05.12.2018

05.12.2018 15days at buffelsdrift

Working

This morning was the first breakfast without larissa. The average volunteering age has greatly plumbited since she left.

We headed down and started first with finding the cheetas. They were not in their usual spot so it took us a while to find them with the antenna.

We then grabbed some long sticks to move left over metall fences again. Since these were already laying their for a while a lot of thorn bushes and plants had grown into them. So we had to rip them out of the thicket and carry them to a pile near the road.

Last time we had 2 more people when we did this so it took us a while.

On the way back we checked the lion fence and then went for lunch.

In the afternoon we started with the elephant enclosure. Also they had a big pile of tires and sticks which they played a lot with yesterday. So we had to get all the the tires and sticks back into a pile.

Done with that we started the elephant food and then cleaned the second meat freezer. So take all the frozen meat out, grab a little brush and start brushing deep frozen pieces of left over meat and blood from the box.

After washing out all the blood and getting rid of the evidence we grabbed a few bags.

These we had to fill with elephant dung again and carry them back to the car. During that we were visited by a tortoise. Lea put it next to the water so it could drink but instead it just fully dived into the water. So we pulled it out again.

With the bags of poop on the car we drove to our tents and filled a little vegetable garden with it. Or at least its supposed to become one. I just hope its not for our vegetables.

Already at the tents I quickly shook out my shoes and went for a shower. I really needed it today. However there was almost no water pressure. So that took a long and cold time to get clean.

After that we had dinner, lea organised some more with Mariné's surprise gift and we watched the springbok trap that was now closer to our tents at a new position.

We saw that a few animals went in but chris didnt trigger the trap and we didnt understand why. So we kept waiting and wondering if maybe the trap was broken.

But then suddenly he activated it and we saw a bunch of animals run out. Chris his son Tyan started running towards it. I wanted to go aswell but lea told me that they didnt catch anything.

We still walked down just to help even though lea didnt really want to. But then we saw chris drive to the trap and getting out a towel.

 So me and lea started running and there actually was a springbok under one of the nets and tyan was holding its horns.

Chris grabbed the entire net with the bok tight and we helped load and hold it on the back of the car.Then we took off towards the other part of the reserve.

 It was bumpy ride, lea held the towel over its eyes to keep it calm, I held the very spikey horns and tyan held the legs should it kick.

It got dark fast when we finally reached the other land. There chris helped us get it off the car. While we held it in place he and his son slowly started to get it out of the net.

Then we all weng behind the animal and let go of its legs and horns at the same time. Quickly the antilope got on his legs and started to run of into its new home...

That was a really cool experience, chris drove us back and me and lea went to bed early since tomorrow we were going to join a meercat safari at 6:00!!!.