Goodbye South Africa, hello Namibia!

I've been packing all my stuff up to leave for Namibia tomorrow morning. The next part of my adventure is to spend four weeks at the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary, which is 42km east of Windhoek. The sanctuary was set up in 2007 and takes in mostly orphaned and injured animals that cannot be released back into the wild. It will be very much a hands-on experience with the animals, which I thought would be a nice complement to the game reserve experience I've had in South Africa. And my visit to the Born Free Foundation on Friday has given me some idea of what to expect.

The sanctuary is also very committed to uplifting the local community, through providing education, healthcare and employment. They currently provide accommodation to 20 bushmen families. I'm sure it will be fascinating to meet people from these historic tribes.

My day-to-day duties at Naankuse will be:

• Cutting raw meat and throwing it to the lions, leopards, cheetahs and African wild dogs
• Hand-feeding the meerkats (simples!)
• Preparing vegetables, fruit and bottled milk and feeding it to the baboons and farm animals
• Cleaning out the animal enclosures to remove any old food, including bones (they don't mention poop-scooping but I fear it will also be required)
• Walking with the tame Caracals
• Spending time with the tame and semi-tame cheetahs in their enclosures (how do you tell the difference?)
• Conducting border fence patrol
• Helping the bushmen to build any new enclosures and maintain the existing ones

It seems that most of the work is with the 16 or so orphaned baboons, who range in age from 3 months to 2 years old. Volunteers also have to take the baboons for a walk every other day to allow them to forage naturally and give them regular exercise. And we have to take it in turns to bottle-feed them and sleep with the baby baboons overnight.

The wildlife sanctuary has its own Facebook page and I recently saw a photo of a newly-acquired baby baboon in a nappy. So I'm hoping to pass another key milestone in my life while I'm there - changing my first nappy. That it will be on a baboon and not on a baby will not diminish the challenge of the task, I believe. I'll be sure to take a photo (and possibly video footage) to mark the occasion.

I'll be staying in one of two volunteer houses. One of them has a canvas roof, so I'm advised to bring ear plugs - no doubt to minimise the cacophony of animal noises that could keep me awake throughout the night. Although if I'm up bottle-feeding the baboons, I will need something to keep me awake.

In my free time, I will also have the opportunity to play football with the local bushmen. Another first. Before I came away, I had a dream that I was playing football so it must be playing on my mind. I'm not bothered about getting in with the cheetahs, but I'm a bit stressed about the football.

I don't expect to have much access to the internet - or even electricity - while I'm in Namibia, so if I disappear off the radar, you'll know why. Either that, or one of the cheetahs has turned on me. But I'll put some posts up when I get home to share my experiences. I am enjoying writing the blog and thanks to those of you who have sent me comments. It only encourages me to play to my audience.. ;-)

In the meantime, Game Ranger Stalker wishes you all a happy Christmas and the very best for 2011.

Downtown Paterson

This is my last weekend in South Africa as I leave for Namibia on Monday. The last four weeks seem to have flown by, but leave me with some cherished memories that will stay with me forever. I did my last drive around the reserve on Friday afternoon, eager to point out all the bits that will need some road maintenance next week - happy in the knowledge that it won't be me that has to swing the pickaxe.

The volunteer house has come to feel like home during my time here. Basic though it is, it has a very friendly atmosphere and the two dogs definitely contribute to this by attaching themselves to whoever comes to stay. Lady used to belong to another family down the road, but decided that there was much more excitement at the volunteer house and came to live here. Odi was a stray dog and used to hang out at the local bar just behind the house. One of the game rangers took him in and he has lived at the house ever since. Both dogs have made themselves quite at home and join us when we go to the bar of an evening, where the landlady does an awesome steak, egg and chips on the weekend.

Downtown Paterson is a small rural town, which has the essential facilities but is a very poor area. Indeed, when I explained to the landlady that I was attracted to come to Africa because it has a mystical quality, she quickly pointed out "there is nothing mystical about Paterson". True.

The volunteer house

The front of the house

Odi and Lady

The local bar just behind the house

The main street through Paterson

The orphanage

The grain store

Target marketing!

Paterson's answer to Starbucks & MacDonalds

Born Free

Just across the road from the entrance to the Amakhala Safari Lodge is the Born Free Foundation, which is set within the Shamwari game reserve. It was set up in partnership with the actress Virginia McKenna, who starred in the celebrated film of the same name 50 years ago. The foundation's mission is to draw the public's attention to the plight of animals living in poor conditions in captivity and provide awareness and education for a more humane and compassionate approach.

