Good News/Bad News

The good news is that the international money transfer came through finally on Friday. The problem was that the ABSA Bank computers had been down for a few days then it took them another day to sort the backlog out.  So I have my new car!  However, after driving about 20 km the clutch started giving a high pitched squeal.  My initial thought was worn fingers on the plate or the release bearing, however when I took it back to the dealer he said that it had a brand new clutch kit in it.  So my thoughts are that they didn’t install something correctly.  Anyway the dealer will have it fixed free of charge but nothing can happen until Monday.  Therefore I am still stuck in Tzaneen for the near future.  I am also waiting for a security cage, which will also be my tent, to be fitted next week.  Hopefully I will be out of Tzaneen by mid week.

Other than that nothing really to report.  I am spending a lot of time exploring Tzaneen (which is only slightly bigger than Deloraine), drinking a lot of coffee and people watching.  I am starting to go a bit stir crazy.  At least its an opportunity to watch some of the Rugby World Cup games.

Rambling On in Tzaneen

Well I am still in Tzaneen!  The car is ready to go, but the funds transfer from Australia still has not cleared.  While Hotel@Tzaneen is fantastic and it has been nice to live with a bit of luxury, it is starting to bite into my money.  One advantage is I will be able to watch the next Australia match at the World Cup (hopefully we will do a better showing than against Ireland last week).  I will do Kruger NP and Mapungobwe NP (don’t ask me how to pronounce it) and then I have decide to go down through Swaziland, one of the last kingdoms left in Africa, to the coast.  I am itching to get started on my travels.

I have also started buying bits and pieces for my trip, such as cooking gear and tools.  I am sure the hotel staff are wondering what is going on as my room is filling up with this stuff.  One of the big advantages is that everything is much cheaper than in Australia, and of course the Aussie dollar is consistently going up against the Rand.  It was about 6.8 R to the dollar when I arrived, now it is pushing 8 R to the dollar.  Interestingly enough, I withdrew R 3000 yesterday and it came to $395.30, and today I took out another R3000 which came to $389.10, a difference in six dollars in 24 hr (in my favour).

Limpopo is apparently the poorest province in South Africa, but you wouldn’t think so by being in Tzaneen which is like any reasonable sized town with quite a large middle class.  However, a bit like the Northern Territory in Australia, the poverty seems to be hidden a bit I the bush and tribal homelands.  Many of the people live in ‘apartheid era’ compounds which seem to be fairly short on for amenities, and if they are lucky enough to have jobs it tends to be as farm labourers which by our standards seem to be very low paid.  Notwithstanding this most of the people are the same as anywhere else in that they are friendly, interested in where you are from and make the most of their life.  It will be interesting to see if what I have come to accept as normal in Limpopo is reflected throughout South Africa.  I have a strong suspicion that it won’t be.

I was showing some photos of SANWild to a friend the other day and when I mentioned Umfumu’s name, she laughed.  Her first language is Tsonga (the local language) and she said it means ‘Royal’, so my first thought was ‘royal pain in the bum’.  Anyway, just to make sure I don’t forget him, I now have Umfumu as my wallpaper on the laptop.  I will miss being chased through the bush in the middle of the night by him.

Anyway, my apologies to those who are following this blog who are not my friends and family, but I promise once I start travelling it will get a bit more interesting again for general consumption.

Thoughts

Sorry I have been offline for a wile, but while I have been in Tzaneen over the weekend there has been no real news (or photos).  I am in limbo a bit until I can pick up my car, which should be mid week, but then I am having a few extras put onto it so it will be later in the week before I depart.  Then once I start travelling the photos should start coming again.  By the way I am a bit underwhelmed by the lack suggestions for a name for the car!  I have addressed my short term transport problems by buying a mountain bike, which will obviously travel with me in the back of the ‘bakkie’ (ute).  It was about half the price of my bike back home but about twice as good.

I have met some nice people here, and have got to know a couple of the reception staff at Hotel@Tzaneen reasonably well.  Yesterday, after his shift Joseph took me for a walk to a nearby dam where we had a couple of drinks and generally chilled out.  We met a group of volunteers doing micro finance and business development with people from the USA, Canada and Italy.  So it was good to speak to some people who were a bit more ‘worldly’ again and had English as a first language.  When they found out I had just bought a car, a couple of them were interested in teaming up to travel after their volunteer time was up and share costs.  So I will probably follow up on this as it will offset costs and it is always more fun to travel with somebody.  I have already started buying some bits and pieces for it, as I need to do something to keep myself occupied.

