South Africa: Old Hat

Today was Nish and Lizzie's first day on the reserve so while they were given their health and safety briefing I was off helping Michael and Musa. Our first task was to protect the new water pump for the house from the animals on the reserve. It leaks a bit and some of the animal's have taken to drinking around it which isn't good. We hammered stone's into the soil to make a boundary around it and then filled it to the centre with other stones and rocks whilst we were doing that we came across a scorpion, a poisonous one at that so I was under strict instructions from Micheal to leave well alone. Once the ground works were done we built a shelter over the top of it with old bits of tin roof and old wooden posts (everything gets recycled here). Instead of a hammer, Michael used a rock to bang the nails in place which impressed me so I thought I would give it a go much to his and Musa's amusement.

When we went back a couple of hours later Liam looked a bit shocked that we were done but he inspected our work and seemed happy enough. However, that meant me and Musa had more time to cut down some more trees. Liam had us cutting down alien plants on the side on a donger. It was a bit slippery after all the rain we had last night and at one point Musa nearly fell a few foot into the river below. However, we survived and carted the branches back to the house. They are going to be used to make a fence round the veggie patch. I got a blister on a blister and it burst so I have my first war wound in a while, once again, thanks to alien plants!

After lunch we went out with Liam and Michael to do a road count survey, It was the first one for the girls and it was a good day for it too as we saw an awful lot of game. Rhino, Giraffe, Zebra, Impala, Red Hartebeest, Blue Wildebeest, Blesbok, Warthog, Common Reedbuck, Mountain Reedbuck, Ostrich, Water buck and Kudu. It was good because the girls were asking me questions and I actually felt quite knowledgeable But then as pointed out I am "old hat" at it all know. All in all a good afternoon, just a shame I forgot to put sun cream on, Doh!

Nish and Lizzie have spent the night settling in, skyping home and stuff. We all had some more of Fiona's veggie stew, and there is still some left. It's really tasty, she's a good cook. And she put my bed sheets back on my bed for me once they had tried bless her.