March 2

Some of us were supposed to be headed to a Sangoma (witchdoctor) this morning, but when we woke up there was some bad news. While we were all at the pub last night someone had broken into the office and stolen the safe off of the wall. Five peoples passports, lots and lots of money was in there (volunteers and African Impacts), travel documents, spare car keys…Our trip was cancelled for today. I had my passport in there all month, but on Wednesday when I went up there to pay for my trip, it was open and for some strange reason I grabbed it out! I spent the morning working on photos and my tan! Tonight we had a braii in the firepit area. The lions are close by again tonight but at least there were other people around!

March 1

We lost power last night during a storm. We had no game drive this morning because of rain so I went back to sleep for an hour or so which was nice. Out power came back on around 9:30. I went to Bayete Elephant interaction this morning. I got to feed a male, female, and baby elephant. I got to feel his tusk, tongue, behind his ears, and trunk. It was very neat! I have been busy getting all my photos edited, keyworded, and put on the African impact harddrive. I had my last game drive this evening. We saw two giraffe, wildebeest, zebra, nyala, and the cheetah brothers right after they made a kill of a baby zebra and were laying resting with full bellies. We went to the pub tonight for dinner and I learned the game of ‘crud’ on the pool table. On our way home we saw a leopard on the road very quickly!

Feb 28

Today me and Alina volunteered to switch onto the researchers truck. We searched for lion for two hours and eventually saw a herd of 100+ buffalo by a watering hole! Unfortunately when we got back to camp, I heard that the truck I was supposed to be on saw a baby giraffe and a giraffe drinking from a water hole…giraffes are my favorite animal…I was pretty sad. But we spend the afternoon editing and getting our best photos prepared to hand in. We took our quiz today against the researchers and the photographers won! We had a sundowners drive, but it was cloudy and suuupppeerrr windy, so no sun. I am really going to miss everybody here when I leave in three days! I was the last one up in the main lodge tonight. I was gmail chatting with John and my mom when I heard a lion outside. It sounded far enough away but I was still nervous. I was in mid type talking to John and my Mom telling them I hear a lion when I ran out of internet! So I’m sure they think I got eaten by it! Anyway, I turned all the lights out and stood out on the balcony with my flashlight. I scanned the area and didn’t see anything. The sound I heard sounded like the noise the female makes when mating. Lions mate every 15-20 minutes so I waited to hear it again. But by 10:45 I didn’t feel like waiting up in the lodge with bats flying all around me! Luckily I found a whistle in the living room area, I grabbed that and my flashlight and slowly began to walk to my cabin. The grass is pretty high off the paths so I tried to make enough noise on the gravel path so if there was a lion I would startle it and they would raise there head and I would catch their eyes in my light. It was the longest and bravest walk I’ve ever done…I made it to my cabin with sweat dripping from my forehead!

Feb 27

On our game drive this morning we saw buffalo, two baby zebras, an nyala, and the cheetah brothers. After the drive five of us headed to Emdoneni cat rehabilitation for cat interaction. We saw African wild cat, caracal, cerval leopard, and the cheetah. We got a chance to pet and some of us laid next to the cheetah. I was lucky enough to have him roll to face me so we could snuggle. It was quite a moment…frightening but amazing! After cat interaction we had a nice lunch out, I had a cheeseburger and fries ☺ We did some shopping at an air conditioned craft shop ☺ Tonights drive was a sunset drive with all the photographers. I had to organize a volunteer night tonight…those who chose to take part played boggle with me.

Feb 26

This morning we did bush encroachment conservation. I didn’t have much steam because this weekend was so tiring. I did lots of laundry by hand when we got home. Man my clothes are dirty, especially the pants I wear every day on game drives and since I hiked in them. Tonight’s game drive was all photographers on one truck again. We started off by seeing Mufasa and Savannah laying on the side of the road. They have been mating for the past two days. When lions are mating, they do so every 15-20 minutes for a few seconds. We watched them three times. Pretty wild! Next we found a herd of elephants. There were two tiny baby ele’s, one was 2 and a half months! We only go to see them for a short bit because two other game trucks showed up. Only two vehicles are allowed at one sighting. As we drove along we came upon three giraffe playing on the side of the road and we noticed at beautiful orange moonrise right behind them. It was one my favorite moments! It was almost time to head back to our camp when we heard the North Pride of lions was walking along the path just ahead. They were followed by about 20 vehicles that were leaving a meeting up the road. They were back lit by all the cars headlights. Very neat!

Feb 25

This morning was again too cloudy for sunrise pictures…we had breakfast at the main lodge, a yummy omelet, and then we hit the road back to Thanda. After we dropped off Emil, we had lunch in downtown Durban. It was a busy busy place, very neat to experience! Our drive back took about nine hours with our pit stops. We got back and had dinner.

