Wow.... So this is it! This is really it. I'm leaving Africa in 2 days time, and other than Monday morning project (which I can manage to go on thanks to having an evening flight booked!) I am officially finished with volunteering for the year. My final project was Kids Club which was very nice, and good fun with my favourite kid (but of course we don't have favourites!) doing her favourite thing of running around me roaring that she's a lion and she's going to eat me! SO CUTE!

So how's my week gone? Hectic, fun, and sad pretty much sums it up! I can't help but be upset that I'm leaving which is stupid because I haven't left yet so I might as well enjoy it, but no... Every time I see anything, a little voice in my head goes "That might be your last one." which generally just makes me sad rather than enjoying seeing it! The best thing is that on Monday morning I'll get the chance to do one last bit of elephant research, so I'll be ending on my favourite project.

Sunday night I went out on night drive, and while there were no hyenas, I got a new sighting! SERVAL! It was a terrible view, and no photos, but it's the only sighting I've had. It was so much smaller than I expected, and so pretty. Beautiful little animal.

SURPRISE ATTACK!

Monday projects were the usual Bird Survey and Game Count. Bird survey we went to Chamabondo (no cheetahs!) and added to the data from the previous Friday. I've already decided that when I get home I'm going to try and get more into my birds there. I really enjoy bird surveys here, and certainly they're the fastest way to improve my knowledge - there's a reason I'm one of the best at identifying the birds here, and it's simply because I've done the most bird surveys! Game Count was less exciting, as we were back on Chamabondo (no cheetahs!) and it's just not a great area for wildlife in the afternoons at this time of year! We recorded warthog, zebra, impala and kudu which was a pretty good number in comparison to sometimes, but still doesn't make for the most exciting game drive.... Wow I sound spoiled! Wouldn't be complaining if I "only" saw warthogs next week!

Giraffes on the Hill

Tuesday was Elephants and Giraffes in the morning, then Elephant ID Training of the new local intern in the afternoon. It was also my BIRTHDAY! :D I was starting to get scared when we were over halfway through our session and I still hadn't seen any eles, but then 12 showed their faces and so I did get to see them. Unfortunately, the reason there were only 12 is because there was a herd of minimum 80 in Zambia, so clearly they'd arranged the Birthday Party, but got the wrong location...! The afternoon I was teaching the new elephant researchers how to do the IDs, and I'll admit that thinking back to when I started doing them does make me nervous... I wasn't allowed to do it alone for over a month after I arrived, and even then only because the Zambian researcher was off to get married - I'm leaving them to it after 2 hours training each! Eek! We went out to In-Da-Belly restaurant (for those who didn't get the pun, the local language here is Ndebele) for dinner that night, where I had Kudu steak (I'm a really great vegetarian aren't I?!) and chips which was fantastic! They had a local dance group in performing while we ate, and they dragged me up first to dance with them, and then so they dance around me singing a Happy Birthday song which started off lovely, but then changed to "How old are you now? So old now. You are old now. You are old now."..... Thanks.....! Dinner was followed by far too much cake (birthday necessity!) and then home. Such a wild 21st party - I was in bed, totally sober at 9:30pm!

Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation

Wednesday started off with sunrise shoot (the main reason I was in bed quite so early!) down by the river and it was just beautiful. Not the true dry season sunrise that is steadily making it's way back, but a really bright sun over the water, straight downriver from where we were. Also found a baby crocodile who managed to be both very cute and very menacing simultaneously! Went to Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Survey for the last time after sunrise, once more checking cameras and lights at the 9 homesteads where they are set up. As usual, the lights seem to be doing their job effectively, so no lion visits, but one guy did point out where 2 lions had killed a hyena on his property midweek! We got back earlier than expected, so my already long day became even longer when I went to join what I thought would be my last session of Kids Club at the Rose of Charity Orphanage in town. We took some big "21st" balloons with us which they found great fun, and I spent one more afternoon playing volleyball with the kids, and then some football. We left a bit early as 2 of the volunteers were going to join in with a local football training. Rather than just sitting around watching them for 2 hours, we were welcomed into a netball match with a whole load of local women. Now I haven't played netball since I was at school, and I've done pretty much no real exercise all year.... These women train for an hour every day! They're so good! I think we provided as much entertainment at our uselessness as we provided any show of possible skill or athleticism, but they seemed to like having us there and invited us back again! A very enjoyable afternoon all round, apart from the fact that between 9 of us running on sand in the afternoon African sun, we had half a bottle of water.... Whoops! All in the pool when we got back!

Sunrise over the Zambezi

Thursday was supposed to be Hyena Tracking in the morning but the hyenas have left the park again, so while the other researchers stayed behind and did admin stuff, I used the time to go and do my last lion walk with Lekker and Lala. They were pretty lazy, but that meant lots of handsome photos of Lekker. He's such a beautiful lion! We came back to their enclosure and gave them the grass ostrich that the volunteers made the previous day. As usual, they did the token "What's this? Oh I pushed it over." and then ignored it again. The afternoon we had another elephant and giraffe session, and as this should have been my last one, I was again getting worried for most of the session that there was no elephants to be seen, and that my last ever elephant research would be a no-show, but then right as we were starting to speed up in order to get home on time, we saw them. It was a big herd - minimum of 32 individuals - but they were so far back in the bushes we didn't get a great view of them. Never mind, they were there.

