Until Next Time

This blog marks the final blog of the January 2011 course and sadly the ending of yet another fantastic course. We say goodbye not only to our students, but also to two of our Garonga instructors – Sean and Robin (photos below). Thank you both for all your hard work and dedication throughout the last few years, you will both be missed and we wish you all the best with your new endeavours!

As of the July 2011 course, 3 new instructors will be joining us – welcome to Bushwise JP, Margaux and Sebastiaan! We know you will enjoy each course as much as we do!

Sadly, the last of our students head off to their placements and back to their homes on Friday. We have had a tremendous course with plenty of fun, amazing wildlife experiences and wonderful people. Thanks to all the students who made this a memorable one! We now look forward to meeting all our July 2011 starters and hope you are all as excited as we are!

Although our student numbers have almost halved due to placements being taken up during this last week, we still make sure our students are learning and gaining experience right to the end. With the remaining students we concentrated on extra shooting practice, tracking and walking trails on Makalali and even a few game drives.

One one of our recent walks, we stumbled upon an exciting discovery. Hidden within a termite mound was not only an Nyala Berry Tree, but also different piece of pottery – which look to be possibly from the Iron Age! We will contact the necessary people who are experts in the field and see what they think in conjunction with the head of the research department of the GMPGR, Audrey Kettles - they should be able to collect the pottery, age it accurately and preserve these pieces of history! Well done to the students and staff for making this amazing discovery. We will keep you updated!

Until next time! The Bushwise Team

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Until Next Time

A Special Treat (Again!)

The 5th and final semester is now in full swing. On Wednesday all our students wrote the last examination for the course – the Trails Guide Exam. Results seem brilliant so far! Well done ladies and gents!

Today, some of our students started heading off to their lodge or research placements, we are once again, amazed at how quickly this course has flown by.‘Time flies when you’re having fun’ is certainly a true saying. We wish all our students all the best at their placements, we are very proud to see what fine, knowledgeable Field Guides they have become and are sure they will have great fun with their new careers in the African bush!

                

Talking about the African bush…towards the end of the last course (end of 2010), a Pangolin visited our campus on numerous occasions – more than 10 times! Now, as this course comes to an end, the Pangolin has resurfaced for a few more visits. It is totally relaxed around us and was recently found having a look around our lecture room! For around 5 or 6 nights, this magnificent creature has graced us with its presence. As most of you will know, this is a very very rare sighting and we are truly gifted to have been witness to these visits. We are also starting to wonder if it doesn’t pop round at the end of every course to bid our students farewell! We will have to keep an eye out on the July 2011 course – we really hope to see a return!

             

             

The Bushwise Team

Technorati Tags: Pangolin,Field guide,Bushwise Field Guides,GVI,African Bush,Africa,Students

A Special Treat (Again!)

Updates and Highlights

          

Last semester Wayne Te Brake (photo below), one of our Garonga Instructors left Bushwise to embark on his new adventure. Wayne, thanks for all your passion, knowledge and commitment. From all the Bushwise Staff, it has been a real pleasure working with you and we are sad to see you go. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours!

               

The 4th semester started off with assessment drives – the practical component of the FGASA Level 1 qualification. Our students did very well, as to be expected with the amount of practical activities we manage to fit into the course!

During the last week of semester 4, students wrote the all important FGASA level 1 exam/ They will receive their final results in a few weeks – looks good so far!

The exam was followed by a lovely combined lunch at Moholohlo Ya Mati (photo below). Surrounded by rivers and beautiful gardens, celebrations were held all round, as well as a special prize giving for our two top achievers – both with a 96% average! Well done Matthew L’Estrange and Holly Rosier!

           

At the end of every course we are always so proud to see how our students have grown in terms of knowledge, skills, personality and confidence. We know they will all do well at their placements!

Today marks the start of the 5th and final semester. Our student are preparing for their last exam – the Trails Guide theory exam. After this exam, many of our students will start heading off to their placements. Exciting times for them, but sad for the staff members,  as we have (as always) bonded with our students over the last 6 months. We have many fun activities planned for our students before they begin their placements, so until the next update, bye for now!

The Bushwise Team

Updates and Highlights

Bundu Bashing!

