Last week at Ulovane

We can't believe that the end of our wonderful time has come so fast! With the second round of practical drives completed, most of our time this week goes into studying and refreshing for a mock FGASA theory exam on Wednesday and then the final exam on Friday. On Monday though the weather is just so lovely that we drive the land cruiser to Boatside for an afternoon of swimming and picknicking in/at the bushman's river. The water is just amazing and I spend practically 3 hours in the water! On the way there and back we came across some of our regular friends for the last time - white rhino and a jackal buzzard.

 

The mock exam on Wednesday went well, but unfortunately on Thursday I was struck down with an ear and throat infection - the day before the final exam - just typical!! I felt really rotten, but luckily Heidi was going to the doctors in Grahamstown and I got a lift with her, saw the doc and was put straight onto antibiotics. On Friday morning I was lucid enough to write the exam (went well enough for me to be sure I've passed) and then got talked into wrapping myself up to come along on the final drive for old times sake - which was heart warming :)

 

Friday evening everyone got dressed up for our graduation ceremony and the theme this year was "Animal party" (very original ;) which really lovely - complete with slide show of all our memorable/funny times at Ulovane (thanks Ina!) and our certificates, summary of achievements and our very own Ulovane buff! Thanks everyone for an unforgettable experience - I will miss my bush family greatly, but feel so enriched by my experiences and having met people that share a similar passion to mine. I am also  really excited to see my (real) family again as well! 

 

 

Week 9 at Ulovane (second last week)

No theory exams this week, but we're all pretty stressed about our first and second round mock practical drive assessments (with real guests) and one-on-one interviews afterwards with our facilitator - all in preparation of the final FGASA Level 1 exam next Friday. I had an amazing 2nd round practical drive with wonderful engaged guests who wanted to know everything and was so enthusiastic about the natural environment! I had such a great time showing them around - they wanted to climb out and touch and feel and discuss everything; and definitely want to come again next time there is an opportunity - all of which meant of course that I passed the practicals with flying colours - whooohoooooo! Such a relief! :)

 

 

I woke up this morning and my first thought was that next week this time I will be on a plane back to Jo'burg! I can't believe how quick the time has gone! I made up my mind then to make the absolute most of this last week - with the scary practicals out of the way, I feel a lot more relaxed and just want to soak up this gorgeous natural environment, experiences and most of all the wonderful people I have met over these last few weeks. I feel like I have gained a bush family and hope we will all keep in contact. And talking about family I had a call from my (real) mum this morning who landed in Jo'burg last night and which I'll join next week - very excited about seeing everyone again! I should probably just remember to also study for the final FGASA exams on Friday (which is really what all of this is about in the first place!). With a level 1 qualification, lots of opportunities will hopefully be available to me in the new year :)

 

 

Week 8 at Ulovane

Our last Ulovane exam on mammals, animal behaviour and ecology is moved to the Wednesday due to our 2 days away last week. The last few days before that is a bit of a rush unfortunately as we felt we would've liked a bit more time to learn and research the incredibly interesting information about mammals and how to interpret their behaviour - it's amazing how much more you see and understand now that we've learnt why for instance you always see oxpeckers sitting on zebras (see below) and also why elephants touch each other with their trunks in a "greeting ceremony" - very moving to see it and understand what they're doing :)

 

 

 

After the test we were all told to wear old clothes and sent down the road to the dam (on the farm). We were very apprehensive and were promptly told we had to put our full head and hair in a massive bucket with elephant dung mixed with water to "rid us of our civilionship"! We couldn't believe that they were actually serious and only when the first victim actually went through with it did it start to sink in...! I never thought I would do something like that until Guy said it's just cereal mixed with water and then I remembered that Ellie dung is literally just branches, leaves and grass so I went ahead and did it! We also had to do a territorial animal cry and paint our faces with mud - I know it's hard to imagine, but it was really fun in the end, a bit like being back in University ;o)

 

