3rd March 2010

Sorry no post yesterday but was absolutely knackered by the time we reached the reserve. We set out from the volunteer house in Cape Town at 0500 to get the bus to Port Elizabeth. We were then on that rickety old bus for 15 hours :( This was a bus who's door continually opened mid-motorway (all the stopping for the driver to shut the door and restart the bus lengthened the journey considerably) , a bus that stopped only at garages selling junk food and whose driver was the biggest Jackie Chan fan you've ever met (which affected all in-bus entertainment options!).

All of this after a sleepless night on a plane the night before that and a sleepless night clearing the decks the night before that. Made for one v sleepy + slightly grouchy Jo. Was very grateful for the iPhone and some very good music in the form of Purdy's Blues (a Calvin classic, that you will not find in any music store), amongst a huge number of others. Hilarity had obviously set in by the end of the day though because the Fraggle rock theme tune came to mind and Michelle and I were singing it all the way from Jeffrey's Bay to PE. Given we haven't been able to get out our heads since it has become the theme tune of the trip!

Anyway it was all to late to do anything other than eat and go to bed when we eventually made it back to the reserve (which was another hour from PE).

We were up again at 0630 this morning to start work at 0730, quite an achievement after the day before we though.

Turns out there are about 28 volunteers at this project - it's huge! The reserve is 6000 hectares (about 20 times the size of the park I volunteered at previously) home to 5 Biomes, 42 mammal species, birds, reptiles and St Peter's - the oldest Anglican church South Africa. The reserve sits on the village of Sidbury - in fact I'm not sure that the village isn't part of the reserve itself, the 'boundaries' are somewhat undefined. The volunteers are split into three groups to undertake different activities during the day. It's very strange joining the groups mid-week since most people arrive at the weekend and have already started getting to know each other, would have been much easier for everyone if our orientation had been held in PE. It's quite a mixed group - both in terms of age and motivations so Michelle and I are just taking our time to ease into things.

Our first job of the day was helping William (one of the rangers) with game capture. The reserve are trying to relocate some of the animals from the main plains of the reserve to another area (called Wilderness). They do this to prevent over-population in any one part of the reserve, ensure animals are where there is most food and to diversify the breeding lines. We set up a huge netted ares into which William would drive the animals. Our job was to wrestle them to the ground and hold them there until they were loaded onto the truck. Not an easy task when you're handling a wild wildebeest! I found the whole thing a bit distressing to be honest. The animals were clearly very stressed at being handled and I did wonder if it could have been easier on them if they had been darted instead. One zebra stallion was so powerful that even with 16 people on top of him he was having none of it and after 15 minutes of unsuccessful wrestling he was let loose. I can't say I was disappointed that he got away.

After breakfast Moses took us out to the bush to teach us a few survival skills. A few prickly pears later and he decided we were up for learning how the cavemen lived. Only problem was the cave he was taking us to was at the top of a cliff! So we climbed the cliff! Lots of fun. Not much to the cave itself but spectacular views of the reserve at the top.

After lunch we were given lessons on tracking animals by their footprints and their dung - vital skills of every reserve ranger. Saw loads of animals too including the griaffe (gorgeous!).

Dinner was pretty quiet. The bull elephant has been wandering up by the water pipes (there's been a bit of a drought here recently, all the water tables on the plains have nearly completely dried out and he has a habit of busting the water pipes to the reserve to get fresh water!) so we were pre-warned that there may be no water in the morning.

Michelle and I still knackered from the previous day so we had an early night.

Will post more when I can (bberry signal frustratingly intermittent!)

Love
Jox