I haven’t really had a chance to take any photos recently, so please stay with me and they will start coming again.  However, when I unpacked at the hotel the other day, I found this ‘spider(?)’ had hitched a lift in one of my shirts from SANWild to the hotel.  I am assuming it is an arachnid of some sort as it has eight legs, but it also has ‘pincers’ like a scorpion.  It reminds me a bit of the Camel Spiders in the Middle East, which a supposedly in the arachnid family but a genus between spiders and scorpions?  Anyway, it doesn’t look very nice!

The friendly 'arachnid?' with a pen to show scale, after it crawled ot of my shirt.

A it closer so you can see its pincers.

Helpful People and my New Car

I have had a very busy day organising finance transfer from Australia for the new car and sourcing some accessories for it.  In this day and age t is often difficult to find people who are willing to go that extra distance to help you out.  However today was one of those days!  Without mentioning names because I haven’t asked them if they mind being ‘posted’, it started with an exceptionally helpful bank officer from the Casuarina NAB, who stayed back a bit after hours and provided me with scanned and e-mailed copies of the documents I needed to complete.  He also filled in an example, with some humorous comments to ensure that I got right the first time to make sure it would happen quickly.  Then there was the wonderful staff at Hotel@Tzaneen who printed documents and scanned others for me etc to allow me to be able to e-mail everything back in a timely manner (even if the maid did ask me what language I was speaking because she wouldn’t believe it was English!).  Finally the used car salesman put me in touch with his ‘mates’ who could manufacture all of the ‘extras’ I wanted (bull bar, canopy etc) at a bargain basement price.  Just one of those days that makes a stranger overseas feel really good.

If anyone is travelling through Tzaneen then I can recommend Hotel@Tzaneen as a reasonably priced but very nice place to stay.  It is not a resort and doesn’t have any of those fancy trappings (ie a day spa etc) but it is very clean, comfortable, practical and the staff are wonderful.  Have a look at the room photos below:

My room, a standard 'studio room' at Hotel@Tzaneen.  Very Comfortable.

The fully functional kitchen in each room complete with crockery, cutlery and pots and pans.  It even has a full size stove.  So you can self cater if you are on a budget.

Finally, the new car as it stands at the moment.  I am asking everyone’s suggestions for a nick name for her (?).  I was thinking of ‘Lightening’ as short for white lightening, being a sarcastic reference to massive speed produced by the 2.8 l diesel engine?

The mighty Hilux!

Gotta love those mag wheels!  I wonder if they will help 'pull the chicks'.

Her streamlined 'back end'.

A Full on Day

I finished packing, said my goodbyes to Louise and some of the other staff this morning and the Anti Poaching Team gave me a lift into Tzaneen.  Before we went to lunch we were running an errand for Louise at the Mahindra (an Indian car make) dealer.  While Barend was inside I wandered into the used car lot next door to browse around, and immediately spotted the car I was after!  It is an early 1990s diesel hilux bakkie (ute), which looks like an absolute piece of junk, and I absolutely love it.  It is dirt cheap, mechanically sound and comes with 12 months registration.  So I bought it!  It is the same model that Top Gear tried and failed to destroy.

I go back tomorrow to finalise paperwork and arrange a money transfer from Australia.  I will then take some photos and post them.  Other than that all is well and I will be in Tzaneen for a week or so to ‘fit out’ the car and organise myself, with a few day trips around.

SanWild Anti Poaching Unit (SAPU)

It has been almost three months now that I have been at SanWild and it is time to move on, although I think it is highly likely that I will make repeated visits back here whenever I can.  It is an amazing place, and the experiences I have had here have been of the type that no ‘tourist’ could hope to have.  So this will be my last unashamed plug for the exceptional team at SanWild.

For those of you who actually wonder what I have been doing, then I will try and figure it out myself.  As I have said in a few previous posts poaching is a significant issue here in South Africa, with both the high profile poaching of rhinos, but also the much more widespread poaching of ‘bush meat’.  So essentially the mission of the SanWild Anti Poaching Unit (SAPU) is to protect the wildlife on the SanWild Sanctuary.  To do this we operate in a mixture of overt patrols, so the local population (and consequently any poachers) know that we have armed anti poaching rangers and are therefore a hard target.  We also operate in a clandestine manner by both day and night to ensure that the local population are never sure exactly where we are.  We achieve this by open fenceline patrols, guard duty, clandestine observation and listening posts.

