First bit of real hard work

Hey guys,

Just had to write a quick blog, cos the past few days have been amazing. We've been working hard this week doing lots of vegetation transects, and pushing it until we drop.

This involves Michelle walking 50m into the bush, which, in tall grass and thick trees, is sometimes too far - I get nervous when I can't see her, and imagine her being munched by something. She's started singing while she's walking, just so I know she's still alive. Sometimes the singing stops, but so far that's just cos she's forgotten the words. I stand at the other end of the transect (close to the car, yipee!), or sometimes sit (when we remember to bring the chair), and scribe for her. I'm slowly learning the grasses and trees again - Shmitia (I spelled it wrong the other day and crossed it out VERY fast), Dychrostachys, Stipagrostis... and so it goes.

The last thing to do at a site is collect the soil samples - the most strenuous bit, and the bit when we move slower and slower until we get to stop under a tree and munch on some food. This bit is always great - the kitchen's here are fully stocked, so we've been having roast beef sarmies with mustard, cheese, gherkins... and today was cottage pie, grapes and pears. :)   When we went into Maun the other day, we bought ourselves some bags of toasted marshmallows. So each day, when we come back, we are each allowed one marshmallow. We've named them PFM's - Post Field Marshmallows. They keep us going.

Yesterday Face (yes, that's his name - stories about him later) told us about Goose, the leopard, sitting with a kill off one of the roads, and gave us his coordinates. So, being the cool trackers that we are, we tracked him down. Well, actually, Michelle tracked him down :) We got right up to his little copse of trees, and found his kill hidden in a tree, but couldn't see him anywhere - eventually I spotted him under some thick Acacias - if we hadn't been like 2 metres away, we would never have seen him. And if he hadn't been collared, we could've done a transect right there and not seen him until it was too late. Well, too late for Michelle - I'd be in the car by then. He was beautiful, and so cool - not skittish at all. He just walked in front of us to change trees, did some yawns, flicked his ears, and went on being cool Goose.

Face also told us about two male lions, Doohan and Mike (what kind of name is that for a lion?), that were sitting just outside of Savanna Camp with a kill. We found them too, and their kill... the punks killed a giraffe! Just two of them, taking down a giraffe! It was pretty impressive.

"Do you see what I killed?"

It doesn't end there - Michelle decided that today was gonna be my day for learning how to 4X4. As we were driving out this morning, I stopped to contemplate a wet and tricky part, and Michelle said "Ah, Kelly - are you seeing this?" I looked up to see a massive pride of 14 lions just strewn all across the road RIGHT in front of us - all looking up and looking quite menacing. This pride has been walking through our camp in the night and early in the morning - we've heard them a lot very close to our rooms (but by now I'm just sleeping through it). Also lots of elephant feeding right outside our room most nights - we just keep praying that they don't walk through the canvas walls! :)

Anyway, i could give a long list of animals we've seen and stared at for ages, but that would just take forever :)  Besides work and animals, we're watching a lot of movies in the evenings, drinking lots of hot chocolate and coffee, and chatting until we can't keep our eyes open anymore.

I miss all of you so so much, and it's only been a week.

Some new pics (First week)

Hello! 

It's been a great week so far - no field work yet, with all of the car probs we've had, and now since our's is the only vehicle in camp that actually works, it's being used for everything else. So hopefully we'll start on Monday, but we've been enjoying ourselves exploring the concession a bit, and doing lots of chilling and swimming! :)

Here's some new pics.

Lunch at Hilary's on our Thursday trip into Maun, with Michelle and Hilary. The most delicious homemade lemonade and butternut soup!

Stanley in his natural environment. This is our trusty TDI that I'm slowly learning to drive.

Pilot Chris and Tracker Andrew with the 4-seater - we went up tracking the predators with them on Saturday morning! I was trying to think about not losing my breakfast.

Wild Dog Camp kitchen - these guys have the coolest place. Andrew, Face, and Stephanie live here, and we popped over for tea with them after the flight, just before we tracked down Darkness' lion pride. Not bad for a Saturday morning!

first days

Yesterday was the start of the little adventure!  Michelle and I met up in Joburg airport, and fly across to Maun via Gabarone.  We were told that our plane was just stopping in Gaborone, but when we got onto the plane, the air hostess who took our passes said "You're going to Maun?  How are you getting there?" 

So in Gabarone we eventually figured out that we had to board this little 20 seater plane to Maun, where we grabbed cokes from the pilot's cooler box during flight. Everyone is super chilled here, with the biggest smiles on their faces, as if to say "Yup, we know we live here. It's awesome."

Maun is super tiny, but I bought a sim card that works, some air time. We picked up our massive landy (that one of the camp managers had brought up for us and left at the airport - so safe, keys in the ignition, doors don't lock) and off we went down the long road to the game management area.  We gave a lift to 2 guys that work here, one Tsitsi, and another who's name i can't remember - SO glad these guys were with us, because we got one flat on the tar road, and then the spare went flat once we were in the management area at sunset.  Thankfully all the vehicles have radios  (cos cell phone signal is non existent unless you're standing right up against the cell phone tower) - so we radio-ed in for help on our first day in!   Sven came through to help us with two wheels stolen off a car from the camp next door (the wild dog camp).  Anyway, long story short, most of our tyres are messed up, we got in last night at about 9, and we have to chance the trip back into maun on Thursday to get some more tyres.  We had a quick dinner, met everyone, and crawled into bed.  I couldn't stop thinking of scorpions, and it took me forever to fall asleep...

Since we couldn't exactly explore the concession today (with a landy standing on jacks in the workshop), we spent the day exhausting ourselves with unpacking all the equipment and luggage, scrounging around for cardboard boxes to fashion into cupboards, and making our rooms a little more homey.  Jamie made me the most amazing calendar, featuring his many handsome faces, and it was the first thing I put up.  :) I even went as far as to hammer in some nails and make a little cardboard shelf for my girly things!  it's attached forever, but it's awesome, I'm sure no-one would ever want to take it down.  that was Michelle's amazing suggestion. :)  We found a rusty old tressle table and scrubbed it down nicely for Michelle's desk - gonna keep looking for one for me, but my room's looking fab already!

We're being super chilled now, had a yummy lunch (food's good here!), and about to have a swim in a bit.  You can't see the bottom of the pool with all the murkiness, and Michelle says you get lionesses drinking from that pool at night!

It's not easy to skype in the office, as jamie and I found out.  We can chat easily just typing notes, but as soon as you switch on the video, it dies (internet too slow here).  Chatting with the microphone works ok if it's quiet in here, but there's often people working in here, so it might have to be an early morning thing.

It seems that there is a fundraiser planned for the buffalo project, on my birthday, 6 March - Emily is planning to have a human foosball tournament in Maun, getting a bunch of teams together, having a braai, and mainly having a good time.  So we're thinking about going - that would be a pretty cool way to spend a birthday in the bundus, I reckon!