the FGASA exam. I have my fingers crossed at this stage. We of course had to go out and celebrate the finish of our exams and in time honoured tradition we went for a few tastey beverages. I was the “Dessie,” again though so it kept me off the bad stuff!

We headed out and were trundling along when we saw a dead cow at the side of the road. It wasn’t dead long and we could see a few bits and pieces of bodywork on the ground. The impact must have been pretty bad and the cow wasn’t in great shape. The local villagers have resorted to leaving their cattle out at night now because there is so little grass around. They stay along the sides of the road and they tend to wander onto the road at times. They are not very sensible animals!

I’m driving along at about 80 kmph and I think I see something in the middle of the road. Now you don’t have much time to react in these situations so I swerved and just missed a big Bull in the middle of the road. The big eijit didn’t even move! That was a pretty lucky escape for us to be honest but things running across our path hadn’t finished for the night. The next thing that crossed our path was a little less threatening. A little scrub Hare ran out and just missed getting squashed and then a black cat did the same. It was weird and I took it from the 3 that we hadn’t any more things to watch out for that night. I slowed the pace down all the same. We ended up in town safe and sound and went to our local for some grub. We had a nice meal and a few drinks and as we were leaving there was a car broken down in the exit of the restaurant. I jumped out to see if they were alright and it was two girls that had had a puncture. Myself and Jimmy offered our assistance and as soon as I said hello to one of the girls I knew she was Irish. The other one was Dutch. It’s a small World alright. Long story short, myself and Jimmy sorted out the tyre and sent the girls on their way. Who said that chivalry was dead?

I headed out to Kruger for a while on Sunday. A small crew this time. Actually just myself and Jimmy. We had a great day out. We spotted some big Tuskers in the far North of the park. The weather was fine and Africa just seemed to charm us again and again. We ran into some Hyaena’s and their pups and 3 big male White Rhino. That was the highlight of the day. The 3 of them were just strutting down the road when we ran into them. Nearly literally! They remonstrated with us for about a second and then high tailed it in different directions. 3 magnificent specimens in their prime. I’m glad we weren’t on a walking safari. They were huge! Just another great day out in Africa.

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!