SAPU has a core of full time anti poaching rangers, who are a very dedicated and passionate group of individuals.  They work 7 days a week, 14 to 16 hours a day for 49 weeks a year, all for about the same amount as I would be paid in a month as a T2 Ranger with the NT Parks and Wildlife Service.  On average they would probably sleep in a bed about ½ a night a week, the rest of the time they sleep on the ground, getting covered with ticks.  The job is extremely boring, dangerous, unglamorous and as important as hell.  These guys are true heroes who “guard the wall against the barbarians”, to quote one of the Roman Historians (Pliny? – please post a comment if you know).  These guys are supplemented at times by ‘volunteers’ who generally come from overseas and have a military background.  These volunteers are also wildlife warriors of exceptional dedication as they pay their own travel costs and generally live under the exact same conditions as the full time rangers for nothing more than food and board (mostly a sleeping bag in the bush).

Because SanWild is a trust and relies on donations to fund it, the first priority is always the animals (as it should be), and SAPU operates extremely under funded and with poor outdated equipment.  These young men (and very occasionally women) give everything to ensure that the future of wildlife in South Africa is preserved.  Below are some photos of SAPU and our work.

Boot print of a poacher who cut our fence one night and was heading towards our position when something spooked him.  It is a bit hard to see in this photo but the heel has very distinctive 'horseshoe' shaped tread.

Another photo of the same poacher's boot print (the front), but also with dog prints overlaying it (it was probaby one of the dogs that warned the poacher of our presence).  This, plus the distinctive double level cut in the fence confirmed that it was a 'bush meat' poacher using dogs.

We back tracked this spoor (prints) across a road and into our neighbours property where he had also cut the fence.  We continued to back track until we came to a nearby village and outside one of the houses qwe found a very fresh track (shown in the photo above) which matched the poacher's boot print.  We then identified a man who had ducked inside his house and changed his boots for a pair of other shoes.

A photo of the boot which the man had changed out of, which was a perfect match for both our poacher's spoor and the spoor outside his house.  As a byline, this individual is now in gaol for another related offence.

Hennie and I sweeping a section of bush for snares.

A professional PR photo of a mission briefing (I am actually reading my shopping list).  We don't normally look as clean and neat as this.

The current 'Team' before my departure, from the left Barend, Charles (holding Oertjies), me, AJay and Hennie.

Cheetah Release

Thursday 8 Sep was an important day for us, as it was the day that the cheetahs were released to free roam on the Reserve.  We had three brothers who up until now had been in a large enclosure until they were mature enough to be released.  We do already have at least one free roaming cheetah, a young female, so the plan is that she will team up with one of the boys.  The release was a bit of an anti-climax however, in that I thought that once the enclosure gate was open they would bolt for the wild.  However what really happened was one of them tentatively came out, grabbed the fresh carcass that was outside the gate to entice them out, and then dragged it back inside the enclosure.  All three of them had a meal then went to sleep in the shade inside the enclosure.  Anyway the gate has been left open and each day the seem to be roaming a bit further away from the enclosure, but they are not yet ready to leave the familiarity of their old home behind just yet.  

I know the release has not been well received by the troop of Vervet Monkeys which hang around the nearby water point.

The other cat thing that happened the night before was that I finally got to see a leopard in the wild.  I was on an observation post (OP) at about 0230 in the morning when something made me turn around and look behind.  About 5 m away was a leopard who had been stalking up on me (out of curiosity).  Immediately that it realised I was human, it bolted away.  It was so amazing as every other animal I have seen, you can hear them moving through the bush, but the leopard was totally silent when it was stalking.  I still don’t know what made me turn around.  Unfortunately, no photos as it all happened so quick and it was in the dark (I did try and take a photo of a hippo the night before through the night vision goggles, but it didn’t work out).  And for Mum, leopards will not attack people, unless they are cornered or threatened, so there was no risk.

Bye for now.

The three young brothers, taken earlier before their release.

Two of the brothers in an 'attack pose', trying to get at Oertjies the dog.

The Vervet Monkeys which live (lived?) about 200 metres up the road from the cheetah enclosure. 

