Is It Really Only 1 Week To Go?????

Day 29 – Saturday 1st May
As with every other week of out stay at Kariega, Saturday is town day. The realisation hit this morning that we only have one more town day left as two weeks today we will be heading home :( but we are not thinking about that just yet!!
We went into Port Alfred as normal and firstly used the internet cafe and then wandered around the few shops there are in town. We started early today for a Saturday trip, so we went for an early lunch at Ocean Basket, the fish restaurant on the Kariega River. It was another lovely meal and the weather was also very good – sunny and warm, probably in the mid 20’s.
After lunch we went to the mall to do our weekly shop for luxuries at Spa, which despite thinking we didn’t need anything this week, still managed to fill two carrier bags!! On the way back to the reserve we stopped for a drink at a bar that sits up high and overlooks the Kariega River – it was a very picturesque setting. Once back at the reserve we sat in the garden chatting enjoying the last warmth that the sun had to offer. Our garden was surrounded by wildlife, we had zebra, wildebeest, kudo, impala, vervet monkeys and warthogs! I moved a chair to the edge of the fence to just sit and watch the behaviour of the grazing zebra, much to the amusement of the other volunteers who have now decided I am an animal nerd!!! They also played a joke me – I had come into the house, and as I returned to the garden they were all sat transfixed, telling me to ssshhh and looking through binoculars – I crept as quietly as I could so as not to disturb whatever it was that had taken their attention away from the wine and cider they were drinking, only to get there and them all start laughing!! It was all good fun, and I took it on the chin!
We are keeping our fingers crossed that tomorrow will be the fourth Sunday in a row that the weather is really good! The forecast is not great, but it wasn’t great for today and turned out to be lovely day :)
 
Day 30 – Sunday 2nd May
I woke at 5am to the sound of running water! A bleary eyed peer out the window told me it was coming from outside our window. It didn’t seem to be raining so I got dressed and went to investigate. As soon as I stepped outside the door it was obvious – it was raining, a drizzle as opposed to heavy rain, but clearly it had been raining for long enough to let the water flood over the guttering and down the outside of the down pipes!
I went back to bed and hoped it will have stopped by the time it was light. No such luck! It rained all morning – now this is not the type of Sunday weather we have got used to, or the type of weather that was conducive to cooking a braai, the contents for which we had all bought during yesterday’s shopping trip. By about 1pm it had stopped raining, so we decided to cook the braai anyway, even if we had to eat it indoors. It was definitely the right decision – it wasn’t cold, infact it was quite warm around the fire so everyone gradually came out, opting to sit and chat round the fire rather than sit and mope indoors. By the time we were ready to eat the sun was even poking in and out so we all ate outdoors and a fun time was had by all :)

After we had eaten, which was about 4pm, we started a camp fire with some of the wood we have collected and kept it going while we all sat on the stones acting as seats until after it got dark. It was a fun way to end the day all swapping seats as some were closer to the fire than others and therefore warmer, and watching ‘bush television’ as the day became night.

Day 31 – Monday 3rd May

We could barely see the end of the garden this morning as it was very foggy – not the best conditions for searching and watching animals on a game drive. We all therefore assumed that we would be cutting down trees this morning, and when Jacques arrived at 8am and told us we would be going to sharpen the machetes we didn’t change our minds! He did say however, we may work or we may just see what we can see. We were delighted that we very quickly spotted the elephants in the distance so we headed in that direction and sat among them for quite some time taking photos, drawing the elephant ear identification pictures and generally just enjoying being so close. At one stage one of the cows, known as Half Moon because if the tear in her ear, walked past the vehicle and stopped no more than 2 feet from my seat :)
After the elephants we went on towards the workshop to sharpen the machetes, but Jacques had spotted lion tracks, and sure enough, there on one of the plains were the two male lions, the sub adult male, one of the lionesses and the four cubs. It was brilliant to see the cubs again as it has been more than a week since we saw them last. The lions weren’t doing much other than sleeping and they seemed to have very full bellies. After watching them for a while, we did make it to the workshop and we did sharpen the machetes, well at least Jacques, Daniel and I did – apparently this is a ‘mans job’!!!
After lunch we went to reception as to welcome a new volunteer. Once the introductions were complete we set off to see if we could find the lions again. They were no longer on the plain where we left them, but they had been replaced by the three white rhino of KW. We didn’t spend much time with them as we wanted find the lions, and it was definitely the right decision! After a small amount of searching we found all of the lions we saw this morning, minus one of the males, feasting on a blesbok kill. It surprised us that they had killed again as they seemed so full this morning, but lions are opportunistic and a new heard of blesbok were introduced to the reserve yesterday and I guess the temptation was too much! It was a great sighting! We sat for about an hour just watching them tuck in to the meat and squabble over various pieces of the carcass. The cubs were so entertaining; playing with each other, with mum, and playing with Dad’s tail as if it wasn’t attached to anything, let alone a 180kg male lion who was still eating!!
Eventually it was time to return home and allow Holly to unpack and settle in before dinner, updating the photos from the day (of which there were many!).

