Nope, I’m not leaving yet, I just had a few days leave from work last week. Because we work from Monday to Saturday at Elephants Alive, you get a few days extra off once every month. And even though I didn’t have many fixed plans before it started, it turned out great! I must admit that Wednesday, the first day of my leave, doesn’t sound too exciting. I started with a nice run in the estate, during which I saw numerous game animals and even a saddle billed stork! It was a particularly cold and windy day though, and I chose to get some stuff done on my laptop. I finished some things for Elephants Alive, had a look at my CV for future job applications (let me know if you come across a cool job for me ;)), and spent some time on a project for Bring the Elephant Home and the Elephant Specialist Advisory Group. In the end a pretty productive day.
On Thursday I joined a workshop for landowners given by Michelle and Robin of Elephants Alive. The workshop was about how we can protect both trees and elephants, with a specific focus on the how landowners can protect certain iconic trees. Even though I’ve been working with them for over 6 weeks now, I was still very impressed by the presentation. Humble as she is, Michelle has an immense knowledge about the ecosystems and elephants, and how they interact with the trees. Robin gave a very comprehensive overview about the current methods for protecting trees from elephant impact, and how much of these methods are actually tested. At the same time, they made it very clear that there is so much more to learn about basically everything affecting this process. For example, an ecosystem is an incredibly complex system where all kinds of different factors are influencing each other – whether they are biotic or abiotic, natural or man-made. We have to seriously consider this complexity in every management decision or mitigation method. The workshop gave food for thought, and also brought up a whole lot of ideas for new interesting workshops.
Friday I had planned to rent a car to drive around myself, but luckily got an even better offer! Nelie, a very skilled bush person who had joined for most of the vulture surveys, had a day off and offered to pick me up and go together, which sounded fun to me! We first went to the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, where a wide variety of wildlife is rehabilitated and – when possible – released back into the wild. Besides that, they try to educate guests and schools with real animal encounters, for which they only use animals that have no chance of being released back into the wild again. The animals are brought in for a variety of reasons, ranging from road and snare trap victims, poisoned vultures, birds wounded from flying into powerlines, and the occasional exotic ‘pet’. After Moholoholo, we drove around the beautiful mountains a bit, had a view over the dam near the visitors centre, and walked on a little trail. It was the prettiest little walk in the shade of beautiful big trees alongside a stream, leading towards the most peaceful little waterfall, where we just sat for a while enjoying the scenery. We then went to Ya Mati for a drink and a walk around the beautiful garden and river. A very relaxed day indeed!
I got in touch with my artistic side again on Saturday, when I joined a community outreach programme. A few churches had joined efforts to build a new classroom at a kindergarten in a less privileged community, all in just a few Saturdays. Now it was time for the finishing touch and paintings. It’s amazing how much work you can get done with a group of motivated people. In just one morning, the whole group managed to place a jungle gym, clean all the windows, paint the walls and window frames, and do a lot of educational and decorative paintings. I joined the indoor painting team, and really enjoyed it. Some of the community kids also joined to make some paintings. I hope the kids enjoy our effort to visualise some colours, numbers, letters, and animals. And a note to myself: I should try to make some more time to draw and paint…
Lastly, Sunday was Kruger day! This time we went to the central region with four people: Lisa, Ronny, Robin and myself. It was a nice day with some very good sightings, and of course plenty of hours driving with nothing spectacular (nature is not as ‘busy’ as may appear on tv). One of the most exciting sightings we had happened just before we even entered Kruger! As we approached the Orpen gate, we saw three wild cheetahs chilling and playing along the fence, probably a female with her two almost full grown cubs. My other favourite moment of the day was looking at a large breeding herd of elephants at a waterhole. While the adults were enjoying a mud bath or foraged from the riverine vegetation, there were also three tiny calves. One was fully asleep in its mothers shadow, while another was having the greatest time playing with whatever it came across – all the while bumping into other elephants on its still wobbly legs, too cute for words. Besides that, I of course enjoyed the company, the midday skottel-braai, the embarrassing amount of snacks eaten, the beautiful nature, and all the other animal encounters along the way. Thanks for the great day everyone, it was a very nice ending to a couple of days ‘leave’.
Since another interesting (and hot!) week has passed and I hadn’t posted this blog yet, I decided to add an update about last week. At the office is has been a very varied week with lots of different projects. In the field we had some very memorable encounters, among which a group of nearly 40 elephants and their youngsters who quickly made a stop at a waterhole where we were watching one of the older bulls. Tammy and I did a trail on horseback Wednesday evening, and encountered giraffe! On Sunday, Michelle, Tammy, Robin, and had I planned to drive northwest to Modjadjiskloof and Magoebaskloof. Michelle had lived in this region before so knew where to go. Only one and a half hour driving and you get a completely different scenery! I absolutely loved how green it was up there, with lots of indigenous trees in a rainforest. At Modjadiskloof we walked through the unique cycad forest. It was absolutely gorgeous, and we had some beautiful views, but it was quite a steep walk on this hot and humid day. After that we went to a stunning waterfall at Magoebaskloof, where had a lovely lunch and relaxed in the many pools. When we left, we took the long way through the indigenous forest, and stopped for a coffee with an incredible view. Another great day in paradise…