Tuli 2009
So, back in the Tuli Block of Botswana!
I flew from Newcastle to Dubai, then after a short layover, I flew down to Joburg where I was met by Martin of ACE. Unfortunately I then had to fly to Polokwane, which meant I was back down to a 20kg weight limit…..not good news as I was carrying the full 30kg that Emirates airlines allow!
I quickly dragged a carrier bag of gear out of my main bag and checked in….only to be stopped at the X-ray for having sharp items in my hand luggage! – the carrier had contained clothes AND some of the tools I was taking to Stuart at Tuli – dammit! ..I had to leave quite a lot of tools with security which was a little disappointing.
anyhoo I stayed over at the ‘Golden Pillow’ lodge in Polokwane and then drove up to Pont Drift border crossing the next morning. I crossed over the mighty Limpopo river using the cable car as he river was running too deep to cross by car. At the other side I was met by Riek (Rick) and some of the current students at the Tuli Conservation Project
An hour’s drive later and we arrived at Tuli Wilderness Trails – the new home of the Tuli Project – 4114 Hectares of wilderness ‘governed’ by Stuart and Annelien, with help from Chris, Kate and Umpaleng( all from Kwa Tuli) as well as Gaby and Gilbert, Johaness, Actor and Lorato
Within a couple of days, Riek was on a fortnight’s leave which meant I took over his job as student coordinator at Mohave camp (about a 40 minute drive from Stuarts house) 
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Daily drives and walks around the property – including spotting a pair of lionesses a few leopards and cheetah too!
This new place ROCKS!…..lots of cats to be seen and heard
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We were sitting around the camp fire one Saturday night in Mohave – full of beer and good steak, when the semi silence (we had a radio playing in the Boma, 10m away from us) was shattered by one of the lionesses roaring RIGHT at the entrance to the camp! ….there are no fences or gates, just a signed access to the camp, which meant the lions were about 20m from us! …FABULOUS feeling, but kinda dangerous too I guess
2 weeks later and we started the Tracker course with Nat (staff at Moholoholo) Irish Pete, Matt, Adam and his travelling buddy Nick. We set up camp at an area soon be named ‘Bedrock’ and then set off for a quick walk up the ridge behind camp to watch sunset. Within 5 minutes of setting off, we had stopped to check out some brown Hyaena tracks when we actually spotted the hyaena itself only 10m away – it quickly skedaddled but what a great way to start the course! …that was only my 2nd Brownie spot! I also managed to sink myself into an elephant pan much to everyone’s hilarity. I had to get pulled out by Stuart as the thick mud had me stuck fast!
I also celebrated my 28th birthday at Tuli again …tho this time I wasn’t QUITE as drunk as previously and managed to walk to bed unaided
The course went well with a lot of laughs – mainly with/at/from Pete who was a proper character with a pretty good folk singing voice. He also had us in stitches at Lekkerpoet when he decided to jump one of the streams emanating from the natural springs there: he took a long run and was at a fair old lick when…….he lost his footing in the dusty ground and staggered off balance straight into the knee deep stream! …which has a thick layer of thick black mud at the bottom. Pete was absolutely COVERED in mud and as the sun was setting and it being winter it got pretty damn cold too – SO funny – hopefully there’s a link on YOUTUBE as the whole episode was recorded for posterity by everyone present I think!
Great results in the Tracker assessment left Becky (the assessor’s wife) Nat and myself with Track and Sign level 3 qualifications, whilst Adam got a level 2, Pete, Matt and Nick got level 1’s …..2 of our staff (JOhannes and Gilbert also did amazingly to get level 3 trackers too 
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Back at the ranch and Stuart and I had to get down to some serious car maintenance: the cars Stuart inherited with the business are all in a pretty crappy state -the old Landcruiser was only running on 3 of its 6 cylinders, overheated all the time, had a blown zorst, damaged front spring, poor brakes and had seriously beaten bodywork, whilst the Nissan Hardbody had a missing shocker, no engine mount bolts, blown exhaust, no dash displays or clocks working a trashed front slam panel, damaged radiator and again, dented bodywork.
We managed to get the Cruiser working on 5 cylinders, but no.5 is kernackered. A replacement radiator, and front spring and a patched zorst helped it run well enough to be able to take guests out
The Nissan needed major surgery to the front with new panel and some work to the suspension, it soon worked fair enough
- BUSHFIRE!!!!!!!!!