Day 32 – Tuesday 4th May
There was no great surprise that this morning was more wattle pulling. It wasn’t too bad though as the weather was dry and warm but cloudy and the first hour and a bit was pulling up seedlings. We then did some ring barking and tree chopping before heading off to pick up some fire wood for a camp fire later in the week.
After lunch we went in search of the elephants to do more ear identification drawings. We searched for them for a while, but before we found them we saw some lion tracks and followed them until we found the two females, the cubs and one of the males not too far from where we saw them on yesterday’s kill. They weren’t very active at all so we left them to continue to search for the elephants.
After a bit of searching we found the main herd, but they were in the bush and it was very difficult to get a good view of their ears. We sat and waited for a while, and eventually they came out on to the plain. It was worth the wait as we got some great views of the herd in the open and we were able to make some good additions to the ear drawings.

Day 33 – Wednesday 5th May
This Wednesday, just like the last four, is school day so at 7:30am we head off to get the pickup truck and set off to Farmerfields School. We again kept to the same classes as the last few weeks, but Miri and I were joined this week by Holly, our new volunteer. We again started with English but instead of moving straight on to Maths, we used the footballs that we had bought to donate to the school and played football with the boys and netball with the girls. A great time was had by all and I think the kids really enjoyed having an hour out from their school lessons to have a kick about!
After lunch we set off to KE to see if we could find hippo and to check on the rhino calf. On the way we saw two jackal buzzards feasting on a blesbok carcass that had died of natural causes. Once on KE we very quickly found the mother rhino and her calf, but the calf was lying down and it was very hard to a good view of him. We did however sit and watch for about an hour and eventually the rhino calf stood up and we all managed to get some great photos. The hippo would have to wait for another day!

Day 34 – Thursday 6th May
We started the morning with a 30 minute lay in, and hoped that we would not be doing tree chopping this morning, but we were to be disappointed! We first had to take the last of the rubbish bags top the reserve dump and then we went to an area that was heavily infested with Black Wattle trees. It was by far and away the toughest of the tree chopping we have done so far. We did clear a large area, but all the trees had grown up in amongst VERY thorny bushes. To say it hurt would be an understatement and we are all covered in scratched!
Today was the hottest day we have had for some time, if very windy at the same time. It was strange to listen to the different conversations of the foreign volunteers and the South Africans – the volunteers were all commenting on what a nice day it was for the time of year, whereas the South Africans all thought it was a bad weather day for the time of year; too hot and not enough rain!!
The afternoon saw us try and find the hippos that live on the Kariega River on KE. We searched every point of the river that was visible, but there were no hippos to be seen. We did get some good close up shots of giraffe and zebra, and also saw a black backed jackal on the same blebok carcass we saw the jackal buzzards on yesterday back on KW.
I cooked dinner tonight, so it was spaghetti bolognaise all round. Midway through the cooking of the sauce, the most incredible wind storm blew up and the temperature dropped considerably. We are hoping it doesn’t mean a bad weather day tomorrow!

Day 35 – Friday 7th May
After last night’s wind storm we pleased to wake and see it was much calmer, and that the sun was rising! We again sat at 8am waiting to see what this morning’s activity would be – all hoping and praying it would not be more tree chopping! We all still ache from yesterday morning! Jacques arrived and we were relieved when he said we would be doing a game count. This time however we would be counting on Kariega West whereas all the previous counts we have done have been on East. KW is much thicker vegetation than KE so it was a very different experience, but equally enjoyable and we spotted just under 400 animals – the vast majority being impala of which there were 210.
After lunch we went searching for the lions as they hadn’t been seen since we last saw them on Tuesday. We had a good idea as to where they weren’t from the drive this morning, so we set off to see what we could find. We had only been driving for about 45 minutes when we came across the whole pride of nine lions laying by the road. We sat and watched them for about an hour – the cubs were very playful and we got some great photos (again! The lion photos are really adding up now!)
We headed back towards home via a route that is typical of leopard territory, but we didn’t find one. In the two and a half years that Jacques has worked at Kariega he has only ever had one sighting of a leopard – so our hopes were not high in the first place.
Once back at the house we had just decided to light the camp fire and have sundowners ahead of tonight’s dinner when Jacques appeared and asked if we would like to go into Kenton to a bar and have something to eat as his rugby team the Bulls are playing at 7pm – the fire will wait for another day, it’s our first ‘Friday night out’!