Lions trying out veganism

Beautiful Lekker <3

Lala. I love catching lions just as they finish yawning - they look so angry!

Friday (really starting to get scarily close to the end of the week!) was supposed to be Occupancy Survey but there's a problem at the ranger station and we were FORCED to do another Elephant and Giraffe Research session.... How unfortunate! What really was unfortunate was that the Game Viewer was broken and spent the morning getting fixed, so we had to take the big Hyundai instead, which isn't great at rough roads. Thanks to this, we didn't get to go to Chamabondo as we'd hoped to, and we later found out that there was not 1, but 2 leopards seen there while we were out on Zambezi Drive instead! NO! However, we did find some elephants (actually not in the park, but just on the way in the morning) and giraffes so it was a good morning. The afternoon was my last Game Count, again on Zambezi Drive, and we totalled 5 species (giraffe, waterbuck, warthog, impala, hippo) so it was a nice drive. Party in the evening as a joint birthday-and-last-night-out celebration for me and our volunteer coordinator, which was really fun.

Zebra-de-doo-dah, Zebra-de-ay!

And now for today! We were supposed to have a litter pick today competition today, but yesterday there was a big fire at the dump site so we would have nowhere to put the litter we collected other than just leaving it nicely bagged back where we found it! It was pretty horrible yesterday - the whole of town and the park was just choked with smelly thick white smoke that will have been a combination of rubber, tar, plastic, asbestos, and many other delightful things that should definitely not be inhaled... This is Africa! Instead of the litter pick we went to Kids Club and had one more morning of playing with the children. I spent most of the time painting the kids' fingernails, and reading books with them which was very sweet, and a lovely ending to my volunteering stay. Following that, I've spent the afternoon packing (NO!) and will head to the Falls for one last visit tomorrow.

And that's it! That's all I have to say. If you have any questions about how to get involved yourself then feel free to contact me, or go to the ALERT website (www.lionalert.org) or the African Impact Website (www.africanimpact.com) for more information. I highly recommend volunteering out here (bearing in mind we've had volunteers from age 14 to 76 so no excuses there!), and African Impact offer so many amazing projects all over the continent working on several different species, and in many communities. The work being done is vitally important to the lives of these people, and volunteers are a huge part of that. Similarly, if you don't have the time or money to travel, but would still like to help, then every donation helps and is hugely important to the continuation of the work. To donate to the projects that I have been on, then this can be done through the ALERT website, for others go to the African Impact website and search the projects. The 2 major charities that African Impact support are ALERT and The Happy Africa Foundation, which is a more community-based one. Thank you to everyone for all of the support that I have received this year, and I promise you now that I'll let you know WHEN I'm coming back (because it's definitely not an if!).

Until next time, This Was Africa <3

ANOTHER 2 WEEKS GONE! I still can't get my head around the idea of this being my last week in Africa.... It seems like so long since I was home, but equally like barely any time has passed at all. Honestly I'm sure it will really sink in that I'm leaving until I'm home and there aren't elephants and warthogs wandering around the roads, and I can just take the dog out for a walk without having to keep an eye out for lions and snakes!

World Ranger's Day march

So what's been happening? Quite a lot this time actually! Started off my fortnight with a celebration for World Ranger's Day on 31st July. There was a march through the centre of town with rangers from here, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia, to show support for the work done by rangers all over the world for the protection of people and wildlife, and the constant sacrifices and risks they take in order to do their jobs. For those of us with decent cameras however, our job was not marching, but rather being photographers and spreading the word to the people on the streets. We were stopping them as they went and getting them to take a photo with a sign saying "I STAND WITH THE WORLD'S RANGERS" which was quite fun! We then had to photograph the actual march and that was just knackering... It was definitely more of a run than a march, and we were having the sprint to get ahead of it, stop for 30 seconds to photograph them as they all ran past, then sprint ahead again! Not easy in African heat! We went out on Game Count that afternoon though so more relaxed - sitting on a car counting animals may be mentally challenging sometimes, but we'd already done our exercise for the day! 

The stars while camping

As for research we've done pretty well these past couple of weeks. The hyenas entered the park again for a bit so we've been hyena tracking for the first time in a while; we've done one of our two planned occupancy surveys (we were unable to get a ranger for the other one); we've done 3 bird surveys and 5 elephant and giraffe research sessions; and 4 game counts too. Busy busy busy! Hyena tracking was a particularly fun one as, although we found no hyenas or carcasses, we did find lots of spoor at the site, and it was an area of the park totally new to me which was fun. We were planning on going camping at Chamabondo as we have a few times before, but after we saw the Kalisosa platform during hyena tracking we switched and went there instead! Camping was FREEZING and we had some trouble getting onto the platform which had been locked but no one knew who had the keys, but we saw so many elephants and heard a hyena super-close so it was definitely worth it. As well as hyena tracking, we also went out on our first night drive that we've done in ages and we saw 3 hyenas, 2 elephants and a rabbit (the last one amused us!) so that was good fun. As for Bird Survey, while nothing can beat Elephant Research in my book, the birds are coming up a close second. It's just so interesting to drive through the park and see what's around. It's also something of a game (helps to satisfy the insanely competitive streak that runs through my family!) that you play against yourself, trying to see how many you can identify on the spot, how many you can do with the bird book, and how many you have to just give up and take a photo for identification later. I'm getting pretty good (if I do say so myself) at recognising them, and it seems such a shame to go home and forget them all by the time I next come out! (Yes, I'm certain there will DEFINITELY be a next time!)