The next excitement was a BUSHFIRE! ….Stuart and Annalein had left for SA for the weekend – all was well until Chris spotted smoke and a glow in the evening sky, then I got a call from Dan (a local guy who helps out at the house occasionally) to say the Police were wanting the ‘Backline Fence’ opened so the could get in and fight the fire! I raced over with Chris, Kate and Johannes only to find just a lorry with one guy (Adolf) in it….after a few minutes the cavalry appeared..only the cavalry turned out to be a dozen completely drunk locals COMPLETE with police!!! I refused to go into the property with them as they were still carrying beers…eventually we got going (sans beer) and drove into the fire. IT was pitch black now and with the fire burning wildly and being blown by a strong breeze. We had no firefighting equipment, but had to snatch branches off bushes and ‘swat’ the fire with them! …amazingly it worked and despite everyone talking and shouting incoherently and walking around in what seemed an aimless fashion, we actually won! ….the fire was out!
Next day I took the students up the fire area, to help douse the small areas burning in the middle of the burnt section. After a few hours the Wildlife Dept. turned up and asked if we needed help….we asked them to help as the wind was staring to build again, they left promising to return with BDF (Botswana Defence Force, or Army) another couple of hours later and the fire was building again, so I left the scene to take the students back to the camp and safety. I returned with only Johannes, Chris and Actor. However this time, things weren’t so good: we found some snares so Johannes got out of the car to remove them, then Actor walked off, leaving me and Chris, however Chris walked ahead and forgot to wait for me – the terrain was thickly wooded and with broken trees and logs littered around, almost impossible to drive, I battled backwards and forwards until the clutch which was already struggling, packed in – with the car RIGHT up against the fire!!! …nobody around, I had to fire the fire by myself and keep it away from the Cruiser until eventually Johaness appeared and helped me push the car over the burn line into the fire-blackened bush, where it should be safer. 
Some time later Chris and Actor appeared as well as the BDF and some more locals. The fire was put out again and we were given a push start in 2nd gear and limped back to camp
Next up was a school visit: Stuart’s bro.: Pete, is a teacher at a posh school in SA and between them they had organised for 52, 12yr old children to spend a week here with 6 or so teachers as support.
We split the kids into groups of 11 (ish) and with Stuarts friends Steve, Rob, Mike we each managed a group for a 24 hour period, with the groups rotating around each of the camps learning different things as they went – in my case, I had the Musth Fly Camp and took the kids on a night drive followed by a morning drive the next day – teaching them about the night sky, nocturnal animals and elephants by day. All good stuff and a lot of fun – we had a group of 3 cheetah (mum and 2 large cubs) walk right around the vehicle and then start stalking a group of nearby Impala! the kids apparently had a great time: so much so that the school has already booked up again for NEXT year!!!<p>
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Next fun and games was my ‘leave’: I hadn’t had a day off in 3 months, and as my Bots visa was almost expired, I left to visit Aitjie in SA…..or that was the plan…….Aitjie was held up with a Game capture in Zambia so wouldn’t be around, then SA wouldn’t extend my visa so my 2 week leave was reduced to 5 days!..Martin (ACE) suggested I stay at his place in the Magaliesburg Mountain Reserve so I did. Spending a day in the mountain reserve and then a day in Pilansberg reserve, before flying from Jo’burg back in to Botswana via Gabarone…..where neither my phone nor my ATM car would work!!! I had to buy a new phone and then luckily I had some SA Rand to exchange and the bank agreed to use my ATM card as a credit card and give me some money that way!
I made friends with a local taxi driver who could NOT have passed his driving test, judging by his performance – I even told him on the 2nd day that I had never been as close to death as when I was in his car! After 2 days in Gabs I took a bus to Selebi Phickwe and then another to Bobonong then a taxi to Immigration who advised that my visa extension wasn’t decided yet and that I should stay in Bots illegally ‘for a few days’! Then I hitched a ride in a veg van which fortunately was going right past our farm – nice guy and girl who hadn’t got a clue where they were going or how far it was (they were buying veg at the farm next to us)
4 days later and into the next tracker course and Immigration decide I need to get out of the country as I’m illegal!!! I drove thru the border where the nice lady gave me a new 90 day visa for SA, then drove to Alldays and happily bought cappuccinos at the new coffee shop there. SWEET!
I stayed at a nice lodge run by a raging gay guy!!!!……door locked that night
next day and Immigration say my visa extension is now OK so I can come back, though she wasnt sure how I should do it as I cant go THRU the border till I GET the extension in my hand!!
Fortunately, I blagged it and all was well 😉
The tracker course again went well – we were joined by Rex from the Northern Tuli Game Reserve Anti Poaching unit…nice guy. Again all of the students did well with only one not managing to get a level 1..one guy (Ralph) got a high level 2 as well!
