Week Three

 

The arrival of Jackie and Chloe brought on a new round of luck with animals this week. Hanging onto the land cruiser for dear life as Red veered off-piste we followed a herd of mountain zebra, eland and a couple of gemsbok who were all grazing together. Our camera traps also proved fruitful with over 3,000 photos of a family of leopards (which hopefully can result in individuals being identified) and Dennis the donkey was pretty much demolished! There were also pictures of the cape fox, mountain zebra, mongoose, black eagles, porcupines, the brown hyena and every kind of antelope going – a Namibian Piccadilly Circus at night.

 

Biltong, White Water Rafting, Campfire Moments and of course Big Bunny!

Our week started with a two-day hike across the conservancy to the Orange River, something we had all been looking forward to and dreading at the same time. The night before we set off, we scaled up the side of a hill for a sundowner, where we were told by Red and Dre that our hike over the next day would be a chilled three hour walk and wouldn’t be too strenuous, relief to both mine and Mia’s ears who were struggling to even get to up the slope for the sundowner. The start of the hike was early next morning, and we all set off at a good pace with plenty of scaling up mountains, and nibbling on the biltong we had made with Karlene earlier in the week. Red had the treat of carrying two mattresses on his back the whole way, and Max managed to leave his water bottle a few hundred metres back which led to a sprint there and back from him, but on the whole, it was a smooth start.

Camera traps, game catching and animal tracking!

This week started very exciting for us, because we’ve got the chance to be part of a “game capture”. For that we had to drive to the “Oas Stables”, where a very lovely guy called Mantie and his wife Pennie welcomed us. The phrase “My friend”,which Mantie used a lot, is still stuck in our heads today. It was an unbelievable experience for all of us to get so close to the wild animals like the Springboks. Another highlight was the last evening at Mantie’s. We’ve been in a real building for the first time since our arrival, which gave all of us a happy feeling, and the boys could play pool! It was a wonderful time over there.

On our way back we made it to the library, were we could finally get in touch with our loved ones back home, so this weekend was full of highlights.