The first week

So, the first week has come and gone. We had exams at the end of the week, just to make sure that we all knew our stuff. Glad I know how to do a vehicle check 🙂

The day we arrived in South Africa we had a 7 hour drive to the reserve. 5 hours to Pietersburg now known as Polokwane, where we met two of the reserve staff who were in the process of collecting the groceries for the first week. The rains had arrived early in the area, and this being Africa, had caused a powercut on all the tills in the supermarket. So we had to wait for the tills to come back on to actually tot up the bill!

The first week has consisted of extensive training such as telemetry, compass bearings and triangulation. We have done mobile tracking, mammal identification and some theory about the reserve and animals on the reserve. We finished the tests yesterday and went on an ‘adventure drive’ and we saw a lion with a kill. Sadly we didn’t see the actual kill, but it was really awesome to see a full grown lion walking away with an impala carcass.

To get into town today we had to leave the reserve base at 5 am. It’s now 11:15 and I am shattered. And we won’t get back till 8 pm ish tonight. Gives you an idea of how far into the African bush we really are. The internet connection we can access is really slow so there’ll be no photos till I’ve finished the expedition and am back in the UK. Hope you can all cope.