We were a stones throw away from Kruger
Well sorry i haven’t been on my blog in months! I have been busy with traveling and starting a new job here in south Africa. Since the start of January I have been working at a place called Untamed Africa, at the Numbi gate of the Kruger National Park! We are literally within feet of the Kruger Park. The area is really beautiful , but the only problem is the grass is about 2 meters high! so as you can imagine you cant see anything unless it walks right out in front of the road . I am helping to start a research project on the white and black rhinos of this area. What I am doing is driving around all day and locating rhino middens and for all of you who don’t know its a pile of dung that male rhinos accumulate and use as message stations in their range. We then GPS all of the middens on the Leutla concession and are now starting to study whats association are occuring in and around the middens. We have come to find out that many other species use the rhino middens, for examples elephants take a liking to them because the grass that grows around the middens is nice and fresh when other areas arent as nutrient high. Mongoose love them as well because of all the insects like millipedes and beetles that accumulate in and around them.
Untamed Conservancy
The best part of my job here is going out into the bush every day without a ranger or a weapon. Although it is frowned upon, I do tend to wander off from the vehicle a little further than allowed, but I feel very competent in my ability to detect danger and I am well equipped with what to do should a dangerous situation arise. The other day I went into Kruger for a couple hours and was astonished to see how fast the leopards and lions disappeared into the tall grass right off the road, so ever since then I have decided to be a little more cautious when bending over to measure a rhino midden or wander off trails following some interesting spoor. Now believe it or not the last 2 months that we have been here we have not seen one rhino on the Untamed concession, but all the students and volunteers have a few times! this seems typical to me, when you are looking really hard for something it never shows, but when you least expect it …….. there it is, I am still determined to see a rhino on this conservancy before I leave, I have already had about 30 or 40 rhino sighting since I’ve been here , but not the ones whose middens I have been digging around in all day every day. My accommodation is really nice, some call it a concentration camp, but i think its quite roomy . It is in fact an old railway camp with an active station that runs on the perimeter of the Kruger Park. The only problem is how the train comes by about 10 times a day and is about 20 meters from my head, but I have actually grown use to it, the only problem is that it drains out the sounds of the lions and hyenas at night!
Ive had some pretty cool sighting though, like when we pulled up to 5 wild dogs resting on a rocky outcrop that had just fed on an impala. Another great sighting was when a male leopard came 5 meters from the car, as well as a lioness sitting on one of the map signs made of rock in kruger, which I have never seen before! The leading newspaper asked for the rights to publish that picture in an article which was really neat. Anyways I will try to blog as much as I can when I can get to town, so hello to everyone back at home! wish you were here
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