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Day 8 – Spearfishing! (and a Sandy Beach)

Duke of Edinburgh Participant 2012 / August 20, 2012 / No comments

Kosi Bay – Historic Fish Traps and Beach

After breakfast at our Kosi Bay accommodation we all walked down to the historic fish traps where we were introduced to Elmon a local fisherman. Elmon took us into the water and gave us a tour of the traps and showed us how they worked. Unfortunately the tide was too high in the morning to catch fish so we went to the beach for an hour or so.

At the beach we split into three groups – sunbathers, paddlers and ball gamers.

When we returned to the fish traps in the afternoon, Elmon took a few of us back out to the fish traps and Beth, Glyn, Alicia, Lottie, Becky and Adam went into the fish traps to try and spear fish. Three fish were caught, one each by Glyn, Lottie (stabbing it multiple times and getting covered in fish guts/blood) and Adam. The fish were carried to shore and given to Elmon to take home to his family.

Glyn

…..

Glyn told to spear fish.
Glyn spear fish.
Glyn happy.

…..

Category: Accommodation near game reserve, Activities, Amangwane Kosi Bay, Bushwire, DofE2012, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Environmental Awareness Course, Gold 2012, Wetland Park Group / Tags: accommodation near Mozambique, adventure, african culture, african holiday, animal holiday, culture, DofE2012, educational holidays, family holiday, fishing, holiday, Kosi Bay, learming holiday, once in a lifetime, safari, south africa, spearfishing, student trips, tradition

Day 4 and 5 – Wilderness Trail

Duke of Edinburgh Participant 2012 / August 17, 2012 / No comments

Day 5 – Wilderness Trail

The Nightwatch diary

Got up quite early and got ready for the over night wilderness trail. Not going to lie, sounded pretty scary, walking through the bush and then camping over night outside with people taking shifts to keep watch, but it was so cool!!!!! So the walk to the camp was quite long… we got a few breaks and a nice long lunch break (while Lottie went to the loo about 5 times!) but our guide, Joe, walked at quite a pace and seemed to have constant energy! But we got to camp early, and saw some hippos in the water near our camp, which was amazing! There were about 5 of them just there, staring at us. It was cool until we realized that we would be camping next to them and they could walk through our camp if they wanted, as could crocs, as could hyenas, as could ANY animal that wanted to, hence the night watch! Without even a sit down, we went straight into Croemalena clearing, which is an alien crop that kills some of the animals if they eat it. We were shown how to use the machetes and then we got to it. Anneka and me enjoyed it slightly too much I think! We proper went for it and got LOADS cleared away! We were pretty happy with it! Then we were finished for the day, I was really hot disgusting from the walk and the clearing… I hadn’t planned to shower, so I didn’t bring a towel or anything, but I went for an open air shower! It was AMAZINGG!!! Lots of hot water and a nice fire outside to keep my clothes warm. So good! Then we sat around the camp fire for a bit while it got dark and then…. it was BBQ time!!!! We had Nyala steaks, Wildebeest sausages, potato salad, beetroot salad and really yummy bread – an AWSOME bbq!! The we toasted marshmallows on the fire, which I’ve never done before! Smelt and tasted soooo good! Then people started going to bed and the night watch started for the first group. Nothing much came through the camp, but our night log became quite inventive, with a family of hippos scaring Beth near the toilet and me, Glyn and Alicia fighting off an alien invasion. The whole thing was a great experience. When else are we going to get the chance to sleep outside in the African bush?!!

Becky

Category: African Safari, DofE2012, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Environmental Awareness Course, Gold 2012, Wetland Park Group / Tags: adventure, african safari, african wildlife, animal holiday, bush holiday, campfire, camping, curriculum based holiday, DofE2012, educational holiday, Elephant, family holiday, fire watch, memories, nightwatch, safari, sleep under the stars, south africa, student trip, walking safari, wilderness trail, wildlife conservation

Day 2 – Elephant Interaction

Duke of Edinburgh Participant 2012 / August 14, 2012 / No comments

Today started with one of tommy’s infamous wake up calls, violently shaking the tent yelling “Good morning my sleeping beauties” giving us all the shock of our lives before we fell into fits of giggles, even first thing in the morning this trip is exciting.
We expected today to be one of the quieter ones, due to a long boring drive to Swaziland, but as we’re quickly learning Africa is never what you expect. After only half an hours drive we came across something even more shocking than tommy’s wake up calls, a lone female lion crossing the road only meters ahead of us. It was an amazing sight, she was so calm and graceful, meanwhile we were bouncing around the minibus in excitement, we didn’t even have chance to calm down again before we drove past four giraffes grazing at the side of the road. I think what made all these encounters so amazing was their unpredictability, to think we were expecting a boring drive!
However i don’t think any encounter no matter how unpredictable or amazing will compare to the elephant interaction we experienced today. Just seeing these majestic animals walking towards us out of the bush made us gasp, they were incredible, I’ve seen elephants before but never noticed how calm and gentle these giants are.
The presentation was genuinely interesting, did you know after 50 years an elephant must sleep standing up or the pressure of their weight will give them a heart attack? Nope neither did i. Feeding the elephants was indescribable. While it was awe inspiring and enlightening, it was also funny and felt like being licked by a giant jack russell.
The drive again was another mini safari, seeing baboons, cheetah, impala, zebra and even more giraffes.