Feb 24

It was too cloudy this morning to do a sunrise photo. So we got to sleep in a little bit longer. Right after breakfast we hit the road to our next lodge in Didima which was on the other side of the mountain we were on yesterday. Before even checking in to our rooms, we headed off on our 7.5 mile hike to Rainbow Gorge! Today’s hike started with a major uphill followed by paths through the woods, tall grasses and ferns, chain ladders to climb, rushing rivers, steep slopes and boulders to scale, tree roots, and neat rock caverns.. Such a beautiful trail. It was a dewy morning which made the rocks very slippery. Lots of secret waterfalls and a neat boulder stuck in between the tunnel walls. It was fun to hike through the river in my boots and socks holding on to my camera and using my tripod as a walking stick. It was a stressful hike making sure we didn’t fall with all our expensive camera gear, but well worth it. One of the photographers accidently dropped his camera in the water and mine is unfortunately not auto focusing so it may have gotten too wet. :/ I lost one of my camera straps on this hike. We got back after 7 hours, showered, chatted, had a few drinks while the men made a braai. Such great food followed by some party dancing to Macarena, the cha-cha slide, cotton eyed joe, etc. While it was a bit cloudy tonight, laying back while listening to music, looking at the few stars peaking through gave me such a great feeling. I can’t believe we only have a week left.

Feb 23

Today we woke up early to take sunrise pictures of the Amphitheatre at Tugela Gorge. Very beautiful! We had a quick breakfast and headed out on a 8.75 hike. There were bits out in the open plains to view the scenery and some points we were in the mossy forest. The end 1/3rd was all bouldering through river until we reached the Tugela Gorge tunnel. It was very tricky and painful on the feet to make our way into the tunnel with our tripods and cameras. We then swam at a water hole after jumping in from a 9ft rock ledge! It was a long beautiful hike taking about 7 and a half hours to complete. I left my sunglasses in the tunnel accidently and my lens cap fell off. My feet are very sore. We got some ice cream at the end of the hike, which was needed! We had spaghetti dinner followed by a viewing of our photos from the day. It was too cloudy to do star trails tonight so hopefully tomorrow will be clearer.

Feb 22

Today started off early, we left at 5 to leave for Drakensberg Mountains. It took us about 8 hours to get here. On our way we picked up our photography teacher Emil in Durban. The drive seemed to go by quickly because we stopped many times for snacks and bathroom breaks…just looking at the beautiful scenery helped pass the time too! Our lodges are wonderful overlooking breathtaking mountains at Thendele. Right when we got here we had a quick lunch and then went for a small hike to Cascade Falls in the Mahai Valley. The water was cold, but so much fun to sit under the falls and climb around on the rocks. As the sun was going down, all of us photographers grabbed our tripods and got some great photos of the water rushing around us. It was a good time to practice our ‘Manual’ setting skills when we have time to set up…we aren’t in a rush to get a quick shot of an animal here! We had dinner at Tower Pizza, a neat old barn converted to a restaurant. I had bacon, banana, herbs, cheese pizza. Very good!

Feb 21

This morning we did conservation work out on the reserve. My group did grass slashing. Tiring work on the back, arms, and hands! We got a lot done though which is great to see. It was a nice day out so I took some time to relax in the sun. This evening I went with one other photographer on the researcher truck. We had another great drive! We started the drive off by finding Mufasa and Savanna laying together. Then she starting doing a wild call for the cubs ( I got a video!). Then they walked down to the watering hole and I got a photo of them drinking water, my Lion King shot! They then walked further down the road and perched themselves up on the side of the road for another photo opp! After them we saw Tulani, the oldest bull elephant! Next was the whole heard of elephant as the sun set. They were so close to the truck! I took more videos of this too! On the way back we stopped because Becky had to pee…I told our guide I was getting out too, but I was in the back of the truck…so mid pee, he started to drive away! Thank goodness he didn’t drive in reverse! We then came upon a group of 5 or so giraffe running on the path in the dark, such majestic creatures! Oh and I also saw one firefly!

Feb 20

This morning I went to the crèche. It is a school in the community that has children from infant-5 years old. We did phonics, played outside, played with toys, story time, singing, number practice, dancing, and paper mache. What a great experience. They were all so sweet and very smart! It was nice to have some cuddle time with some cute little kids. Tonights drive was supposed to be a sunset drive, but it was too cloudy and a little rainy. So we went on a normal game drive instead. It was a great drive! The sky was dark, the sun was perfect, we saw rhino, elephant, and giraffe, and had a windy ride home! One of my favorite drives!

Feb 19

This morning we did more conservation work. Bush encroachment. It was sooo hot out, but I don’t like taking my long sleeved shirt off because of all the thorns! There were some rhinos 100 meters away from us while we were doing our bush whacking. I did some keywording work for the Thanda African Impact photo database during the day. This evening I went on another wild dog drive. We only saw four of the dogs tonight, a lot of time was spent searching for them. We did however see ostrich, buffalo, nyala, and a python.

Feb 18

I went out on a bird drive this morning. It was a foggy morning, which made the spider webs very dewy and neat to see. We saw lots of birds as well as white rhino, giraffe, nyala, and a python! We also drove by where the zebra kill was last week. The hyenas have eaten everything left over by the lions and the bones were spread about the area. Man did it smell! After lunch we all worked on mini volunteer projects. I helped design some bulletin boards and did some other crafty decorations. In the evening on our game drive we didn’t see too much. We saw three lions laying around and playing with each other for about an hour until it got dark. We had a bonfire after dinner.