A simple safari vehicle swap....

I had arrived mid-morning for the last stint of the season at our Fig Tree bush camp, hosting 3 elderly Roman Catholic sisters, missionaries from the USA, who were staying for 2 nights in our tree tents. One of the ladies walks with a stick so we knew it was going to be a challenging couple of days… getting in and out of a game viewer is tricky enough for the fully-mobile, let alone climbing up and down treehouse steps 3 or 4 times a day.

Anyway, they set off on their first sunset game drive around 430pm and shortly before sunset we got a radio call from David, their guide, saying they were at the hippo pool and the vehicle was pumping smoke from under the bonnet, could I go with the second vehicle to swap cars. No problem I said, I wasn't entirely sure which pool he meant as there are several in the area and all are imaginatively referred to as hippo pools, so I set off for the closest and found no-one. I was now on the wrong side of the water, so when I found them at the next pool, I had to take a short journey around the pool to reach them. Their vehicle was no longer smoking, but we switched anyway in case it was something serious. I set off back for camp, leaving them to enjoy their sundowners. I hadn't got more than a mile when I found myself half way up the far side of Savannah crossing with what felt like a snapped accelerator cable. The last place I wanted to be stuck was back down in the bottom of the gully, so, with no handbrake, I stuck it in gear and switched off the engine. The vehicle held half way up the steep side, the roof was almost level with the top of the gully, but sadly not high enough to be seen by any passing vehicle.

The replacement vehicle I had swapped with David had no radio in it, so there was precious little I could do except run back across the gully and see if I could catch his attention across the grassland - so I jumped from the vehicle, quickly flashed my torch up and down the river bed for Leopards, and ran… in my haste to leave camp, I had only brought my flip flops, which broke on the rocks after the first two steps, leaving me bare foot clambering up the far side of the gully - but it was all to no avail; David had already set off using a different road. Bugger.  I called the camp, and waited for David to return with the guests and receive the news that it was his turn to rescue me.

It was getting dark fast, the Tsetse's were swapping shifts with the mosquitoes and the nightjars were starting their evensong. Despite the slightly serious situation I was in, I was treated to a spectacular lightening show both in front and behind which lit up the gully and surrounding trees.  The puku started an alarm whistle in front of me and I swung the torch back and forth a couple more times, desperate not to waste the battery, but keen to see what they might be concerned about. I could only run the engine and vehicle lights if I held the foot brake down at the same time and since I was not entirely sure how long they would take to find me I didn't want to risk it unless absolutely necessary.

Not sure how much time passed, but there came the sound of a distant vehicle behind me and I turned to see lights bouncing in all directions through the trees… it could only be David heading back to camp with the guests. I thanked the gods that he'd chosen this direction to return. I turned my torch on once more so that he could see me and my stranded vehicle now blocking his way through the crossing and climbed out into the darkness to meet him on the other side.

After some fiddling around with the cable under the accelerator pedal I was off again and gingerly picked my way back to camp, stopping only to watch a genet foraging by the roadside and listen to the lions roaring in the woodland. Where else in the world could a near disaster end in pure Magic?

The Fruits of Fig Tree Camp

Campfire meets bushfire

I haven't been able to get any of the locals to tell me what this long holiday weekend is in aid of, but today and tomorrow are both public holidays here in Zambia, so of course we are fully booked and the place is buzzing. Google tells me they are heroes day and unity day back to back - but what exactly that means I'm not sure.
I've just come back from a couple of nights at our remote bush camp, Fig Tree, which was so peaceful and quiet, if a little hair-raising at night, waiting for the guests to return from their night drive, listening to the bush fires raging across the river. My training has taught me that controlled fires are necessary for a number of ecological reasons and I understand them all, but I can't help feeling for the slower moving creatures of the bush like the tortoises and chameleons that simply cannot bury themselves underground or take to the skies to get away from the fatal flames and smoke.

Zebra studying something suspicious in the grass

Whilst at Fig Tree, during the quieter daytime hours, I spent some time with one of our guides walking the camp and studying the trees and plants in the vicinity... it stills amazes me what an abundance of resources mother nature provides, even in a small camp area... everything is there to make rope, cloth, and kitchen utensils, walking sticks, boats and snuff boxes. Not to mention the wealth of medical supplies, culinary delights, industrial strength glues and even chewing gum; bush gum is not something I'm desperate to try in a hurry, but I did manage to make a fairly loud whistle using the leaf of a Horn-Pod tree and send a Puku dashing for cover in alarm - oops.

one month in...