One of the highlights was as we were walking back to the camp one afternoon when we bumped ellies and had to hide behind a termite mound! …the ellies got our smell and made a beeline for us…Stuart did the whistle thing and the ellies LEGGED IT!!! …quite funny tho it was a bit hairy as well ….the looks on the tracker students faces was peachy!
We heard lions most nights and also went out to see them one night – coming across a brown hyaena on the way there too. Kewl!
A week to myself followed – well, as close as it gets to being by myself: car maintenance was the order of the day – The Cruiser blew its engine, so we had to take it to Phickwe for rework…the only way to get it there was to tow it, so Stuart drove that while I dragged them both along…..starting at 60kph as we had previously agrees – it wasn’t long before we were at 80kph 😉
…Stuart decided all was going well so we didn’t swap places at Bobonong as arranged -just carried right on thru. No mishaps or problems so all was good
I also took the students thru to Phickwe, so that I could apply for ANOTHER 30 day extension on my visa and so they could buy alcohol and generally see what happens in a ‘typical’ Botswanan town…not much actually! ….though I did pay the VAT for the business and drop the year end accounts off at the solicitors
Guess what? ……yep, Riek is on leave again, so I ran Mohave camp again for 9 days. Lots of fun actually with our 2 Germans, one swede (hi Eva!), one Ozzie (hello, trouble) and a Canadian (hey Jess, eh?)! We managed to see ellies (they’re in short supply at the mo) Spotted Hyaena and a Honey Badger too!……and cheetah of course …superb sighting of the mum and cubs again -we also went chasing after lions at night but missed them …..twice (embarrassingly) We had a couple of great Saturday parties (one of which led to the guys having BAD babbelass (hangovers) which were only sorted by taking a dip in one of the few remaining pools in the Limpopo) and a nice bush brekkie on Ralph’s leaving day.
Its almost summer now and that means TROUBLE!! …firstly the number of Solifuges is on the increase – those things freak me so much so that I end up doing the ‘Solifuge Dance’ trying to squash them – to the great hilarity of the students -Secondly, snakes……….Jessy (the canuck) was in his hut looking for something at his bag when he leaned over to check out what was lying NEXT to the bag ……..bad move: it was a Mozambique Spitting Cobra!!!! …luckily for Jessy, it gaped its mouth but didn’t spit! (see previous story about Charlie’s incident with a cobra) he calmly came outside and asked for some help! I called Chris, who chased it out of the hut, unfortunately it then disappeared thru a small hole into the concrete floor/base of the hut, leaving us with no option but to cement it into place ….we cant mess around with cobras and they always return if you catch and relocate them)
On Riek’s return to the camp, I left and returned to the house to carry on with car maintenance and generally have a couple of rest days
Stuart and Co. left for SA for Annelien’s brother’s (Henk) 40th birthday. I stayed at the house and generally did…not a lot really!…..though I DID ring Immigration and find out that they aren’t at ALL happy and want me to go in for an interview …OH OH!!!!…that CANT be good!
Oh and Annelien made 6 small Lemon meringue pies to keep me going in their absence!! …SWEET!!!
Good news! I had the meeting with Immigration and Tourism: The Immigration guy just wanted to tell me his life story I think, and the Tourism guy just had a query about the company name, so once I’d assured them that I wasn’t working and that it WAS a tourism operation they gave me another 30 day visa! …WOOHOO!!!! …that takes me to December 2nd which is only 2 weeks short of when my Residency Permit should be through (though in reality its prolly gonna take another 3 months on top of that, even if it IS successful) While in Phickwe we saw our new Cruiser Game Viewer: I’m buying the company a VX Landcruiser which was crash-damaged and has been rebuilt…its gonna be LUSH with its 4.2l straight six engine and coil sprung sussies …a proper bush ‘limo’!
Back to the REAL world and its car maintenance time again: Nissan starter motor and ‘rig’ to be fettled…that car REALLY annoys me now: EVERYTHING is a nightmare to get to and its just too complicated for a ‘bush’ vehicle. We;re also having baboon issues at the mo: they’re coming into the house even when we are around – today one was in the pantry and when it ran out, it ran RIGHT past poor Ruby who at 18 months old is a PRIME target for the baboons!!!! ..luckily nothing happened. The rifle is now at hand…..
Summer is here …and that means rain……28mm in about 2 hours for Mohave camp – we got off a lot lighter, but our roof leaked too……..so next day was spent on the roof carrying out emergency (read ‘permanent’) repairs. Summer also means a whole lot more nasties: the solifugids are huge now! …and sooo quick! And there’s a lot of scorpions dodging around too …and of course snakes: I found one outside my bedroom door – not sure who go the bigger surprise, me or the Cobra! ..anyhoo, it was despatched by Stuart with the shambock.
