Hipp, hipp o'day!

After a few weeks in the bush with half-day game drives, we were all excited when it was time for a full-day game drive to the river. An early morning (6 am) start ensured a great beginning of the day and we had not come far before we had an excellent waterbuck sighting. Usually they tend to hide behind a bush, or even a small twig (!), as soon as they hear your car but this male was kind enough to stay out in the open for a long time. Meanwhile we competed in trying to remember every little fact we’ve ever heard about this beautiful antelope.

Arriving at the river, our instructor took his rifle and walked down to the river bank to make sure it was safe, before the group went down to enjoy the scenary. Hippos seem to be very friendly and relaxed but is in fact the animal that kills most people in Africa and it is advisable to be careful, especially when they have calves. This group barely noticed our presence though, occupied as they were with enjoying the cool water on this hot day. Hippos can’t swim and therefore calves often float, resting their heads on the adults that are standing on the bottom that the young can’t reach. They get around in the water through walking and jumping on the bottom and this is also how they ascend to the surface again to breath, after holding their breaths for up to five minutes!

We had brought lunch and some books so that we could relax on the river bank for a couple of hours, during the mid-day heat. We chose a spot were the bank is quite high and therefore not easily negotiated by the heavy hippos.
Not only hippos inhabit this peaceful river but also some huge reptiles and a grey heron (the same species as in Europe) provided some entertainment, walking past the crocodiles looking for something to eat. In fact the bird life around the river is amazing and we saw many different species during our rest, among them kingfisher, fish eagle, hammerkop and ibis.

On our way back to camp we bumped in to an old friend…
The female leopard had recently made a kill and hid the antelope in a bush. She wasn’t too impressed with one of her cubs that tried to play with her and the meal while she was eating and she quickly made him realize just that. Giving up on his boring mother he went out in search of his playmates…
Shortly thereafter the sun set on yet another fantastic day in the African bush.

/A

Spring is in the air

Yes, spring is in the air and we have had a few days when the temperature has gone beyond the 30 degrees mark. With spring also comes the creepy-crawlers and we have already had one student being bitten by a brown button spider; they are widow spiders and related to the well known black widow spider, but only 25% as venomous (the student is fine – no real harm done). We have also had a few sightings of sack spiders (creamy white, with black fangs and really dangerous) and a visit by a black mamba.

In the kitchen garden a few of us witnessed an olive grass snake stalk a striped skink, for about an hour. The olive grass snake is venomous but not dangerous to humans though. They are, however, dangerous to other reptiles and they have even been known to eat small specimens of black mamba.

The lifting of the head is pretty characteristic for this snake and it did so quite often as it got closer and closer to the skink.
Not sure what the skink is doing in this picture but as it was basking in the sun it had placed its hind legs on top of its tail.
The snake closing in after stalking the skink for more than an hour, covering about 3 meters in total.
The olive grass snake is one of the fastest snakes there is and when it struck it did so with amazing speed; skinks are pretty fast too and this one was lucky to (barely) get away, after a bit of a struggle in the grass.

/A & J

Mozambique, Part II

...and how was the beach?

That has been the most common question after our trip two weeks ago, so we thought it would be best to enlighten everybody by posting a picture or two.

Each day we walked for about half an hour from our house at Mango beach to the centre of Tofu where the dive shop is located and where we spent most of our time.

/A & J

Mozambique

I thought that I would start with this picture just to set the right mood

On our first week off (we get every fifth week off) all the students at Bushwise scattered all over Southern Africa it seemed; one group of students rented a (too) small red car and drove off to St Lucia and Durban, on the South African east coast; another group of students stayed behind for a couple of days and then rented a car and explored the area around Hoedspruit. One student had plans to head off to Kruger National Park with his girlfriend (who flew in just for the week) and another student, who hitched a ride in the small red rental, were off to Nelspruit for adventures by himself. Me and Anja got into a white Toyota Condor together with four other students and headed for Mozambique.

The final destination on our journey was the small town of Tofo. Not much of a town, Tofo is all about diving and people who go there are either divers or go there together with someone who is.
While Anja was busy with her Advanced Open Water (yes, that is scuba-related stuff) I kept myself busy working on my tan (No, no scuba-related activities for me). Not sure if what she tells me is true or not but apparently there are things living underneath the surface of the ocean (one would assume that they would drown) and in an attempt to convince me she took a few pictures. She claims that these pictures show marine life (judge for yourselves but I suspect some sort of Photoshop manipulation).

Schooling fish

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Octopus

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Blue starfish

There was no need for me to even get out of my sun chair in order to enjoy the local wildlife though. One day when I was working on my tan in the resturant/bar thingy outside the dive centre, a couple of Humpback whales decided to grandstand a bit just 500 meters off shore and in an instant the sleepy resturant turned into something that more resembled Wembly arena – people were on their feet, cheering with excitement. The whales did their thing for about five or ten minutes and then went back out to sea. Pretty spectacular stuff!

Humpback whale doing its thing

The journey back to South Africa was something of a bumpy affair and even though our road was of a rather good standard, one 150 km stretch of road was not. At times there were so many holes in the road that it actually seemed to be more holes than road! And it was on this stretch of road we had our flat (we were actually lucky to only have one). Cheered on by the early morning sun and the roosters in the background the spare tire was soon in place and we were on our way again. The rest of our 15 hour drive was (thankfully) uneventful.

/J

Just another day at the office, Part II

The best day of the week was Thursday 30th of July, or Leopard Day, as it will now forever be remembered. We heard on the radio that a female with cubs AND a kill in a tree had been sighted and of course we went in search of her. When we first arrived we only saw the kill in a tree and no cats… After searching for them for a couple of minutes we saw the female.

A little while later the cubs appeared and were chasing eachother around as their mother returned up into the tree to feed. It seemed to be a moment out of a documentary on National Geographic Channel… and then it got even better: two hyenas showed up out of nowhere and for a second we feared that the playing cubs would be in danger. But the three young cats had rushed up into the trees in no time at all!
Carefully watched by the hyenas, the mother continued eating and the cubs climbed around in the trees. After a while they started to get a bit too restless (and reckless) and one of them actually fell out of the tree! We heard a cry and in an instant both the hyenas where there, as well as the female leopard, that had been eight meters up in a tree 100 meters away from the cubs’ tree; the cheetah may be the fastest cat around but the leopard is probably the quickest.
The cub was never in any danger this time either, it had climbed up into the tree again with the same speed as it had fallen out… puuh! The hyenas left and the mother called her three cubs and they walked off...

and we returned to camp, high on adrenaline from this magical encounter.

/A

Just another day at the office, Part I

The week before our first week off was a wonder of great sightings. In the beginning of the week there seemed to be cheetahs wherever group B (Jonny’s group) headed… and fortunately group A managed to finally find one as well.
Of course we also encountered some elephants in the reserve and they were all pretty relaxed, except for some younger individuals that half-heartedly mock charged one of the vehicles.
For some strange reason we, in group A, haven’t seen a lot of zebras, even though their tracks are ever present. Sometimes we manage to get a glimps of them through the bush though. Group B has seen lots off course…

/A