Selati

Heidi and I caught the bus from Johannesburg to a northern town called Phalabowra which is close to where we're starting our 2 week volunteer programme at Selati Game Reserve. Selati was originally farm land owned independently but has since been turned into a private game reserve with about a 14 or 15 people who are owners. The size of the property is around 33,000 hectares (I think), the longest boundary is around 70km.

Selati is stocked with most of the usual animals including 'The Big 5' which are Buffalo, Elephant, Lions, Leopards and Rhino. There are also plenty of species of antelopes (Impala, Kuru, Sable etc), a large variety of birds including vultures and raptors and thousands of species of insects, bugs, snakes and spiders. There is never a moment when you can't see something interesting.



The accommodation at Selati is pretty basic, but Heidi and I are both fine with it. As the locals say 'TIA' which means 'This Is Africa - What did you expect?'. Unfortunately there is no internet and we have to wait until we go to town to use a computer which is why it has taken me a while to write something here. There are about 10 volunteers at any one time and our main job is to track and record the location of certain types of game on the property. We'll get up really early and go for a morning drive starting around 530 or 6am until about 10am. In this time we'll try to track down some Elephants and see where they have been and where they are going. There are 2 Elephants that are collared (many, many more that are not collared) as well as 3 Lions and 1 Leopard. The collars emit a small signal that we can track using a hand held telemetry receiver. Unfortunately the telemetry set only gives us a rough idea of where the animals are. Once we get close we have to look for tracks or listen really hard for sounds. Elephants don't have big tracks (they are actually very light walkers) but they are one of the nosiest animals, so we can usually find them by the sounds of them ripping down trees or trumpeting. After recording data for the Elephants we'll usually head back home for breakfast.


At about 4pm we depart on an afternoon drive to look for the lions. Lions are much harder to find because they are quiet and move quite quickly. Sometimes we spend hours trying to track them down without finding anything. Once we get close enough, we can look for the paw prints in the sand to tell how many, where, when and how fast the lions are moving which helps to narrow down their hiding spots. After that, we just have to listen really carefully to try and hear the cubs playing or Shaka (one of the collared males) roaring. Its good fun, but spending lots of time on the back of a ute or truck is annoying and I really want to stretch my legs sometimes - until you remember what might be just around the corner! We see loads of other wildlife on the drives that we also record. There are thousands of giraffe, rhino and antelope on the property so its always fun. The data we collect gets used by a couple of South African universities to help with their game park conservation planning. Because Selati is a private reserve they have more freedom in the way they run the property so they are a really use full tool for the universities to try different conservation strategies. So far it seems to be working really well. The data is also used by the land owners who come down on the weekend to see lions and elephants etc etc. We've already learned a lot from the guides, we can tell lots of tracks now as well as guess good hiding spots for the Lions.

Last Sunday Heidi and I took a day off and drove to Kruger National Park with a few other people. Kruger is about an hour away, and it took us another 9 or 10 hours to complete a self drive tour. Kruger was really nice, the animals were very used to cars and people and came very close, but I think I prefer the animals at Selati. The Selati animals are as close to wild animals as you can possibly get, which makes finding them and getting good pictures more of a challenge - I think I've filled a couple of memory cards with pictures of the rear end of animals as they run away. At Kruger we saw plenty of Elephants (even an Elephant heard taking a mud bath!), Giraffe, Rhino and Impala. As we were driving out we were a bit sad we didn't see any big cats but right at the last moment we managed to spot a Leopard, which is the rarest and hardest animal to find, so we were all really happy. We're still waiting to find the ultimate prize of spotting a Leopard in Selati.



I've eaten some interesting things here, the locals make a kind of jerky out of Ostrich meat which they call 'Billtong'. It tastes pretty good. We had a big bbq last Friday night at the reserve, the local way of cooking is called 'Braai', and is simmilar to grilling over an open flame or coals. I got to try some Impala which tastes great; very gamey and a little tough but if you marinade it just right its fantastic. And it's also nice to eat one of the most frustrating animals - Impala are very shy and run at the first sight of our trucks which tends to scare of other animals in the area. My revenge is eating them, I think that's a fair trade (Impale is the dark meat on the bottom of this picture)



Heidi and I have another week here, then we're thinking we might get a bus from Phalabowra down to Neilspruit and then over to Maputo in Mozambique. We've heard really good stories of Mozambique so we'd like to check it out.