Stuarts friend Mike arrived for a few days ‘off’ which started with us dragging a dead (shot) baboon around to create a scent trail and then hanging in it a tree to try and entice a leopard to the party (which it didn’t, sadly)
A few mornings later, we had a major storm with hurricane-like winds for 5 minutes: when Stuart checked Musth camp after the rain had stopped he found a tree had been blown down and INTO tent 2 – the bathroom wall was demolished and that had torn the canvas of the tent. AS we dragged the tree off the tent, more damage was caused to the tent and the concrete base. Luckily we have Albert to hand (our local Zim builder) he had the wall rebuilt pronto and then after a few false starts, the rest of the staff repaired the Mopane tent poles and Annelien and I restitched the damaged canvases.
Fortunately there were no guests and we had a 5 day window to effect repairs. All repairs were complete 2 hours before the guests arrived!
Our first student from Afreco Tours arrived in Bobonong and was settled into Musth camp later that day – he was hoping to do a full Tracker course, however there weren’t enough students so we agreed to give him some tracking tuition for a week or so and for him to stay with the normal students for the remainder of his 2 week stay. Ken turned out to be a nice guy from Belgium and I took him and Sam (Dutch girl student) out to learn tracks with Stuart adding in too.
Both passed their test with flying colours, despite the course being interrupted by pesky lions and ellies!
After some more heavy rain (82mm in 24 hours) the students had to abandon Mohave camp and managed to struggle their way across the bush to Musth camp (I had driven the roads the previous evening and had struggled to get thru too) All was good in Musth camp until:
Saturday 21st Nov when at 11pm as we sat drinking beer and enjoying the evening, the sky and everything underneath it was suddenly lit by a brilliant white light immediately followed by a shooting star (meteor) appearing above the tree canopy and disappearing of over the horizon!
We all sat amazed by the spectacle and jabbered madly about how bright it was and what it was and where it might have landed, when we were hit by the Sonic Boom about 2 or maybe even 3 minutes later! ……..we later found out that the local farmer and many of the local land owners – and even the President! hired helicopters and search teams to discover where the meteor(ite) landed – we assume that these people thought the sonic boom was actually noise from the impact of the meteor(ite) hitting the ground….VERY funny!
Back in the land of semi-normality: I decided to go barefoot whilst washing the Cruiser…bad move: I got a cut under my toes which was really painful when walking …still, hey-ho I continued barefoot the next day……and stood on a wasp OUCH! ..that’ll be the end of my barefoot days, then
NOT the end of creepy crawlies though: I was sitting in the house reading an atlas deciding where to go in Zambia when I visit Ikey..I closed the atlas to find a scorpion sitting on my knee!!! thankfully it wasn’t a Parabutha so wasn’t dangerous …….quite a shocker tho!
We’ve also got a lot of dead animals at the mo: we counted 9 dead impala and that was only the ones we could see near the riverine roads! ….biggest suspect is tannin poisoning from the new leaves on the trees, as there are no visible injuries to any of the animals. Leaves (sic) a terrible smell of death around the place though.
December 2nd and I’m leaving Botswana again! …this time I must leave until my residency permit comes thru …..possibly 2 months of waiting,so lots to plan (or not as the case may be)
first stop is Jo’burg on an ACE transfer (driven by Anton for the 3rd time I think) an overnight stop at the fairly average Dove’s Nest and then its off to Lusaka on Zambezi Airlines to meet up with Ikey
The flight was fine, but same old story when I got off: my Visa card wouldn’t work in the ATM so I didn’t have any Kwacha and of course my phone doesn’t work in Zambia. To add to the story, Ikey was asleep and forgot to come and collect me so there I was in the airport with just about nothing! …thankfully the Zambians are nice people and a couple of taxi drivers rang Ikey till he woke up and came to collect me ….2 ½ hours later! ….I didnt even recognise him with his new beard and shaven head!
We went straight to his bomas in the ‘yet to be opened’ Lusaka park, where I met Des and little Andre and then fed baby Sable with milk from bottles!!!
later at the house he rents, I met Jene with Anka (now almost 2 years old) and baby Dirk (10 months old)
After feeding the animals and checking on the older ones every morning, we would most likely do off to the Kilimanjaro coffee shop in the Manda Hills mall (Lusaka) and drink mugs of cappuccino and eat poached eggs on toast and lemon meringue pie …I like that coffee shop!
Then it was time to meet up with Ken (from the Tracker course at Tuli) at the Chachacha hostel
We had a night out on the tiles starting with lots of beer at the hostel bar and then offed to to Rhapsody’s cocktail bar with Des and Janne where we had rounds of all manner of cocktails …nice!