Exactly one month ago, I stood at the baggage belt in Lusaka airport waiting for my rucksack, pondering what lay ahead… all I knew was that a girl with facial piercings would be waiting for me the other side of the gate - she would drive me 4 hours to the lodge, predominantly in the dark; No views to talk about, few animals to spot, no shared knowledge and no idea of where we were heading. I was nervous.

I'm often nervous, but my previous boss always told me that I was good at hiding it - I faced the world and whatever it threw at me with passion and purpose; it didn’t really feel like it. This was different. I was to spend 6 months in an alien country, with new colleagues, a whole different career and a long way from home.
But here I am, a whole month done and I can't quite believe it. Thankfully it feels like I've been here much longer. The people are amazing… resourceful, calm, generous and understanding. I have landed in yet another small slice of Eden.

Mukambi Safari Lodge sits on the banks of the Kafue River which borders the Kafue National Park, one of the world's biggest wildlife sanctuaries; at 22,400 square kilometres, it is the size of Wales and home to some of the greatest wetland antelopes on earth. This week I received my official guiding licence to take tourists on game drives around the park and interpret the flora and fauna we see here. I can't wait. Another nerve-wracking chapter has started… we have timid and aggressive elephants (as a result of a long history of poaching), un-graded roads which take the "African massage" to a whole new level, Tsetse flies and exceedingly long grass making visibility tricky at best. But the challenges are worth enduring because we also have the cutest Leopard cubs, almost 500 bird species and some of the rarest sightings like Pangolins and Sitatunga. It's a lesser-known pocket of paradise and once again I am awed by the sheer magnitude of mother nature's designs. Now that I truly understand what the Lion King was on about all those years ago, I am excited to share with others the real "circle of life".

Monday morning at the office

The first thing they teach you at guide school is not to run in the bush; only food runs! - so we agreed that running down the un-fenced airstrip with a vehicle slowly trailing behind, for fitness reasons, probably wasn't our wisest decision. So last night we formally started our own "bushfit" club outside the managers pool. Admittedly "club" is a bit of an exaggeration with only 2 members, but with any luck it will be 3 this evening.
Today's tasks include a management meeting to present proposed actions from recent market research, visiting Robert the onsite tailor to get my uniform altered, getting Steve in the workshop to make a couple of bush-fit "implements" and writing an article on the local Pangolin release activity. Not your average day in the bush, but our first walking safari went out this morning and unfortunately I was not able to join, despite getting up stupidly early and being all prepared to set off with a couple of Italian guests; hopefully next time will be more successful.
Hosting is a significant part of guiding and often more important than the knowledge you share... so we are kicking off a new "lunch and learn" programme here with the guiding team on Tuesday. The first session, called "Meet and Greet" is all about getting to know your international guests. Our local guides have never left Zambia, and despite being highly knowledgeable about the bush, some have never been to school and therefore have varying levels of literacy - how to make the nuances of different European cultures interesting and exciting to Africans who possibly don't know where or what Europe is, will be a challenge indeed!

Placement starts at Mukambi, in the heart of the Kafue National Park - Zambia

My current home at Mukumbi!

After 5 gruelling months of training and successfully qualifying in South Africa as a FGASA Level 1 field guide (typically driving), Back-Up Trails Guide (walking safaris), Level 2 tracker and borderline-bird-nerd, I have arrived safely at my placement lodge in Zambia where I will stay until early December learning all about lodge management and hopefully clocking hours and encounters in a guiding role. As with most African countries, there are of course some administration battles to overcome first, like VISAs, licences, insurances and public driving permits, but with any luck these things will all be sorted soon enough and I can get out into the bush putting it all into practise. The wildlife is abundant and the bush pristine which makes for some fantastic birding.
In the meantime of course I have plenty to do accompanying existing guides and learning the routes, the new plants and trees, and special antelopes that only occur here, as well as working with the management team on marketing, social media and the all important guest hosting (drinking and chatting at the bar mostly!).

First "management meeting"!