Australia’s Next Top Model

Well I have another career change!  I think I may enter Australia’s (or South Africa’s) Next Top Model.  The others were doing a run to pick up some cow carcases from a nearby abattoir for the lions, cheetahs and wild dogs and I had remained behind to do some work on the computer.  We had a professional photographer staying at Savannah Camp taking photos for the SanWild website and brochures when she arrived to do some shots of Bukisa Camp.  Needing a human element (I was the only person here!) for some of the photos I was promptly drafted.  When I questioned why she wanted a fat middle aged man in the photos, the reply was “because those are the ones that have money”.  Obviously picked the wrong person here.  This wouldn’t be too bad I thought at first, but after three changes of clothes and a refreshing swim in the pool (unheated in the middle of winter), I thought this is not like the Dire Straits song Money for Nothing.  I have a whole new respect for models now.  Anyway I told Louise she owes me big time for this one, maybe a nice three course meal at Savannah Camp.  We Anti Poaching Rangers are multi talented.

The team being photographed for propoganda public relations purposes.

Australia's next top model sunning by the pool (it was mid winter and freezing).

Drinking orange juice and eating cheese.

Pretending to look at the view from one of the guest tents.

Supposedly 'Enjoying a cup of coffee on the verandah of our tent' as guests.  The lady in green is the photographer and this was taken with time delay. 

Random

Well nothing out of the ordinary has happened over the last couple of days, so I don’t have a lot to write about.  Generally the weather is getting warmer and it appears that many of the animals may be going into their breeding season, as some of them have been much more visible and active recently.  The leopards have been a lot more vocal over the last few nights, with Barend and Hennie seeing one the other night.  I have yet to see one in the wild, even though I have heard them frequently and seen tracks and kill sites.

I just thought I would post a few random wildlife photos from the last few weeks that probably don’t merit their own specific post.

All the best,

Gary

Our hippos watching us prepare to move into a night observation post.

The hippos losing interest in us.

As promised, some more zebras.  What noise do zebras make?  They bark!

The same zebras showing us their bums.

A doe Kudu and her young one.  I am still trying to get a reasonable shot of a Kudu.

Oh No!  BA Umfumu again!  Where did he come from?

New Fashion Accessory – The Pancake Phone

Charles has come up with the new must have designer fashion accessory, which once we develop our marketing strategy, will make us all millionaires.  Production is relatively easy.  Take one mobile phone, any brand will do as it is the process which subsequently makes it unique, and a 5 tonne bull elephant.  Place the two of them together and there you have it, instant pancake phone.

It was Friday afternoon and we were doing a vehicle mounted fenceline patrol along one of our fences that adjoins a neighbour’s farm when we came across a couple of trees that had been pushed across the road by an elephant.  The first one was fairly small and quickly moved out of the way, the second however had about five branches which required cutting.  So we commenced taking it in turns to cut a branch when as Barend started the last one, AJay shouted ‘the elephants are coming!’  On looking behind it was observed in not so calm tones that we had the fence on one side, bush on the other, a tree across the road in front and an elephant rapidly approaching us from behind.  As a consequence, Barend picked up his pace of chopping slightly, AJ jumps in the driver’s seat (by the way he doesn’t have a licence), Gary grabs his camera, Hennie shouts encouragement to everyone and Charles comes up with a cunning plan to offer the elephant his mobile phone (maybe so he could call his mum?).  It was also about this time that it was noticed that the elephant was our old friend and favourite (Bad Attitude) Umfumu, who had a particular vendetta against our bakkie (ute) because he had been unable to catch it in the past.

Barend subsequently finished cutting the branch and calmly climbed into the back of the bakkie, while AJay gently pulled away as Umfumu was still at least 2 metres away.  Gary continued to take photos, a selection of which are posted below:

Barend jumping out to swap driver's while Chales is requesting us to go back for his phone!

Umfumu approaching up the road towards us.  You can just see Charles' hat in the bottom left corner of the photo.

Umfumu, circling to come at us from the side.  I included this photo mainly because it is one of my better close up shots of an elephant in its natural environment.

Another shot of Umfumu.  In several previous posts I have mentioned that he lost the end of his trunk in a poacher's snare before coming to SanWild, and this photo gives a good shot of his trunk so you can see where the end is missing.  This probably explains his bad attitude.

Umfumu thinking of having another go at us.  That is Hennie's hair in the photo, who is at the front of the bakkie tray, so you can see how close he was.

Charles (complete with AJay's silly hat!) relieved at getting away from Umfumu.

The new 'Pancake Phone'.

The other side of the 'Pancake Phone'.  Each one can be unique in its style depending on the focus of the 'production elephant' on any particular day.

