Rain or shine…we were going on that sleepout

It’s the end of our third week during our level one nature guide course.  The week started off bright and early with Sarah keeping us on the edge of our seats during the mammals, taxonomy and ethology lectures well most of us anyway.

After the lectures we went on a game drive in Amakhala game reserve. I was really looking forward to this until the morning when it started pouring with rain. We decided to go on anyway; we all got our jackets and jumped on the land rover. I was exited to see if we would see something different in these conditions.  On this particular day my highlight was finding a scorpion under a rock uroplectese spp.

 At the end of the day we pulled into bush braai where we would spend the night. We were all only to glad to get out of the rain and under the thatched shelter available there. Thanks to Roberts keen fire making skills that not even wet wood and a lack of blitz could stop we boiled some water and soon I was enjoying the best cup of coffee I had ever had while my hands regained some color holding the warm mug.  That night we all took turns keeping watch. The next morning I was full of excitement. We were going to look for the lions and on top of that I was driving the wet muddy roads. I wanted to get a feel for the land rover in wet conditions and with Jandre‘s expert advice I was soon well on my way. Unfortunately we never found the lions so we went looking for the cheetah all the while getting totally drenched we soon found them and after deciding that they were not going to make a kill any time soon went to go and watch 2 elephants play fighting in the dam we all laughed through chattering teeth. At that point we decided to head back to Ulovane.  We were soon in dry clothes and back to normal.

We finished the week off with a bit of intense studying that in my case paid off as I did well in the exams. Now to see what the next weeks adventures will be.

- Asher Hill