Mukambi Safaris have 3 camps within the Kafue, at varying degrees of remoteness. I have so far visited two of them and I am looking forward to visiting the third when it opens in the North next month (Busanga Plains).
They have visitors from all over the world; and in the two weeks I have been here, I have already met people from Israel, USA, The Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and of course many other Africans. My travels over the years in the course of my career have certainly been useful these last two weeks.

"Bushfit with Bruce" initiation....

It started, for me, back in March at a private reserve called Pridelands, near the town of Hoedspruit. It was the start of our Basic Birding course with Bruce so we were fresh back from off time and raring to go. The camp is fairly new and made up of canvas tents and a new wooden ablutions block – but nothing that resembled a gym… well not the kind I have seen before anyway. That soon changed when Bruce appeared in his gym shorts carrying a selection of items that looked completely alien to me… a saggy rubber ball weighing 10Kgs, a pram wheel with handles, and a fat stick tied to a weight with a length of paracord. Slightly intrigued I watched for a bit before deciding to join in. Everyone was still smiling, so I took it to mean it was not too difficult… and to be fair, at the time, it really didn’t feel too difficult at all. I swung kettle bells, mastered the stomach wheel and smugly pulled back on the lat-pull ropes for the required number of times without so much as a twinge. Was I doing it wrong? Admittedly I struggled with the push ups and jumping squats, but made it to the end and disappeared off for a shower feeling quite impressed with myself.

The day wore on, the course continued, the brain got fried as usual, and we went to bed. It was about 430am when the consequence of my actions became apparent. Desperate for a pee, I flopped my right arm out of bed and felt around the floor of the tent for my torch and discovered to my horror that I couldn’t lift it up without a burning pain screaming out from my arm…. now just a couple of muscles I could understand… but all of them!? really? I had no idea just how weak my arms had become working in an office all day for 25 years.

My home at Pridelands

I managed, aided by some pain-induced involuntary noises, to get myself up, out to the loo and back again just in time for the 5am wake-up call. The day was agony. The day after even worse. I did not join bushfit again that week – not because I didn’t want to get fit and strong, but simply because I couldn’t, and I was not alone. It took 3 days before my arms would painlessly lift my binoculars to my face – not good when you are on an intensive 7 day birding course!

It's been a while - but I'm back from training and 100% ALIVE!

“I thought you said Makuleke was hot???” I screamed over the sound of the engine and the rain hammering down on the canvas roof of the game viewer. Everyone was wrapped in hats and coats and every spare piece of clothing they could find – soaked through and shivering we bounced down the tracks towards our new home.

The Makuleke concession is 24,000 hectares of land owned by the Makuleke people inside the Kruger National Park in South Africa and is nestled between the Limpopo river in the north and the Luvuvu in the south. A land of fever tree forests, wide open pans and exceedingly tall grass, it’s at the northern tip of the park accessed via the Pafuri gate – and is a bird nerds paradise.

New camp, new species, new faces and once again I was lucky enough to have a tent to myself (if you ignore the compulsory Acacia rats, geckos and tree squirrels). The tent could better be described as a chalet, with an en-suite bathroom and gas powered hot shower; pure luxury in a beautiful setting amongst enormous Nyala trees, Mangosteens and Black Bitterberrys.

I was unpacked in about 5 minutes flat and out wandering the camp to get my bearings and realised that despite endless studying over the previous months, there were an alarming number of trees, sounds and plants I could put no name to. But that would have to wait. Our first week was advanced rifle handling (ARH) – the week I had been dreading since booking the course last summer.

I’m not a fan of guns at the best of times, but a .375 bolt action rifle that can stop a charging elephant at 10m is something I was absolutely shit scared of. Thankfully the first couple of days of the course was spent getting used to the action, the weight, the safety procedures and generally drilling the loading and unloading stages as well as learning how to put the thing into a safe walking state.  After a couple of days I had gained a little confidence, despite awkwardly trying to get to grips with a right-handed rifle as a left-handed beginner. I had also learnt that a magazine was not something you read, a sear was not some kind of fortune teller and “short-stroking” was thankfully something one should avoid at all costs.

After endless drilling my arms were weak and I knew something would have to be done if I was to carry that thing for any length of time and then have a hope of holding it up long enough to aim and accurately fire when needed. Little did I know then what “Bushfit with Bruce” would do to me.