The week got off to a great start for the students who went on drive with us, whilst the other students either went on their assessment drives with Mark or stayed at camp to do more studying. It's not often that we get to see a leopard, but this morning was an exception with a female leopard been sighted not far us. After taking a while to get there due to navigation problems (not ours!!) we eventually caught a glimpse of her disappearing into the bush. After trying to find her again but without luck, she decided to find us by walking right past us as we were looking for the land rovers stairs which I had lost whilst trying to find her! After following her for a while she eventually led us into very dense bush and we ultimately lost sight of her after about an hour as she ran off chasing something with the vervet monkeys going crazy in the background! We thought our fun was over, but it took us ages to get out of the bush. We eventually made it out, but without a number plate!! Still looking for that...

Later that week the students showed off their bush dinner skill by “hosting” staff and a couple of their colleagues. The scene was set, the table laid out in bush décor and wine was served. Never the less all students got a turn to host or to be served by the other students. Stories were told to set the scene and an enjoyable evening was had by all.

The week ended off with the students doing anti-poaching early on Saturday morning by looking for snares or anything odd but I'm happy to say there was nothing to report except two badly shaking up students when a civet exploded from under their feet and a scrub hare!! Too funny!

Till next time!

The Bushwise Team

Bundu Bashing!

“Panja”, the new Hyena cub

Winter has finally arrived at camp, the nights are chilly and the mornings are freezing cold. Out come the hand gloves, beanies, shawls and the winter coats for our morning drives. Our students have begun their assessment drives this week (the practical component of the Level 1 exam) and go out early enough in the morning to see how warm air is rising up from the Termite mound vents. On one of the assessments drives we saw a yellow billed hornbill enjoying the warm termite air too.

One assessment drive, we decided to go past the newly found Hyena den site, expecting to see some of the adult Hyena’s laying around warming themselves up in the morning sun. We arrived at the den and slowly and carefully parked ourselves right next to some bushes close to the den. When we arrived we saw two cubs of 2 months old getting a drink from their mum. They were clearly enjoying the milk as they made very satisfied sounds.

Another adult hyena arrived from another side of the den and she had a tiny two week cub in her mouth. She put it carefully down on its feet but the cub could barely walk and was struggling to follow mum. We were very exited to see this new addition! We were the first ones to see this new hyena cub! After sending the pictures to the reserves science officer, she gave us the honour of naming this cub. At the den, Eva Morgan did her assessment talk on hyena life but we were also talked about what name to give this tiny cub… We named the hyena cub “Panja” meaning “rat” in Swahili and hope that it will one day grow up to be part of a successful clan. After a couple of minutes we decided to drive off as we did not wanted to disturb them too much. What a great start of the assessment and the day!

“Panja”, the new Hyena cub

Hiking trails and waterfalls

We started the week with a conservation theory, and cultural history and decided that a trip away was essential to learn new surroundings and other conservation methods being used in other areas.

The venue was Lekgalmeetse, a small botanical reserve nearby.

     

We did a serious hike through high altitude mountain grasslands, and covered a lot of new vegetation types and even some new bird species.

We continued the hike through amazing forests and passed wonderful waterfalls, that some brave and half frozen students swam in and did some serious slippery slides down the falls.

We covered a large amount of ground and decide to head back to our chalets to get warm and to have hot showers.

The following morning we again went on some really amazing trails along side a pristine stream and pulled out a number of alien plants.

To our surprise we got a fantastic sighting of a relaxed Mozambique spitting cobra, that found refuge between Sean’s (Garonga senior trainer) legs. The snake moved away totally relaxed into a termite hole. All of us had a super leaning experience in the forests, and were keeping our eyes out for hobbits! Lekgalmeetse was a great little mid-term getaway!

The Bushwise Team

Hiking trails and waterfalls

A week full of Ellies!

          

The week started off with a treat for the students when Charles and myself took the students on an educational “guest” drive just before their final drives take place this week and next. Amarula coffee, delicious muffins that Iris (our cook) made, all made the drive that much more special. A herd of elephants was seen crossing the river with a small baby in tow and a fascinating display of elephant behaviour was seen by Charles when the young elephant could not get up the steep river bank and started to panic which caused all the adult elephants to turn around amid much vocalization to look for a more gentle slope for the youngster to climb.

        

Later on in the week whilst final assessments where underway, a quick game drive in the afternoon by some students not doing their drive provided the students and myself wonderful views of a large male elephant which allowed us to spend many valuable time with him whilst the students asked questions and took photos. After the brilliant sighting we had sundowners on a big dam wall with prolific birdlife, hippos and a few elephants with the setting sun dropping in behind them. Glorious end to a wonderful afternoon.

The Bushwise Team

A week full of Ellies!