Lion Hunt

I am obsessed with lions. They are beautiful and I find them fascinating, being the only cat in the world that lives socially. So when we were finally driving through the world famous Kruger National Park, I was excited. Today we were going to see lions. Through the day we saw many amazing things. I had learnt my lesson in Masebe, that each animal was a lucky sighting, including the birds and that Africa didn't owe me anything. But I also had to deal with a quiet desperation that said, no matter how much I resisted, that I wanted to see a lion. After 4 hours of seeing giraffe and zebra, I was getting bored with them. Normally I would have been happy to sit and watch them, but that desperate part of me wanted to move, and see what I came for. It also started ticking off animals, checking ones I'd seen and listing the ones I hadn't that I wanted to. This is a bad way to be during a game drive, as the animals are the ones who decide when to come out, and it is a very mercenary attitude towards wildlife. But I couldn't help it. This was my last chance.

When the guide said there were fresh lion prints on the road I was excited. But excited quickly became annoyed as the guide made no move to follow them, or even slow down so we could see them. This was typical of the place. I had two voices warring in my head for most of that day. The conservationist was glad to see the park. It has set, regular roads to drive along, and you only see what is near the road. This is good for the animals and the environment, as crazy tourists aren't making tracks and driving cars all over the place. Unfortunately, it means you are limited to seeing what is on the road. So unless a lion is casually walking along it, you have little chance of seeing one.

When we arrived at the gate to drive back, I was crushed. Once again, Africa had taken one look at my little dream and laughed it to peices. The day had been cold, wet and I had spent most of it shivering, desperately looking out for animals. But I hadn't seen a lion. The next day we were flying to the coast and this was our last chance for game spotting. I had come all the way to Africa and hadn't seen a lion.

My first thought when I got back to our accommodation was to ask to go on a night drive again. This is what we had done the night before, when we had spotted the leopard. Our tour leader organised it while I was sitting in the lobby and I immediately jumped in, being first on the list. This was my second chance and I was hoping it wasn't going to disappoint.

The kind of drive they did in this park was very different to Kruger. And while my inner conservationist hates it, my inner tourist/wildlife freak loves it. The lodge we stayed at had its own park and drivers. This is where we went for the night game drives. And this is where we got very, very lucky. The big difference is that instead of having one straight road through the park, you follow 4x4 trails that criss cross all over. This means better chance of running into animals. Secondly, they have  a tracker at the front whose entire job is to look for tracks and animals and find them. Thirdly, they are not adverse to some bush bashing.

When we jumped in the truck, the guide had already been told about our situation. He knew we wanted to see lions, and he knew this was our last chance. So he delivered. During the day I had learned the the Shono word for lion is Ngala. And this is what we kept hearing over the radio when we set out. I was up the front with two other girls and we were very excited. As we got closer our excitement grew. When we turned off the track, they squealed. And when I pointed out the first flashes of gold in the grass, I lost circulation in my arms. We finally found them. The king of the jungle and his three companions, snoozing in the tall grass. I had finally seen lions in Africa. And they were magnificent. I can't describe what it meant to me, so I won't try.  I could have stayed there all night. But I'm glad we didn't.

After about 15 mins, we had to move. We had to make room for another car, and some of the people were getting bored. It is true that the lions were sleeping and therefore not moving. So we moved out. And just as we were finally calming down, we turned a corner and saw a cheetah. Now this was totally unexpected. I didn't even know there were cheetah in the park. earlier in the day when the desperate half of my brain was compiling lists it didn't even mention cheetah. Or if it did, it was quickly discarded as too fanciful. Like the leopard, I hadn't even dreamed of seeing one, as they are both rare and scarce. But she was out and about, and even more, she was hunting. You could see it in her pose, she was out looking for food. We followed her for a bit, and then she did the most amazing thing. She walked up to the top of a small hill and sat on top. We sat in the car in awe, while she sat atop her termite throne with the evening sky behind her, posing like she was on the cover of National Geographic.

This for me would have been enough for the evening. I was already glad just to have seen the lions with the cheetah an added bonus. But Africa was putting on a show. So just as we thought we were heading back, we turned another corner and there were three lionesses, resting right beside the track. These girls were magnificent. And before where there had been grass and distance between us, now there were only a few short feet of air. After several minutes of yawning, the lead female got up. Her daughter followed. Her second daughter was not so eager, rolling on the ground, for all the world saying '5 more minutes mum'. But she didn't wait and eventually the three of them walked off along the road. We followed them a short way, but they walked off into the dark, and we had to return home.

From crushing disappointment of a simple wish denied, to the overwhelming sense of your dreams surpassed a few short hours. Africa could be cruel but she could also be kind.