And then to the CASINO! …I’ve never been to one before so it was kinda odd, but we had a laugh playing Blackjack…badly
Many free drinks alter and we headed home to the hostel
a couple of days later and we hired a bakkie (Mitsubishi colt) to take Ken (Belgian) Jeff and Kristi (Canadians) off on a tour of Zambia
a 7 hour drive north got us to the Kasanka national park where we headed off to see the annual fruit bat migration – the largest migration in the world with approx 8 million bats filling the skies! …it was pretty awesome too! …we had sundowners with the park owner ad were amazed as the bats filled the sky from horizon to horizon!….there were Kupu and even ellies in the background as we watched which was fab to ..then we walked back to the car under the not too careful scrutiny of our ‘guide’ toting his AK47 where he left us to find our way back to the ‘conservation camp’ …of course we got lost ….twice ..and got led back to the road by a guy on his bicycle!!! over nighted at the camp which was insanely overpriced with a small dirty room for $30 then in the morning we headed back into the ark proper for a walk past hippo trails and watched a flock (yes) of eagles (crowned?) and a couple of Fish Eagles and got a glimpse of a Sitatunga. Then we drove the car over a pontoon and off for a quick jaunt where we saw nothing due to Ken driving far too fast.
Then off for another 6 hour drive to the Shoebill camp in the Bangweulu Wetlands.
A long drive broken only by a stop to stock up on food and buy the worst cappuccino ever (what did I expect??) then thru endless villages apparently filled with kids shouting “bonalekker” ?? and then onto the plains where we saw our first Black Lechwe. Again a badly overpriced tent for $60 – where do they get their pricing?????? we met an English couple who were travelling for 4 months in their fully kitted hi-lux…I managed to freak the woman out by looking identical to a friend of theirs who had recently died and who was ALSO called Ian!
That night we went for a beer at the bar and Jeff told us he had just walked into a bear …..a few noises later and we realised he had actually walked into a hippo!!! …equally dangerous I would think!
We woke early to watch the sun rise over the wetlands which was pretty fabulous – geese flying overhead and Lechwe jumping thru the water. 
Then we were off again for another fairly long drive north to the Kapishya Hot Springs. The area was lovely – very green with almost an English feel to it (strange really as a famous Englishman settled here and built a manor house not far from the Springs) We met Mel at the ‘lodge’ who was quick to do us a deal of 1/2price lodging and free breakfast thrown n! ….the chalets are FABULOUS!…..quirky woodwork, electricity and very comfortable and right against the river from the local lake 
The hot springs themselves are bath warm and a metre deep (the area has been dammed to create the pool) to Mel’s amazement we spent 3 ½ hours thru sunset and into the night in the pools drinking beers and Amarula on ice supplied by Lawrence (of Zambia …not the other one) then we had more drinks in the bar with Mel, who also showed us her puppies – Jack Russels only a week old.
Next morning we had our light breakfast of cereal, lots of toast and coffee and then tea and then Mel supplied us with waffles baked to Kens dads recipe (he’s a Belgian baker)
Then we packed and headed off to the Mutinondo Wilderness. We met the owners, found we were the only ones staying (again) then we headed off for a walk along the river where we found the first falls and nice pool….stripped to undies and swam around, then after being challenged by baboons, we walked to the next falls, then the next and then to the pool where we swam again and played pooh sticks.
On the way back we found a diurnal solifugid – which I DIDNT kill!!, then a flap necked chameleon which we photographed and Jeff dropped. Lots of antelope tracks too (Duiker, Reedbuck, Sable and Roan)
back at the camp we had beers and played Scrabble (oddly enough) then bedded down …me and Ken stayed in the nice dry and big tent left for previous campers where we had proper beds and duvets …the canucks stayed in their little tent and didn’t sleep and got wet …RESULT!
Next morning on the road again, back down to Lusaka, stopping only for fuel …and cappuccino, chocolate cake and burgers a the Fig Tree coffee shop.
Picked up at the Chachacha by Ikey and Tokman (Des has gone home) we went back to the house and just as I thought we were going to bed, Ikey jumped up and decided it was time to go dart some Impala! ..we drove off with Doc (a local vet Ikey is now in business with) to a place out of town and proceeded to drive around and around looking for Impala – which were in shot supply and unavailable anyhoo as we didn’t have the cages to put them in, if and when we darted them! ..very odd. We gave up at midnight and headed back to the house
Tags: bangweulu, bat, bats, botswana, cheetah, chuggy, ellies, kapishya, kasanka, lions, migration, mutinondo, springs, Travel, tuli, zambia
chuggy
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