Hyena on Night Drive

Elephants at the Kalisosa waterhole

Giraffe peeping through the trees

Baby off for a walk!

BEING ATTACKED!! Happy World Lion Day! (10th August)

CHEETAH!!!! I am the first person to photograph a Zambezi
National Park cheetah in over a decade!

When it comes to wildlife August has been a very good month so far. Morning Elephant and Giraffe research has been brilliant in terms of sightings. In the past 2 weeks we've had 2 separate lion sightings, the first on 1st August, the second on the 10th. The first one was exciting as it was 2 that we have definitely seen before - an adult female and a sub-adult male, in the same bush that we last saw them in when we saw a group of 4 walking down the road ahead of us a few weeks back. The second one was exciting for 3 reasons: 1) I had literally just finished saying how the previous would almost certainly be my last wild lions in this trip, 2) There were 4 adults (2 males and 2 females) and the males were fighting over the females, and 3) One of the males decided that we were in the way and he ran at our car roaring and snarling, coming straight at me! Thankfully he changed his mind when our driver revved the engine and lay back down.... otherwise I may have been mauled to death by him! It was such a cool sighting with him and the other (triumphant) male battling in the bushes. Unfortunately we couldn't really see the fight because of the trees, but if anything I think that made it more exciting! We drove on through the park looking for a different spot for breakfast (since our planned spot was occupied by 4 angry lions!) and were again foiled, this time by elephants! We eventually went to a spot where none of us have ever seen so much as a bird and had breakfast there.... Continued on through the park and approximately 2 hours after we saw the lions, we saw another 1... or rather we thought we did.... We saw a big cat cross the road ahead of us and then slink through the long grass, and while we thought she seemed to be moving oddly, we just assumed she was stalking the kudu up ahead, so we stopped the car and waited to see what would happen.... what happened is that we pulled up next to the bush she'd vanished into, and a few minutes later, the cat came out and walked away into another bush. NOT a female lion! At first when we saw it was spotty we just automatically assumed leopard? But a quick look at the shape told us that was wrong too. CHEETAH! Almost at exactly the same time as we were watching it in Chamabondo, 2 of the Lion Encounter staff were talking to the parks authority and being told that there hasn't been a definite confirmed cheetah sighting in this park for over 10 years, and there we were getting photographic evidence that they are indeed still here! WOW! Could not stop smiling all day, and I still grin every time I think of it! I'm not sure I'll ever get over how awesome that morning was! I honestly couldn't breathe properly for a good couple of hours after seeing it, and I'd be lying if I said no tears escaped on the way home... Absolutely incredible sighting, and when combined with fighting male lions too?! BEST RESEARCH SESSION EVER! Last Thursday was actually one of the best days of my life....

Elephant saying hello! Happy World Elephant Day! (12th August)

Our first wild lions of the fortnight

Actually not my only cheetah sighting of the past 2 weeks however! Over the weekend in the middle (and this is why I didn't do an update last week), a group of us went to Hwange National Park which is the largest National Park in Zimbabwe and only about 2 hours down the road from Victoria Falls. Unfortunately the company that we booked with turned out to be utterly useless at organisation and I think we probably did miss out on some stuff having gone with them, but it was still very good and we saw several species which were brand new to me, including Roan antelope, Blue duiker, Bat-eared Fox (definitely a highlight, they're SO CUTE!) and of course, the cheetah. We also saw elephants, giraffes, hippos, waterbuck, warthogs, impala, a pride of 12 lions with 8 cubs (big highlight!), wildebeest, crocodiles, baboons, ostrich, kudu, zebra, vultures, marabou stork and crowned cranes, to name only a few! Still no painted dogs though.... I've given up now - the chances of seeing them in my last week are so minute that I'm not hoping to see them anymore. What a shame, it just means I'll HAVE to come back to Africa!

First Cheetah I ever saw!

Southern Yellow-Billed Hornbill

AAH! A BEE!

Crowned Crane, photo taken for my Gran who helped inspire
my bird love, and who loves these birds most of al!

Wartypig! 

Sunrise at Hwange. Unfortunately I missed the photo
where it was giraffes not people!

Male Steenbok, or as we call them, Rabbit-antelopes! 

Vine snake in the road. These will kill you within 1 hour of biting
by causing you to bleed out, and their venom has no antidote....

Ostriches!

Giraffe yoga... 

Elephants wallowing at the waterhole 

LION CUBS!!

Sunset at Hwange

And now for my final week in Africa, soon to be thrown back to reality.... Very much looking forward to being home, very much dreading having to leave!