Adventure Time

The second half of my South Africa trip was adventure time. We spent the next two weeks touring around South Africa, doing all the things tourists love. And here Africa taught me some more humility.

After two weeks in the South African bush with only small herbivores to show for it, I was excited to get to Kruger NP. But first, we stopped in Blyde. Here, our first 'adventure' activity would be canyoning. We hiked, jumped and swam down the mountain, climbing through a cave, and scaling a few ladders. There were several cliffs we were required to jump off into water. I have said before that I am not a thrill seeker. This is still true. I did not enjoy those jumps. I made all of them, including the 14m jump at the end, however, it was not fun for me. The impact was tough, I got water in my ears, and I ended the day sore and tired, but not in the way I usually enjoy. It may have been my left over disappointment, but I didn't really enjoy kloofing. Something I did enjoy however came after lunch. We got back and had the option for going tubing after lunch. I had originally intended to go, but was tired and wet and didn't feel like getting even more wet. Plus it was raining. I almost pulled out. But I am so glad I didn't.

Tubing involves siting in a small, one person inflated tube and jumping into a river. This river had several sets of rapids in it. So it was most like a roller coaster than a boat ride. I loved every minute. Of all the activities we did, this was probably my favourite. I have always loved water, and this was just plain fun. Afterwards I was still sore tired, but now also battered and bruised, but this time it was a great feeling, knowing I'd done something I enjoyed so much.

Also, after being mammal free for two weeks, we were staring to see animals. I woke up the first morning and looked out my window to see a Nyala standing outside it. As we moved on to Kruger NP, we started seeing more. Our lodge was backed onto a wildlife park, and after putting away our stuff, we saw some giraffe outside. Seeing giraffe was especially exciting. During our two weeks in Masebe we had spent days driving around looking for giraffe, but never found any. Now they were right in front of us.

That evening we took a game drive, and quickly made up for all the missed time. In two hours, we saw more giraffe, some rhino, buffalo, wilderbeest and a leopard. The leopard meant a lot, especially to me. Leopards may not be scarce but they are rare. They are so good at camouflage and so shy, they are rarely ever seen. I had come to Africa hoping to see big cats, but really only expected to see a lion. I hadn't even dreamed of seeing a leopard. Sitting in the open car, with the weather finally cleared, watching the leopard through the bush, I knew it was a gift. Africa had shown me just how bad things could be. And now she was showing me her best. But it didn't last long.

Reflections

I went to Africa looking for animals and adventure. What I found was something else. i was very disappointed with out project in the beginning. Masebe has a very sad story. It was set up as a tourist attraction, but being very secluded and lacking all of the big five, it failed. The village stopped making money, and so to compensate, poachers started hunting in the reserve. By the time we were there, there were very few animals left. It was very difficult for me to do the work we were doing, performing habitat assessments, hoping to get the park re-established, when I knew it would probably never work. But a learnt a lot of things in those two week I probably wouldn't have if I was surrounded by animals.

We spent some time with the people in the village. It is a very sobering thing walking into a poor African village. the outskirts are always the worst because, as with any city, it is always the slums. Tins shacks smaller than my bedroom and dirt yards covered in trash were all around. Kids played with toys that were broken or made from rubbish. The dogs looked half starved, and the children were only a little better. As we walked closer, there were better houses, and then proper brick and mortar, not out of place in suburbia, complete with two car garage. A small donkey cart vied for space with the very few cars on the dirt road, and cows wandered between fields. To see real poverty in front of you is a hard thing. I do not come from a wealthy family, and in my early years, we would have been described as poor. But we always had clean clothes, fresh water and a tidy house. This was a new level. And this village would not be the worst.

Part of the purpose of this volunteer experience was education, mainly environmental. But it is impossible to deal with those issues in a place like that without touching on the very real issues of poverty and society. Consumerism is a big thing in 'western' countries, with endless cycles of the latest gadgets and toys and clothes. The environmental costs of those things alone are staggering, but when put in contrast to these people with what we would consider almost nothing, was confronting.

I came to Africa to see the animals, and while they would come later, what I gained from those two weeks was irreplaceable and unexpected. I new determination fired by the inspirational people I had met, a new, healthier respect for nature as a whole was founded, and most importantly, I left with a new understanding of these people, their culture and my own life. I gained new perspectives. And I think that is the most valuable thing you can get from travelling.

Dangerous Things

There is an old joke that people use when referring to Australia. They say everything here can kill you. That isn't true, but it is reasonable to admit there are a large number of unlikely things here that could produce a painful, agonising death. But we have nothing on South Africa.

