A New Addition At Kariega

Hello again, it's Saturday so that means it's time for my weekly update! It's been a good week with so many highlights, but there is no doubt that the big highlight was finding a 2 day old baby rhino on Friday - brilliant!! Here is what we've been up to:

Day 22 – Saturday 24th April
So today is the halfway point of our trip – it seems to have flown by! I am hoping the next 3 weeks wont fly by at quite the same pace, but I suspect they will!
The house still smells of last night’s fire , but as it’s Saturday, we are off out to Port Alfred to stock up on ‘luxury supplies’ and use the internet. After stocking up Jacques tells us we can go to Homewoods for lunch if we want to – which everyone did! We sat outside overlooking the ocean eating pizza or salad (Anita had a salad – guess which I had??!!). We stayed at Homewoods until about 4:45pm as The Bulls rugby match was being shown and Jacques is a BIG Bulls fan!
James, Debra and Maren all leave on Monday so we decide to make tonight their ‘official leaving do’. Mint liqueur and Amarula were purchased in the morning – these are the ingredients to make the Springbok, a South African shot. A card based drinking game followed, and amazingly, Anita and I felt fine at the end of the evening. Others were not so lucky! Maren, Sharon and Miri were probably the worse for wear, with Maren undoubtedly taking top spot!
As we were heading for bed, a mouse appeared in the dining room – a much bigger mouse than the one I released last night! It scurried away to q hole under the fire place and was gone – it seems we haven’t cured the mouse problem!
 
Day 23 – Sunday 25th April
For the third Sunday in a row, the weather was brilliant. There is a definite Sunday routine forming; sunbathing on the morning, a braai at lunch time and lounging around in what is left of the sun in the afternoon. I was again head chef for the braai, this week cooking steak, burgers, braai sausages, chicken kebabs and veggie sausages (which is a contradiction in terms in my book!!).
As with most things at Kariega, there is a twist to the norm. After this trip I doubt I will cook a braai (or BBQ) again with a pride of lions laying on the hill the other side of the fence. They weren’t that close that we should be worried, but you could see them with the naked eye and they were really clear through binoculars!
As the sun started to set I went up to the tree house and again sat with the troop of vervet monkeys as they eat the fruit off the tree. The lions hadn’t moved much by the time it was dark, and it was a much warmer evening that meant we could all sit out and listen to the sounds of the African bush.

Day 24 – Monday 26th April

Today was another fantastic day weather wise – hot and sunny all day. It was also a strange day as 3 of the other volunteers went home today. It meant we had a short game drive this morning, but managed to see parts of both Kariega West and Kariega East and saw many different species as well as stopping off at viewing point that had the most amazing views.
We had lunch and then set out on a game drive to familiarise Daniel, a new volunteer, with the reserve. We didn’t get far because the two lionesses and sub adult male were just outside the house and were hunting some impala. Unfortunately, for the lions, it came to nothing so we moved on and found the elephant heard, also not too far away from the house.
Once back at home we were treated to some amazing wildlife sightings all from the garden! Firstly the vervet monkeys were in the garden and playing in the trees. Then there was a large herd of impala and kudo just the other side of the fence. They all seemed a bit skittish and were giving distress calls, so we wandered if the lions had moved even closer to the house, and with that, we saw them walk up the hill on the other side of the road, but we could still hear faint roaring that seemed to be coming from the other direction. And then one of the pride males walked right outside the garden fence, stopped and started roaring – which when he is only a few meters away from you is an awesome experience. I have heard male lions roaring up close a WHF, but it is even more special when you know that your garden fence wouldn’t hold a lion if it was intent on charging you! Fortunately this one wasn’t! But we found out later that the other male lion was on the other side of the garden and was watching us intensely. A good lesson that you can never be complacent in the wilds of Africa!!



Day 25 – Tuesday 27th April

We started this morning with helping the rangers on a game count. It was different to the game counts we do as part of the overall conservation programme as we were only counting wildebeest and zebra. All the volunteers split up with a ranger, and in a strange coincidence, I was paired with Jo, a ranger from England who has been guiding for about 6 years and Anita was pared with her husband Phil, also from England. It was interesting to hear a different perspective on the reserve, and also how she gave up corporate life in England for a life in the bush!
After the game count it was lunch and then we went ‘ring barking’ which is where you cut a complete ring out of the bark of the alien tree, today it was black wattle, and eventually the tree will die. We did see the lions on the way back to the house at the end of the day, but they were really far away and it was tough to make them out even through binoculars.
It was a fairly quiet evening, but I did manage to successfully catch another mouse from the bathroom – who needs a mouse trap?? Unfortunately it was another very small one, and I know there are bigger mice in the house somewhere!