On Friday, I was in the very first one of 2 to do our mock practical drives (with real guests!). We emailed our guests a few days before the drive to finalise times, find out about things like medical conditions, allergies, time limits ect. and then 7am Friday morning 14 of them arrived! It was very nerve wrecking and everyone looked at us with nervous faces when we returned (as they knew they would have to do it soon!). In the end I actually really enjoyed being out there and telling all the guests about all the things that we've learned in the past 8 weeks. We were lucky to get a lovely sunshine day and everyone had so much fun just being out there. Afterwards I had a 3 hour interview to start preparing us for the final FGASA exam in 2 weeks - I can't believe that this will all be over in 2 weeks!! We are also starting to find out about volunteering opportunities, placements and follow-on courses to do next year. I am hoping to do the Marine Guiding course in July next year and before that some volunteering :)

 

Week 7 at Ulovane

After yet another 8am exam (on reptiles and birds) we start focussing on our practical drives this week. The first mock exam drives are in just over a week (starting with me!) and we all want to at least another 1 or 2 drives in with the students here before we have to do a "full guided experience" with the public and of course our assessors. In addition, this week we have the monster of theory week covering ecology, ethology (animal behaviour) and mammals which is huge! We have a wonderful informative drive with Schalk in the afternoon and are rewarded by seeing some wonderful mammals: 2 gemsbok and their baby, a rhino with her baby, a lioness and 2 elephants playing in the river (I was able to capture 5 minutes on video!)

 

 

By mid week people are feeling a little overwhelmed with all the work that has to be done before finals and we are surprised with a 2 day break in Port Alfred! In true Ulovane style we are given 30 mins to pack, bundled into a game viewer and after a few hectic minutes of push starting Heidi's car we are speeding down the highway with the wind blowing a gale through the open game viewer! We arrive safely (and partly frozen) in Port Alfred and settle into awesome beachfront cabanas before heading to the local pub/Italian/steakhouse for a few beers and some wood fired pizza - heavenly! Dessert of Dom Pedro's finish off the night and a bit more drinking and dancing on the sofas back home makes for a good night :) The rest of our time consists of lots of beach walking and 2 hours of glorious beach galloping at Beachcombers Horse trails with Johno - best horse riding I've ever done! We arrive back at camp armed with shopping bags full of goodies from Pick & Pay and we have to hunker down for 2 days of stormy weather, lots of practical driving sessions and lots & lots of very interesting information about animals and their behaviour!

 

 

Week 6 at Ulovane

We are allowed an 8am exam this morning - written as well as practical identification of grasses, trees and flowers. Afterwards a quick shower and then we get packing for our next sleep out on the Reserve. I'm driving us there and on the way we stumble across a gorgeous male lion (see picture below). We're camping at boat side and have to gather wood as we arrive that will last us the whole night - it's hot and humid work and we all go for a dip in the river afterwards. As we sit there a herd of elephants that we passed earlier starts wondering through our campsite one by one! Kyle (our instructor) handles them very well as they can be dangerous and destructive - they even shake the land rover at one stage and one of them grabs a blanket and throws it over his head and walks off! Very exciting and nerve-wrecking at the same time! We don't sleep very much during the night as it starts raining and we can still hear the elephants are close by. On our drive back we see "duggaboy" - the big old Cape Buffalo and then due to taking an alternative route to see him closer (I was able to take a video of him crossing the road), we unfortunately get stuck in the mud and "break" the landie (starter motor) - oops! (p.s. it wasn't me!)

 

This week we're doing reptiles and birds and have to also identify all the local birds by vision as well as sound. We do many wonderful birding drives and walks in addition to the hours of power point slides and on one of our walks Kyle's eagle eyes spot a Jackal buzzard nest (above) on a cliff side with one chick in it! Due to the fact that we can start identifying birds by their sound we are now able to see the smaller birds more easily and get much closer to them i.e. this greater double collared sunbird doing a mating display - see the little yellow feathers protruding out of it's neck!

Week five in Ulovane

Another 7am exam and we are ready to start the next week! This week is our biggest yet in terms of learning as we are covering trees, grasses and flowers including latin names, medicinal uses, traditional beliefs and animals associated with all of them. Very full-on and most of us feel completely overwhelmed especially with all the latin names and having to recognise all the trees in the area as well! On top of that one of our land rovers (Theodore) had broken down so we can't do too many game drives this week which is probably a good thing due to all the information we have to take in! In any case, mid week called for a sundowner so we all walked out to the remembrance garden with our beers and had a great sunset as a reward and a beautiful waxing crescent moon on the way back!

