5th March - Day 5 of the trip, day 3 at the reserve

Life on the reserve starts quite early - about 0630 every day - so still feeling a bit behind on my sleep quota.

After being introduced to the predators the previous day we got to spend some quality time with them this morning. The lions are just amazing. There are about 12 cubs of different ages - between 2 and 16 months. A couple of them are completely wild so we were constantly watching our back with those ones. The three that came from the lion park were much more friendly. 'Playing' with 16 month old lions is lots of fun, if a bit rough!

The tiger cubs - Ben, Tikka + Masala - are really playful too. Ben's a bit older than the other two and was somewhat miffed at strange people coming into her territory so started scenting every bush in sight. She walked past me after she had done it and gave me a friendly whack with her urine sodden tail! Lovely! ...and the folks at i-to-i laugh when I tell all the potential volunteers that their wisest and most economical travel purchase is a big bag of baby wipes! They were well used that morning.

Once everyone was fed and watered we went into the main area of the reserve to help take down some 'alien trees'. These are Black Wattel trees that the reserve need to take down because their high levels of acidity are infecting the soil and getting into the water table that the animals drink from. A few hours chopping down trees in the midday sun was certainly good hard work and the best stress relief you can find. Surprised how quickly I adapted to handling a machete but visualising all those that have been stressing me out at the end of it seemed to help!

We all had a few hours off after that because the temperature had soared above 37 and we were absolutely baking.

We did a game drive once the heat had gone down a bit. Still haven't seen the pride of lions or herd of elephants that are in the main reserve yet but did see the rhinos again today. Constantly astounded by how quickly the can move given their size. Came across a huge tortoise too - must have been about 2 stone in weight. I was the only one game enough to pick it up. Soon regretted that when it too decided it had to scent me! More use for the baby wipes!

On our way back the game drive truck decided to give up the goat. Turns out that Kumbulani had been driving on empty for ages, believing that the petrol gauge was just playing up! So a call back to quarters for help - no one now saying it was silly to bring the bberry! Whilst Moses drove round the reserve trying to find us we amused ourselves with a water fight (which was probably not really that clever if we had actually been stuck there all night) and learning some more about the bush. Star apples were a yummy snack and we watched the sun set over the beautiful plains. Who needs Volympics when you can bond in the bush with a broken down game drive truck!

Moses did eventually find us and towed us home, which we reached after dark. The others had even left us some grub so it was all good.

Off to Port Elizabeth tomorrow for our two days off + planning to pop into Bayworld to look at the museum and the oceanarium.

Love
Jox