Botswana 2011 – schools
3rd of July had me heading back out to Botswana on Emirates airline again: This year there are two schools coming to Tuli – one group of 12 from one Kwa Zulu Natal school for a week and then another group of 52 children from another KZN school the following week.
an uneventful trip got me to Joburg and an overnight stay at the Dove’s Nest (as usual) before meeting Martin (ACE) and Anton (driver) for the trip up to Tuli. we shared the vehicle with a number of students Olly and EMily and Marla who will be staff at Mohave camp helping the new coordinator there.
It was great to be back in the land of dust and see Stuart and Annalien (and Ruby, Edward and William 🙂 )
I had a couple of days to acclimatise – and meet the student coordinator: Andrew …a GIANT of a man who makes the Landie look like a toy car!
I headed up to Mohave camp on the Saturday night for a few beers with the ‘gang’ but was delayed by Wild Dogs on the Mohave highway!!! a really nice view of 3 dogs wandering along …I love those things!
Back to work and there was cars to repair and a trails camp to erect. The new idea of ripstop canvas replacing screencloth is perfect: making the camp look professional and yet ‘bush’ too.
Friday morning and it was a drive up to Pont Drift border to pick up Pam, Pete and the 12 kids from the first school. We had a great time with these kids: they saw lions and leopard and my group had an encounter with a little elephant!: the little guy was out front as we approached a small ellie group at a drainage line. As soon as we stopped it stood tall and displayed its huge ears (actually not huge at all cos it was such a little guy!) then he started to charge the vehicle …slowly at first and then getting braver and braver the closer he got, till eventually he was stopped about 1ft from the front of the car!…all we could see was the top of its head and top of its ears poking above the car bonnet!!! ….sooo funny!!! 🙂 it was less funny when mummy came around the Mopane tree to see what the fuss was all about …but it turned out she was quite chilled.
The kids also had a sleep out under the stars and did their own watch duty too – 45 minutes of sitting quietly and protecting the rest of us as we slept!! At Eagle Rock there is a new Verreaux (Black Eagle) eagle chick in the nest …just a tiny ball of white fluff at the moment (it only hatched the previous week) and the dutiful parents soared above us as we looked on.
The trip (the first for this school) was very successful and without any mishap ….so successful in fact that they have booked again already for next year!!!
A couple of days inbetween school groups for more car maintenance and to help out with the students (Andrew was having a day off to take his girlfriend down to Pietersburg) I let Marla drive and run the day, with me just sitting in for support. A nice group of students with good mix of girls and boys keeps the entertainment high.
The night before the Clifton school group arrive was party night: the other guides had arrived (Rob, Steve and Craig Beaton ) so we had a good old chat and a few beers ….sadly I was drinking vodka and was therefore carried unconscious to bed (oopsie!)
School arrival day and I was soooo ill !!! I puked a few times on the way to camp with the staff and Steve had to drive for me!
The Hilux broke down again on the way back from the border with the children ,…..this time it was an electrical fault: a wire had snapped the previous week apparently and Stuart had made one of his repairs …so it snapped again quite embarassingly!
Never mind, they all made it safely to the house and after a prep talk, the vehicles wer loaded up to take them to their respective camps. I was sharing the Trails camp with my group and Craig and his group too ….the camp being run by Gaby (YAY FOR GABY!!!)
I had a great time with each of the groups: running a morning drive with a group that would leave me that lunchtime, then an afternoon and evening drive with the new group that would stay with me overnight.
Each night we had lions around the camp being very vocal and with lions mating on the edge of camp on one night!…… that was the night I had to cack the group out for running around after ‘lights out’ despite repeatedly telling them to get in the tents!
on night drives we saw Bat-eared foxes (numerous families) aardvarks, spotted hyaena (long time since I’ve seen one) …despite the kids falling asleep within an hour on one night!
One morning, I went for bush pee before leaving camp, so walked to the edge of camp to do it in some privacy. Then after loading the kids on the Landie, I drove out of camp and found Sebatana lying just on the edge of camp watching the proceedings from about 10m from where Id been standing!!!
lots of fun with the teachers too: George for instance: had to invite me to the shower with him …he – ALLEGEDLY- couldn’t turn on the shower….he said….It wasnt even tight! …he tried the same trick a couple more times, but I was wise to him by then 😉
The highlight of the kids week was without doubt the Leopard capture! ….Andrew and the normal students had been laying baits in traps over a couple of weeks and one morning were succesful! …..they had caught a large adult male in a trap at the end of the Great Wall. Once we had waited for Andre to arrive, we all drove ver to the spot and Andre darted it (actually 3 times as it was a ‘proper hard’ leopard! then after removing it from the trap, the kids were all trouped over to see it as Andre measured, weighed and generally recorded everything we could, before giving it a collar for future telemetrising. a truly awesome experience for the kids (AND ME!!)
We drove the kids back to the border at the end of their week and it was a pretty sad moment for both sides I think: they’d been a good group and it was a great week.
We had a few beers to celebrate the end, then a sundowner, before Stuart got his gear together to head down to SA with the family the next day.
I spent the next couple of days with the students and Andrew, in Stuarts absence.
Stuart reappeared on the Tuesday night and then I headed back down to Joburg the next morning on the usual student transfer.
At Joburg, I should have been staying overnight before flying out on the Thursday, however I managed to get a seat on a flight that evening so shared a beer in an airport bar with Olly and the scots guy before heading out.
Tags: ACE, botswana, chuggy, conservation, elephant, ellie, leopard, lion, school, Travel, tuli
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