On Thursday we got the "reptiles and raptors" guy called Darren around for a full day on snakes, spiders, scorpions, owls and other raptor birds. Fascinating stuff, especially when he starts opening the boxes and those who dare can play around with them. We only play with the non-venomous ones i.e. milk snakes and garden snakes and some pythons, and he handled the bigger guns i.e. puffadder (picture below) and a beautiful and verrrrry aggressive cape cobra! After that we were all able to handle a gorgeous barn owl (picture below) and a majestic black eagle called Maggie. Fantastic day!

On Saturday 4 of us got told that we have been selected to guide some UK and SA kids that are visiting Amakhala Game Reserve through a local exchange program - great opportunity! Kerim and I made up one team and we had a fantastic morning walking for about 3 hours on Carnaervon Dale (part of the Reserve), chatting to teachers, kids and mums about the local animals and trees and birds. We got everyone involved in helping to ID a fork tailed bou bou, saw some giraffes, walked as close as probably 125 metres from an eland bull and watched a herd of black wildebeests and red hartebeests kick up dust over the plains. Now... back to those latin names ;)

Week four at Ulovane

Another two hour exam to start off the week - this time from 7am (which I was not entirely prepared for!) This time on taxonomy, arthropods, amphibians and fish. It was the hardest one so far, but we already got the results and I did better than I thought! The previous exam's results have gotten misplaced somehow and we can't access it  at the moment as Seanie Sean is away with the Trails Guides so we're still in the dark about that - welcome to Africa! ;o)

This week Schalk (The Founder and Director of Ulovane) joins us for Weather and Climate, Biomes and then Kyle is doing Conservation Management. Schalk's passion for the bush and animals is contagious and his lectures were very informative.

We were incredibly fortunate to experience two game captures and relocations this week. Day one consisted of getting up at 4:15am and driving to gate one where we met up with the vets, anti-poaching unit and security, as well as lots of maintenance guys, students from Australia and all the hands we could get together! After a brief from the main vet (William Fowldes), he got into the heli and started darting 5 black wildebeest, 9 red hartebeest and 1 eland bull which we then had to go and pick up (where they dropped in the veld) with bakkies and had to hold on for dear life as the drivers literally bounced as quick as they could to the immobilised animals, we then had to load them (keeping their heads up) and race them back to the truck where the other vets were waiting to administer more tranquilizers, antibiotics and multivitamins before they were loaded. It was such an incredibly exhilarating experience!!

We couldn't believe that it could get any better, and then found out that the next morning we were invited to take part in a giraffe capture as well. We were very worried when the vet briefed us about the high fatality rate when capturing these animals, however we managed to capture a female and younger male without any injuries! It was an absolute sublime experience to handle these graceful animals. The procedure was completely different due to their size: After darting the runners had to manoeuvre ropes around their legs, criss-crossing until the animal practically fell down, obviously trying to prevent any injuries. Then a few of us had to fall on the neck, trying to keep the animal as still as possible while they are blindfolded and checked for injuries. A kind of a harness is then attached and the vet gets the animal to stand while the rest of us formed two sides with ropes essentially guiding the animal to where the truck is waiting (see below). This was a bit trickier with the first female as she ran deep into the shrubs before falling so we had to guide her a long way - all the while keeping in mind that this is a wild animal and one kick could easily kill a human! In any case, our excellent teamwork paid off and the two are now safe and sound in their new reserve.

Finally, on top of all the luck we had, we also stumbled across a jackal burrow on the way and were able to witness the gorgeous 2 week old pups (last pic).

Week three Ulovane

Week 3 started once again with a 2 hour exam on Monday morning on geology, human history and astronomy and directly afterwards we received our results for the previous week's exam - everyone passed which was great :)

This week we're getting into the interesting stuff covering taxonomy, arthropoda (spiders and scorpions), amphibians and fish all in one week! Lots of practical sessions as well of course, however after seeing a real life baboon spider and learning that the local scorpion (parabuthus granulatus) is the deadliest one in Africa a bit of paranoia set in and Nikki and I promptly found 2 big black spiders in our room! Luckily the gentlemanly South African boys were happy to remove them for us - bribed with chocolate of course!