Day 26 – Wednesday 29th April
This morning we have a 7:30am start as it is school day. The weather forecast had shown another cold front coming over South Africa, but we are pleased to find that the temperature is still warm, all be it a bit more cloudy than it has been.
The school work seemed harder than last week but I think this is because there are fewer of us than there has been previously. Having said that the children seem to be getting used to us now and we are getting to know them and their differing abilities. The red pen continues to be a real success in terms of motivation. All the other volunteers were waiting for me outside at the end of the lessons today as I couldn’t get out of the classroom because the children all wanted their answers marking before we left!

After lunch we went in search of the elephants to continue with the elephant ear identification project. After a while of tracking prints we found them, first the big bull and a young bull who has recently broken away from the herd, and the then most of the herd. We drew the ear markings for a while before heading for home.
We were all pleased that Jacques invited us for pizza at Homewoods. To get to Kenton-on-Sea, the town where Homewoods is, we have to drive along the road that divides Kariega West and Kariega East. At the edge of the Kareiega West boundary we saw the elephants again, this time from the road. They hadn’t moved far, just to the watering hole where they seemed to be having a great time playing! If only I had a camera with me!



Day 27 – Thursday 29th April
It had rained and thundered through most of the night, and was no different when we woke this morning – we had 10mm over night! We were not due to start until 8:30am today, and as luck would have it, almost dead on 8:30am the rain stopped. We headed off to Kariega East to see what we could find, however just outside the house it was like the ground and the sky were alive with flying insects. They were termites which had been bought out by the rain to find somewhere new to burrow in to and make home – the birds and the monkeys were having a field day feasting on the termites.
Once on KE we see all sorts including rhino, giraffe, waterbuck, impala, bushbuck, wildebeest, blesbok, ostrich, eeland, zebra (including a foal that was only about 2 days old) and nyala. We were just about as far into KE as we could be when it started to rain again! It got harder and harder as we headed back up from the plains and across to KW. By the time we arrived at the house we were drenched! At least we all had our waterproofs with us!
After lunch the rain had stopped again so we set off to see if we could find the lions as they hadn’t been seen for a couple of days. We had only been gone about 10 minutes when the rain returned to give us another soaking. However, it soon stopped and the sun had even managed to poke out for a few minutes. Fortunately that was the last of the rain and we spent about 3 hours driving on the roads that were open searching for the lions. We did find one of the male lions, but not the rest of the pride.
We may not have found the lions but we did spot some of the elephants in the distance, and Anita is especially proud as she is the one she spotted them and had to point them out to everyone.

Day 28 – Friday 30th April
We were all pleased to see the sun today after yesterday’s rain. The temperature had dropped overnight and there was a mist in all the valleys that was very dramatic. The dew on the grass looked like frost it was so white and crisp. As we all thought, this morning was a working morning so we headed off at 8am to start cutting down some black wattle trees. Everyone seemed to find it hard work today, especially at the beginning, but we put in a good shift and cleared a sizable area in a couple of hours.
One of the rangers had reported seeing rhino tracks on KE a couple of days ago, which is nothing unusual, but what was different was that there were also some very small rhino tracks. This has bought great excitement on the reserve that there is a new born rhino calf.
After lunch we went out to see if we could find the calf. We headed straight for the lower plains, and there sitting right in the middle of the plain was the rhino that everyone thought had given birth. The bull was also around but we couldn’t see a calf. Then, something in the ground next to the mother seemed to move – we all grabbed our binoculars and were so excited when this little baby rhino lifted it’s head. The calf is only 2 days old! We sat for about 45 minutes just watching as it ran around for about a minute and then collapsed in the ground, as if to raise enough energy for the next charge around. We kept a fairly long way away from the pair so as not to disturb them, and also because a new mother rhino can be much more aggressive than normal!
After the rhino viewing we went back to KW to look for the lions. We found Mohawk again, the same male lion that we found yesterday, but despite about an hour of searching we couldn’t find the rest of the pride. It did end up being our longest game drive yet however - we were out for 4 hours!