Walking with elephants

Good evening from a cloudy but somehow still ridiculously warm (ish) South Africa.

This week has been jam-packed for the three of us and it started with a trip to George to go to the cinema to see the new 'Fantastic Beasts' film. We also did a bit of shopping and I've managed to find a present for the secret santa that all the OB staff do each year.

Tuesday saw us and a few of the other staff canoe for just over two hours to one of the campsites that OB use. It was great to get out in the canoes for the first time since being here, although the waves and wind were super strong making it hard work to go anywhere but the wrong direction. Charmoné took some pictures of us while we canoed so I've put them in here.

The rain on Tuesday night was so heavy I thought I was back in Scotland and having it's winter weather! A few rooms in the ghetto flooded along with the dining room, DP room and a few other places. The water level at the water front has risen quite a bit and we went swimming yesterday and the water doesn't taste salty at all now.

The best part of this week (and now I'm thinking about it, possibly the saddest) was definitely Friday. We hired a car and went on a road trip to the Knysna Elephant Sanctuary. The reason why this was the highlight of my week was because we were able to feed the elephants (something I'll never forget!) and walk alongside them! It was so amazing to be able to get so close to the elephants with nothing between us and observe them go about their morning. The reason why this was also the saddest part was because nearly all of the elephants were there for one reason - poaching. Here's a bit about the park from their website:

'The Knysna Elephant Park (est. 1994) was the first facility in South Africa to house and care for orphaned African elephants. Over the last twenty years, the park has cared for and raised more than forty elephants. These animals include relocated animals, orphaned calves, elephants rescued from culls and ex-circus animals. Some have become part of the resident herd, others have moved onto other reserves and facilities in the Western and Eastern Cape, depending on their personalities, bonds with other animals and welfare needs.'

One of the photos is of me and an elephant named Sally. She was one of the first two elephants at the park and she was born with one tusk. We were told that this was due to genetics as a result of poaching over a long period of time. As the strong genes for tusks are eliminated from the selection elephants are now being born without both tusks. In the wild this can make survival challenging as tusks are used for a range of things including scraping bark of trees so they can eat it during periods where food is limited. The WWF estimate that around 20,000 African elephants are being killed each year for their ivory - that's an average of 55 a day. Reading up and hearing about the elephant populations across Africa (and Asia too) and the poaching of them, along with other animals, has shown how important conservation work across the world is but also the importance of having governments and organisations that stand against poaching and take measures to prevent and discourage it.

In some other news around base - we got our electricity back, I had a kudu steak when we went out for dinner and I got some mail including my new glasses that arrived the morning I left for the airport. The moon has also been super cool the past few nights and I've managed to take some pretty clear photos of it!

Enjoy the photos :)

Rachel

Week 9 and 10

Hello from a warm (ish) South Africa! It's been a very busy two weeks here since my last blog post and I have so much to share in this one. I'm going to break this blog up into the two weeks it covers as I actually already wrote the blog for two weeks ago but never managed to get it posted, so I've done a copy and paste job into this post. Grab a cup of tea because I fear this might turn into a book!

Week 9 (5th-11th November) - Project Trust Visit

Good afternoon from a sunny South Africa!

Last week was very busy here at Willow Point. We started the week with the monthly safety checks on all the equipment and I've included photos of Scott and Talitha safety checking the Jacobs Ladder. I asked Talitha to describe the Jacobs Ladder for my blog post - "I found out that I have no upper body strength...It was freaking fun."

On Wednesday night Peter and Hannah from Project Trust arrived for our country coordinator visit. It was really lovely to see them again and show them around OB, especially Hannah who has never been here before. Thursday night they took us out for dinner so we chose to go to Pomodoro - an Italian restaurant in Wilderness. The pizza was amazing.

Friday night saw all the board members of OBSA arriving for the AGM. We had a massive braai that night and it was super cool to listen to all the stories different board members had to tell and to find out more about them. We set up the trapeze the next day so the board could see it and for the new members to jump it, so we also got the opportunity to jump it too.

