The Floodgates Opened

Hi all! This week was started just like any other week here at bushwise, the plan was set and we were ready for another week, packed with lectures, drives and other activities. Monday started off with a quick lecture on vehicles, how to check them and make sure they are well looked after. The afternoon was spent showing our students how to change a flat tyre using a high lift jack, which is a must have on any game drive vehicle! We were unaware of the fact that our plans were going to change, and drastically too! On Monday night it started raining, but an unusual rain. We are quite use to the heavy thunderstorms associated with the African bush, but this was a ‘quiet’ rain, no thunder, and no lightning, just continuous rain. This rain continued for almost two days, and was believed to have been brought to us by tropical cyclone Dando, which hit the Mozambique coastline. Dry areas soon became wet, and drainage lines became rivers, and the river, well the river broke its bank for the first time in years, and was an amazing sight to see! With all this rain, we could not stick to our set out plan for the week, and decided that we will catch up on some educational DVD’s as well as another lecture or two, which covered topics like radios, communication skills and basic tree identification, and of course identifying some frogs!

Once the road outside camp had dried out a bit, we did a birding practical as the birds were very active after not eating for a while. We moved our test to Wednesday afternoon instead on Saturday, to free up some time for more practical exercises later in the week when the roads have dried up a bit. Today the roads and the drainage lines were crossable again, so we headed off on a rather slippery Game drive, which provided us with a very nice Cheetah sighting, and we headed out on our first walk for this year! The walk proved to be a bit more difficult than we thought, as some of the areas were still pretty wet. We did however find some nice, fresh lion tracks, and tracked a male rhino for a while.

After all that rain and flooding, we were very lucky to not have any damage done. Our thoughts are with all the people who lost their homes in the nearby towns and surrounding river areas.

Charles Delport, and the Bushwise Team