Another Day at The Office

12 Jul 11

Sorry, the internet connection hasbeen down for a few days, so I am a bit late posting.

The last few days have been fairly routine (I originally typed average, but for a wandering Australian, nothing is ‘average’ in Africa), patrolling and rhino guarding.  Last night was a perfect night for poachers, so we stayed out all night and did dawn sweeps of the fenceline in all high risk areas.  No fresh sign!  I don’t know if the message is out there that we are a hard target and therefore the poachers are not coming (maybe they know there is a crazy Australian here, and still remember the Boer War?), or if this is a statistical blip and we are about to be overrun with poaching attempts.  The last poacher caught just before my time was roughed up pretty badly by both the local workers and police.

I am pulling my third straight shift tonight rhino guarding as two staff are away, one planned and one at short notice for family.  Leading by example!

Me at the back of our ute about to start a fenceline patrol.

I thought we may have a cat theme for photos today.  Unfortunately I only have photos of lions and cheetahs, and even they are not that good.  I have seen three civets during the night but very fleetingly, and I have yet to see a leopard in the wild.  Leopards are notoriously shy, but I have seen spoor (tracks), a kill site and have heard then several times (does that count?).

One of our young lions.

A bit hard to see, but there are two cheetahs in this photo (look for the head).

Another cheetah in the bush.