The Born Free Foundation at Shamwari has been set up in memory of Julie Ward, who was murdered at the age of 28 when she was on a safari holiday at the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya in 1988. The Kenyan authorities first claimed that she had been attacked by a lion, but her dismembered, burnt body indicated that she had been attacked by a machete. She was a keen photographer and the theory is that she may have seen something she shouldn't have done - possibly poaching - through her lens. Her father has been fighting to bring her killers to justice since then and even today, after three murder trials, no one has been convicted. Her parents wanted to do something in her memory and approached Shamwari when they were setting up the Born Free Foundation on their reserve.

The sanctuary today is home to five lions and five leopards. One of the lions - Sinbad - used to be a beach photographer's prop for people who wanted to have a photo of themselves cuddling a lion cub. He then went on to live in a Romanian zoo where he lived in a small cage for six years, mainly alone. He was fed a poor diet - including spaghetti - and didn't grow to full size because of nutritional deficiencies. He is about half the size of a normal lion and has no experience of hunting, so could never survive in the wild. Most of his front teeth have rotted away and he has to have his meat cut up into thin strips so he can chew it with his back teeth - some of which have fillings.

Two of the leopards were formally owned by Prince Ranier of Monaco, and his wife Grace Kelly. They started life as circus animals before being transferred to live in the Prince's private zoo for ten years. For many years, Virginia McKenna tried to persuade the Prince to close his zoo without success. But his son, Prince Albert, who is a keen environmentalist, relented and the leopards were re-homed at the Born Free Foundation in Shamwari in 2008. Our guide told us of the time when the leopards arrived and he met Prince Albert. He wasn't allowed to stand close to him and the prince's security guards were not keen on him having a pistol to hand, which is part of his standard equipment for the job. He told us that his pistol was a much higher calibre than theirs and in the event of an attack by one of the animals, he was considerably more experienced to be able to handle it.

It was a very interesting visit. The guide was clearly passionate about his job and very attached to his charges, calling them by their names to get them to come. The leopards obliged with an appearance, but the lions did not. Why am I not surprised..

Love this sign..

The 5-star experience

Like most things in life, you have to take the rough with the smooth. On Wednesday night we took the rough on our bush camp; but on Thursday, it was definitely time for the smooth. As part of the volunteer package here at Amakhala, you get to stay for one night in the 5-star safari lodge itself, rubbing shoulders with fee-paying guests. It's a smart idea to give volunteers a taste of all aspects of what the reserve has to offer and we were certainly looking forward to a bit of pampering.

Kicking off at 3pm, we indulged in high tea. One positive legacy of the British empire is that whatever country we took over in the past, they still retained the colonial tradition of high tea after they'd kicked us out. And jolly good they are too. On previous holidays, I've been elbowed aside in the scrum to get to the cakes once they arrive.

The rooms themselves are delightful, individual thatched dwellings, which are guaranteed to elicit a "wow" from guests when they arrive. They are open-fronted with canvas awnings and mesh windows that can be pulled up to view the bush and any animals that might be passing by. In some ways, I felt like I was in tent, albeit a very grand one. Each dwelling has its own plunge pool, a small lounge area, an outside shower and a large bath with an excellent view - which I made very good use of, having only had access to a shower for the past four weeks.

We were seated with a honeymoon couple for dinner, who coincidentally had done some voluntary work themselves in Peru. Their first task every morning was to count parrots. Not just count them, but count how many flew in, how many flew out, which direction they came from and which direction they flew out to. It made our giraffe identification task seem like child's play.

Settling down to sleep in the rather enormous bed, I had a perfect view of the small valley outside, which is gently lit up at night. Having experienced the rough the night before, the smooth was all the more sweeter.

My boudoir for the evening

A bath with a view

The back of the room

The communal lounge area

The small valley that each room overlooks

Partaking a small sherry in the bath..



Calendar girls eat your heart out!



Bush camp

One of the activities that we've been planning to do over the past couple of weeks is to camp in the reserve for the night. There is a designated area - not in lion territory I hasten to add - that has a purpose-built shelter, a braai, a fire area in the middle, worktops for preparing food and even a bar.

As I only have a few days left at Amakhala, I wanted to camp out before I leave. Unfortunately the weather didn't want to cooperate on Wednesday, with a strong wind and an unusually low temperature for this time of year. Not to be put off, we ventured back in the evening anyway.

On route to camp, we tried one more time to find the lions. For once they were in full view, even if it was just to show us a bit more of their narcoleptic tendencies.

Once at camp, we got the braai going and a bonfire to toast ourselves around. I think I've eaten more red meat in the last four weeks than I've eaten in the last six months. But it is very good. It's far more natural than anything else I've tasted at home.

We waited for it to get really dark before setting off on a night drive around 9pm. With a large flash light to hand, we could pick out all the eyes glowing in the dark. Given the cold weather, most of the animals had hunkered down for the night. And if we'd had any sense, so would we. We spent the next hour driving around in the cold wind in the hope of seeing something out there, but it was mostly spring hares which have this kangaroo-like jumping movement.