Meat Poachers

Our most widespread poaching problem here is South Africa is the poaching of ‘bush meat’, which is not for subsistence as you may think but commercially for a thriving black market.  If it was just people doing it for food to survive then it would probably be much more acceptable, however the bush meat poachers are totally unscrupulous and have no problem decimating an area of wildlife for commercial gain.  There is nothing environmentally sustainable about this practice unlike most traditional hunting patterns and these poachers do not respect anybody’s property, including wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and reserves.  They think nothing of the longer term benefits that eco tourism may bring to an area and are only interested in short term money in their pockets.

The ‘bush meat’ poachers tend to operate in two main ways, using snares or hunting with dogs. The snares are made of wire and are totally indiscriminate and cruel, not only do they trap and strangle their desired prey, they also trap any other animal using that game path, often causing incredible suffering.  In my short time here I have seen one of our elephants (Umfumu) who is missing the end of his trunk from a snare, a zebra foal whose leg was cut to the bone and irreparable and a hippo in extreme agony because of a snare around its leg.

The dog poachers are no better in that they hunt with very highly trained dogs and either run their prey to ground until the poacher can reach it and kill it, or draw the prey out of their burrows where it can be killed.  Not even the dogs are treated well, in that they are starved until they catch prey and then are fed only the internal organs.  Below are some photos giving a bit of an idea of how these poachers operate.

The repaired cut where the poacher came onto our property.  If you look closely you can see the bottom wire has been cut to allow the dogs in, and the third and fourth wres from the bottom cut to allow the poacher access.

AJay demonstrating how the poacher can access through a single cut wire.  This cut was on a neighbour's property across a road and it was the same poacher who exited here that entered our property in the photo above.

Trying to persuade Oertjies (the dog) to demonstrate (unsuccessfully) how a poacher's dog goes through the fence once the bottom wire has been cut.

Two typical types of snares, normal wire on the left and a cable snare (probably the most dangerous) on the right.

A colection of old snares, a snare wire cache and 'loose wire'  found in one sweep on the Farm.

The damage a snare can do to a zebra (or any other animal's) leg.  Unfortunately this zebra had to be put down as the damage was too great.

The Elephants are at it Again

Well, they didn’t really stop and they are still enjoying pushing trees across the road to annoy us.  Also I think that they may have been on my computer because I was going to do a post of Zebra pictures as promised a few weeks ago, but I cannot find the new pictures?  Or maybe it was the monkeys in my tent the other day?  I have posted a few photos below of yesterday's trees, and the team working on them!

Other than that life is fairly normal here.  We have our monthly shopping trip into Tzaneen on Sat, so that is the big excitement for the week!

The first tree of the morning.  Not too badreally.

The Team 'hooking in' and chopping it up with the pangas (machetes).

Assessing the second tree of the morning.  This one was a bit more substantial.

Barend, commencing the 'chop'.

Anyway, bye for now.

The Monkeys

No, not the 1960’s pop group, but Vervet Monkeys.  We have a few troops of them on the Farm and as you would expect they can be quite inquisitive and mischievous.  The last 24 hr has resulted in a few encounters, with the photos from the main troop below.  We were about to do a sweep for snares at a place called Vervet Monkey Waterpoint, and behold the Monkeys turned up t have a look at us.

We also have a troop that hangs around Bukisa Camp, especially around my tent as it is a bit away from the others.  If you look at the photo below you can see a large tree at the back of my bathroom with a branch hanging over my tent.  The monkeys have a special game that they seem to like to play whenever I am trying have a sleep during the day!  They climb up the tree, then along the branch and jump down on my tent roof to run back to the tree.  Generally they will keep this up until I go outside and shout at them, so they run away.  Needless to say my nap is ruined.  Also I have to be careful about what I leave out in my tent as they are quite happy to go in when I am not there and sort through my stuff.  I came back this morning after being out all night to find some mandarin peel I had left in the rubbish strewn all around the tent.

A young Vervet monkey looking at those big hairless apes in the big white box.

Part of the troop in a tree watching us again.

For those of you who studied paleoanthropology (Ms Dig and associates!) this monkey is providing us with a demonstration of the early stages o bipedalism.  Interestingly each of the monkeys stopped at the edge of the track, stood up, looked right and left, then proceded out onto the road.

A baboon had just called and all of the monkeys were instantly on the alert looking around like this one.

A couple of monkeys on the track coming to investigate us.

My tent showing the large tree at the right which the monkeys love to use as a platform to launch themselves onto my roof.