Our plans for some game drives during the week were postponed due to some stormy weather from Wednesday to Friday, but we got lots of studying done and watched a couple of great movies and documentaries in the evenings. We also got spoiled with some of Mama Tub's comfort food including vetkoek and had a fire going most nights. To make up for the cold weather, we had a full day out in the game reserve on sunny Saturday (pictures below of gemsbok, greater double collared sunbird and southern pale chanting goshawk) and were lucky enough to borrow Doudou's car to drive into Grahamstown for some real civilization and great pub food and some shopping at Pick and Pay on Sunday.

Week two at Ulovane

Week two at Ulovane:

Monday started with a 2 hour test at 8am which wasn't too bad, although we haven't got the results yet so maybe I'll eat my words tomorrow. It was a balmy 38C and most of the rest of the day was spent indoors and waiting for it to cool down. At about 4pm we departed on our first night drive which was wonderful as we came across a male and female lion who were calling and moaning to each other. The female came right up to the land rover and it felt as if she was looking right at me(which was a bit uncomfortable as she definitely looked "interested"), but our guide Kyle managed to put her at ease and we moved our vehicle so that we weren't in the middle of the two of them. I will never forget the sound of them calling each other - it's absolutely spine chilling, exciting and has to rate as one of my top experiences :)

The next couple of days consisted of lessons in geology, human history and habitation in the mornings and drives in the afternoon to consolidate the information (whilst seeing lots of cool animals). Thursday was astronomy lesson and then a long drive to "bush braai" for our first sleepout in the bush. We made a tasty vegetable potjie and braai boerewors, then slept around the campfire - all had to take turns to keep watch during the night so not much sleep was had. We also did some stargazing and a massive

full moon, the southern cross, scorpio and later orion's belt were discussed.

Over the weekend Mama Thabsie (the cook) was away so everyone took turns in preparing meals - Kerim showed me how to make delicious garlic and oregano flatbread which we ate with salad and olive oil and balsamic dressing - yum :)

Week one at Ulovane Environmental training

One week doing Field Guide training at Ulovane:

Torrential rain and icy cold winds welcome us to Ulovane Environmental training. Everybody gets assigned to a room and roommate - I get a lovely English girl, Nikki, and we're lucky that our room is only 2 minutes walk from the main building with lounge, kitchen, study room ect. We have an outside toilet and shower which is lovely in warm weather, but icy cold when the wind blows!

A lovely big diverse group we are with ages ranging from 19 to 52 and nationalities mainly Italian, British, German and South African. And a gorgeous little cat called "cornflakes".
Next day we have a talk about the syllabus of subjects we will cover and everyone feels a bit overwhelmed as it is ALOT of information and we will be writing a 2-hour test every Monday at 8am!! Game drive in icy torrential rain (glad I brought my rain suit - even though I forgot the rain pants in my room) but we see a few animals and start to get familiar with the Amakhala Game Reserve. Eland in picture above.

Guy, one of the English "blokes" made a fire for us in the lounge after we returned soaking from the game drive which helped us cope with the freezing weather. Everyone agreed on a yoga session but Sean the instructor was feeling unwell so I ended up being the instructor! On Wednesday it started clearing up and a whole different unfolded. Compulsory First Aid course was run on Wednesday and Thursday which we all passed thankfully and in-between we were all cramming for Mondays' exam - history of Amakhala, communication skills for guiding, regulations and bodies in South Africa, rules and map of the reserve, vehicle skills and Xhosa names of the important animals - a lot to take in!!

Friday from 5am took us on a full day game drive which was amazing and nice and sunny - slowly starting to get our heads around the reserve. First time I saw a "gemsbok" and "mountain zebra" - below, note different subspecies than the plains zebra (and much prettier). Saturday was workbook Q&A, more study time and our first time driving the Land Rover. Washing, yoga, relaxing and more studying on Sunday. Reception isn't very good here and downloading pictures takes ages, but I will try to upload more next time :o)

Last 2 days in Sydney :o(

After a hectic 2 months of rushing around to get everything organised, I am now nearing the beginning of my 1 year career break to go to Southern Africa to study, travel, volunteer and spend lots and lots of time with my dearest family and friends! Can't wait!

My first attempt at blogging!

My beautiful friend Graeme has helped me create this blog in anticipation of my African adventures!