We've been swimming quite a lot this week too as it has been quite warm. The water seems to be getting warmer each time we swim which is always good. Lately, we've been climbing onto the whaler and jumping and doing flips off it. We tend not to swim too close to the other boat cause if we do the birds on it start diving down at us...though they seem to only go for certain people.

In some other news around base, the electricity in the ghetto is still off so I'm making my way through my torch battery pile and while we washed our clothes on Sunday morning, we spotted two antelope like animals walking down the road. And we also got let loose with machete style tools to chop branches down on the road.

Enjoy the pictures :)

Rachel

Reading that back today it seems like it all happened ages ago not just two weeks ago. I'm going to put all the pictures at the end in order of when they happened but until then here is the blog post for this week...

Week 10 - A Week In The Mountains.

As the title above suggests we spent this week living in the mountains. On Tuesday all the OB staff made the journey to Citrusdal, which is a town around two hours north of Cape Town. This is where we'd spend the next 5 days exploring the mountains in search of possible campsites, rock climbs, abseiling sites and hiking routes. 

We stayed at the community centre at the base of the mountains on the first night. There was a dam right next to it so some of us went for a swim which turned into us all sliding down the side of it into the water (it was a man made one so there was plastic all round the edges making it perfect for sliding down). Wednesday and Thursday were spent hiking in the mountains. We found two good areas for an abseil and a rock climb which was really good. The weather was very hot during the day and I'd say it would of been above 33°C each day. Even during the night it didn't get that cold which was good as we camped out for two nights. While we hiked we also went to see bushmen paintings on one of the rocks. This was incredible to see as not only is it amazing to think that people lived in the cave/rock structure they were painted on, so high up on the side of the mountain  but also that hardly anyone has seen them before. There was paintings of animals, people and even a house like structure. I've included various photos from the days exploring for you to see.

We arrived back in Sedgefield yesterday afternoon and now we have a bit of leave before courses start up again, so we've planned a few day trips for this week.

Enjoy the photos :)

Rachel

Week 8 (it's finally raining!!!)

Good evening from a very rainy part of South Africa! Gone is the days of 35°C and replaced with 12°C and RAIN.

Monday to Wednesday we were all on leave so we've spent time in Sedgefield (we even managed to get a lift in on Wednesday which cut out the 50 minute walk), playing chess and also card games. It turns out that Talitha is very good at poker, she always seems to have at least a pair.

Friday saw the first day of the course for a primary school and me and Talitha were support (Scott was still on leave). We had to set up the Jacobs Ladder and sometimes help belay kids as they climbed and as we now have our water LOC's we got to be support for the water activity for the first time. The activity this course was rafting and it was very fun to be support for. However the wind wasn't on our side so as soon as the group paddled out of the bay they were straight into the reeds requiring a lot of effort from them (but mainly me and the other instructors on board) to paddle back into open water. We were also given the chance to run the big group games - a scavenger hunt and pictionary - and also the fire drill. The fire drill however translated to me running through all the important information while Talitha had the important job of ringing the bell. Saturday morning was a 4.45am start for me as I was DP for the morning and by 5.30am me and Talitha were running a boeresport - the South African equivalent to a British sports day. I've loved being more involved and having more responsibility as each course happens and it's great to run the games and get to know the group better.

In other news the hadeda ibis that loves nothing more than staring at us through the windows has been named Charles. Talitha has carved up some chess pieces for our chess board so now only one person needs to play with paper pieces. And as always, the mosquitoes have been horrendous.

I completely forgot to take pictures during the course so here's a random selection from the past week. Me and Talitha went for a swim so there's some from then, one of the horses we pass on our walk into Sedgefield, me pointing to a spider hanging from the gutter, Talitha's chess pieces and the hadeda.

Rachel