Back at camp, the game ranger warned us to shake our sleeping bags before getting in and to check our boots in the morning before putting them on again. That puts your mind at rest before you go to sleep, I can tell you. We settled into our sleeping bags, hearing the nightlife around us and watching the last logs burn down on the fire.

As dawn broke, we drifted into consciousness to the sounds of bird song. On the Cape ash tree close by, a red-billed woodhoopoe produced his own alarm call at 5.30am, which sounded just like some cartoon-version Woody Woodpecker. A bird with a sense of humour. Just what we needed.

By the time we'd packed up, the rain had started to set in quite heavily. We headed back to the other side of the reserve to look for the lions - resuming our normal morning duties. But after locating their approximate position, we admitted defeat and came back to the house for a hot shower - content in the knowledge that we had survived our bush camp. No one got bitten by a snake or mauled by a hyena. Four of us went and four of us returned.

The sleeping area

Fast food cheetah-style

The lions may have be lying low in the past week, but the cheetahs more than made up for it on Wednesday morning. We came across them just after they had made a kill. The mother has five cubs who are about three months old. All of them were busy eating their way through an impala for breakfast.

The cubs will be kept on the reserve until they are about six months old so their mother can teach them to hunt. They will then be sold to other reserves to ensure there is no cross-breeding and to maintain a healthy genetic pool. Moreover, the reserve wouldn't be able to support seven adult cheetahs with enough prey to sustain them. They need to kill every single day and young cubs will sometimes kill just for the fun of it and to hone their skills.

As they polished off their first kill, they started to move off and we followed them. One cub didn't want to leave anything behind and took one of the impala's legs with it, even through there didn't look to be much meat on it. A couple of the other cubs stopped off to climb a tree and sharpen their claws. Once we had found them all again a short distance away, we realised that they had already made another kill. The mother and all five cubs were busy eating again and the amount of blood on their faces indicated that it could not have been the remnants of the first impala. In the space of only five minutes since they moved off, they had killed yet another.

We moved in fairly close - around ten metres away - to identify their prey. We had an amazing view of them chowing down and having a tug of war over a leg.

Not leaving anything behind

I could be a leopard if I wanted to

Okay, this is a bit high



Chow-down no. 2



Share nicely

Finger-licking good

Slinky mama

Let the children play

Just a few pics of the kids playing at the orphanage..

The first one is probably my all-time favourite photo. Not only does the girl look really happy but she's got this mad hair thing going on; and check out the girl on the trampoline in the background. And the girl on the swing seems to be thinking: what the hell are you doing girl?

Let me hear you say "ho"

Two cool dudes..

Here she goes again!

My little helper for the gardening

Lions 3 Vet 0

Yet again the lions eluded us today. We spent three hours trying to find them with the telemetry device and knew roughly which area they were in. But if they are in the middle of some dense bush, you get no visibility of them whatsoever. And they certainly seem to be intent on playing a game of big cat and mouse.

The new collar for the male lion weighs about 1kg, which is quite a heavy encumbrance to have around your neck. It emits both radio and satellite signals, so you can use the telemetry equipment to track them from a vehicle and the satellite link allows you to track their position on the internet. The satellite component on the existing collar has stopped working, hence the need to replace it. The new one should hopefully last about two years.

After three hours of no sightings, we resorted to more devious tactics. The vet asked the game ranger to drive his vehicle through the area and play some "music". He had a set of speakers tied to the roof and the so-called music coming out of an iPod turned out to be a recording of a buffalo calf in distress. I doubt you can download this from iTunes. After 10 minutes, sounds of the young buffalo blaring down the hill did nothing to dislodge our furry friends.

We regrouped and tried the last tactic in our armoury: a freshly-shot bushpig that would be tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged around behind it as bait. After a little debate over where to tie the rope and whether it should be a slip-knot or otherwise, the vet then slit the bushpig's stomach to allow its intestines to slip out and provide a scent for the lions to pick up. For the benefit of the more squeamish, I haven't included this photo!

The pickup truck drove around and around, to the point that the bushpig was so dusty, I doubt that it would have enticed anything to eat it. To add some realism to the scenario, the vet then requested the game ranger - who was in another vehicle on the other side of the bush - to produce some "pig audio". For a moment, we thought it was another track on the iPod, but no: the game ranger had to do his own impression of a pig squealing. I can only say that it sounded like the pig had been castrated, so high was the pitch. The vet, on the other hand, did his own impression that was so realistic, I concluded that imitating animal noises must have been one of his courses at vet school.

Alas, the lions were still not fooled. The male did make a dash for it, but was moving around stealthily from bush to bush so we couldn't get into position to do the darting.

We will return another day..

The new collar for the male lion