Lottie

Category: Activities, Antons Africa Adventure, Bushwire, DofE2012, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Environmental Awareness Course, Extreme Nature Tour, Gold 2012, KwaZulu Natal, KZN, New friends, Wetland Park Group / Tags: adventure, animal holiday, baby elephant, DofE2012, educational holiday, Elephant, elephant family, family holiday, holiday with elephant, interact with elephant, memories, once in a lifetime, safari, special holiday, student trip, student trips, touch elephant

Day 2 – Tent Construction and Swazi Dancing

Duke of Edinburgh Participant 2012 / August 14, 2012 / No comments

So, before I get onto the poor tent building and our terrible dancing, it’s the next morning and sitting in front of the watering hole is a picture of perfection… Back to yesterday, after a long drive, which, in pretty much any other country, would have been boring and tedious was yet another journey of excitement, beautiful scenery and lots of wildlife kept us all entertained. We arrived at our destination buoyant from the drive, only to realise that we had to put tents up. What started out as a mess of poles ended up as a mess of a tent, but at least sleep-able, well for someone else, my tent was as sturdy as a brick house (thanks to Camping King Stuart). Tents up, Anton decided nose-breaking American football in the dark was a good idea, with Lottie letting the Lions know exactly where we were (screaming from a football flying at her face) poor light eventually called time on the play, perfect timing for dinner. Dinner was a good old old English Shepards pie with an African twist, yum…

With dinner demolished and beer in hand, we were treated (that word would seem to be overused, but seriously every turn is a surprise and the next thing is the new best experience of my life) with Swazi dancers, with lots of noise and lots of flare the dancers showed the rest of us how to do it and in return we showed them how not to, and on that bombshell, bedtime listening to the lion calls!

Adam

Category: Albizia camp, DofE2012, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Environmental Awareness Course, Extreme Nature Tour, Gold 2012 / Tags: african dancing, Conservation, cultural exchange, educational holidays, Environmental awareness course, student holiday, student trip, Swazi dancing, traditional dancing, zulu dancing

Day 0 – Second time around

Duke of Edinburgh Participant 2012 / August 12, 2012 / No comments

Feeling good being back in SA. It’s pitch black and on the way to Anton’s place,Canterbury Gold is looking forward to an amazing three weeks with hopefully a lot of sunshine along the way.

Charlotte

Category: Bushwire, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Environmental Awareness Course, Gold 2012 / Tags: adventure, animal holiday, DofE2012, Elephant, family holiday, safari, student trip

Kelly College – some highlights!

Lacey / August 3, 2012 / No comments

Category: Accommodation near game reserve, Activities, African Safari, Albizia camp, Environmental Awareness Course, Extreme Nature Tour, Hluhluwe Accommodation, Hluhluwe-Imfolozi, KwaZulu Natal, KZN, New friends /

The Velvet Gecko

Lacey / April 23, 2012 / No comments

At Umkhumbi lodge we are proud to say that each room has a resident Velvet gecko (they stay outside, don’t worry!) The Velvet gecko is on the IUCN list due to it’s rarity. One species of the Velvet gecko is so rare that it was only recently rediscovered!

They are larger than the non-indigenous Tropical house geckos that are so prominent here in South Africa. They have been known to grow up to 120mm in length (and that is just the body, add the tail on as well and you have a fairly substantial portion of gecko!).

Why is a velvet gecko called a vevlet gecko?

The scales of the Velvet Gecko overlap slightly giving it an almost velvet-like feel

So, I hear you ask, if they are so big; How on Earth do they run up the walls? How do they not fall off the ceiling?

Well, each toe is covered with large, wide pads. These pads are covered with tiny little hairs, shorter than 2 diameters of a human hair⁽¹⁾ and much thinner, it is these hairs that allow geckos to run up even the smoothest surface. Each of these hairs is subject to a weak molecular attraction – Van Der Waals theory – which gives geckos the ability to be able to hang from a wall by just one fingertip. This adhesive effect is very strong and the tiny hairs only become detached by changing their angle (almost like velcro).

The texture of a geckos 'fingerprint' helps them stick to even the smoothest of surfaces.

For more information about the discovery, read this and this from the Lewis & Clark College, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Stanford University.