You don't need an alarm clock in the African bush. After a patchy night's sleep to say the least I was awoken by a cacophony of bird calls. Some of the calls sounded like irritating sirens and I later discovered these were 'go away' birds, characterised by very whiny calls. At 6am we gathered and prepared for a drive into the bush on the off-road vehicles:
As an aside, it isn't only the big mammals that are over sized here. The flies and bugs are so large and so abundant, they are like British bugs on steroids. At dinner last night, one large bug that was over an inch in length kept landing on me and those around me to cries of "what the f*** was that?!" to the amusement of the staff. Here are two pictures of massive beetles I have seen:
There is an ant species which is freakishly large. I put a pen next to them to demonstrate the scale:
We drove into a low density game area to start off with. We saw elephant and wildebeest tracks firstly. My foot is next to the track in the first picture again to indicate the scale:
We also found numerous giant millipedes which we could pick up:
We saw a variety of beautiful birds like this red-billed hornbill:
We returned to the base for an induction. When we're out walking the guides carry guns to protect us. Here is John (one of the most naturally funny people I've ever met) showing us a branch that an elephant had chewed to clean its teeth:
...before his head turned into an African land snail:
Back at the base I took some pictures in the daylight of our home for the next fortnight. Here is the living room area:
The kitchen:
Our tent:
And a close up of my bed on the bottom bunk:
Here is the braai area, which is very important!
Quite comically, this collection of car batteries powers our base:
The reserve is owned by the De Beers mining company, who mine for diamonds nearby to the south. The role of the park management along with GVI is to track and monitor numbers and location of game to control neighbouring crops and private land. Our reserve is named Venetia and has one lion pride comprising 6 lions, and over 100 elephants. There are also two cheetahs.
After some time to relax we headed out on another drive. This time we were on our way to see a group of wild dogs which had been separated by sex into two enclosures.The plan is to introduce the groups, hope they form a pack and then relocate them to a wild area elsewhere. The decision has been taken not to release them in Venetia. The dogs were great to see at such close range and the opportunity allowed for many good pictures:
On our way home we saw a great sunset:
...and a random chameleon:
We ate at the base, drank beer and laughed. Suddenly the place didn't seem so uncomfortable!
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