South Africa: Games Drive Count

Today was an early start. We had to do a game drive count. So we had to start at 7:30 as we had to cover the whole of the reserve, some of it on foot. There was us four girls, Liam, Carolynn and the game guards, Vukani, Michael, Deon and Musa. The reserve was sectioned off and some of us had to walk forming a line, driving the animals in a certain direction, so that the "spotters" could pick up the animals that cross the boundary at the other end. I really enjoyed it although it was really hot today and my water ended up going warm, even though it started off as ice! I had a trip in the truck with Carolynn as we were on the parameter of one of the sections, and you could see how well flushing out the animals like this worked. As the group started to walk down in a line a whole herd of Giraffe, Kudu, Wildebeest and even the Rhino came running out into the clearing. It was amazing, as when you are in the line you can't see how it would work. Musa would have walked into the Rhino bull if Carolynn and I hadn't warned him. Vukani and Michael were trying to teach Leanne and me Zulu at won point. I have totally forgot what "fat steak" is in Zulu, I'll get Michael to tell me again tomorrow. The other highlight was going to the top of the mountain were we came across 54 Blesbok, 17 Zebra, 4 Wildebeest and 7 Harte beast, Liam herded them together and they all ran in the same direction. My camera wouldn't have done it justice even if I had recorded it. It was just amazing.

We finished the game count at half two and then me and Leanne took a drive into Colenso with Liam. Leanne made me feel old by not knowing the programme Brookside, and then we took pictures of the main street in Colenso. We had a chat with the old guy that works in Fiji's, the local shop. I think he is getting quite used to us now. When we got back Michael had found a Chameleon. We named him Bert Hiram.

After some dinner Liam picked us up so that we could do our first night drive. I really enjoyed it. We saw wildebeest, Impala (which were practically on our drive way), Zebra, Porcupine, Reed Buck, Giraffe and a Jackal. Then we got to the top of a hill, turned all the lights off and looked up to the sky. The stars looked amazing, and for the first time I saw the Milky Way!