Not only did you have to contend with the snakes, spiders, scorpions, crocodiles and sharks that make Australia so hazardous, but there were the other obvious dangers, such as leopards and lions. But what makes Africa truly formidable are the trees. In the land of large herbivores, every tree has some form of defence. And the most popular one is thorns. Thorns, everywhere. One particularly nasty tree has developed thorns that curve backwards like a cat, and so if you accidentally walk into one, you can't walk out in a hurry. Or in any other direction for that matter. This made crawly through the bush measuring and sampling trees a particularly hazardous experience. Even the grass had razor sharp edges.

Not only the plants, but the insects were out to get us. During our orientation talk, our guides mentioned scorpions, and told us to wear shoes at night. And being newly off the plane, we did. However after a few nights, not seeing or stepping on anything, we became lazy. After two weeks, most were skipping shoes entirely, though some still wore their thongs.

In South Africa, their is a particularly nasty arachnid called a solifuge which is neither spider nor scorpion, but runs around with absolutely huge pincers on its front. They can easily draw blood and are very painful. So you can imagine, no one was very happy when I walked into the conference room and pointed out one running around the floor. No one had shoes, and so everyone was promptly standing on the table. After two failed attempts of getting it out the door, I went to enlist help. As we were returning, we saw the solifuge running out the door towards us. Followed by an enormous scorpion. Followed by another, even bigger, solifuge. It was a very tense few minutes standing in the dark looking for them. Closer examination of the scorpion showed very small pincers and a very large tail. If you are even confronted by a scorpion, hope it has large pincers. A nip may hurt and the sting is excruciating, but you won't need to rush to hospital. As it was, the one we encountered could easily send you to hospital, possibly kill you screaming. It was our last night in the bush, but Africa made it memorable.

In a Drought

My firs day in africa, I woke up at dawn shivering, hearing strange bird calls in the trees. Our orientation meeting in the morning, performed by our two guides, Gareth and Jacks, was interrupted by a few huge shongololos (millipedes) and a large colony of ants. I took this as auspicious start. I was wrong.

It turned out that the project we were put on was working in a game park. But this park had no or very few, animals.  As a zoology student, I had come here to gain practical field experience in studying animals. As it turned out the perfect project for this was being run in Swaziland. I was very disappointed when I found this out. Actually, crushed may be a better word for it. It was even worse when we met up with them two weeks later, and had to listen to them talk about all the animals they had seen, including a close encounter with a lion, the animal that had led me to Africa. However, after the original animal envy wore off, I realised I'd been given an amazing opportunity.

As I have said, I came to africa for the animals. It sounds terribly selfish, but I didn't have much interest in the culture or the people. So when I was sent to an area with limited wildlife, I was devastated. And then I was forced to pay attention.

When I say animals, I really mean mammals. And by mammals I mean, things bigger then a rabbit. I have no interest in plants, and only a limited interest in birds, reptiles and insects. I had come to the land of the big cats. The last thing I expected to care about was birds. But with no large mammals in sight, and with several serveys revolved around the plants and birds, I had no choice but to learn. And I realised how closed minded I had been.

The people in our camp helped a lot. Caroline was a walking legend. She could identify a bird by its flight pattern, it call or by where it was. She knew the names of all the trees, an could tell apart ones that looked identical to me. She had an amazing eye. Driving along the dirt road back from the park between two massive cliffs, she slammed on the breaks and pointed up the cliff. She told us there were two cliff springers up there. After much searching and zooming with the binoculars, we saw two tiny dots high up on the cliffs that, even through binoculars, were hardly identifiable as any other than rocks.   She was amazing.

Hen was also an inspiration. She started in England doing studies on wild boars, and then came to africa to volunteer in a baboon shelter. Now, she was working with the community attempting to education them about the environment. She has the kind of life I'd like, and has the most amazing stories to go with it.

These two people showed me what it could be like, living and working in Africa. Over two weeks, I slowly learned about the birds and the trees, and developed a much greater respect for all of nature. But it was the insects you really had to look out for.

Into the Jungle...

If there is one place I have always wanted to go, it is Africa. I may have spent my teens dreaming of Europe, but I have spent my life following a career which will, hopefully one day, see me working there. If Paris was a dream, then Africa was an ambition.

Four and a half months after I walked off a plane, my Australian Adventure complete, I was walking onto another one, determined to start my African safari. I was booked with a program to volunteer in a South African game park, doing, what I imagined, was important conservation work. It was going to be my dream come true. I have often heard that Africa is littered with broken dreams. I don't think that's really true. I think maybe it just changes them, makes them something real. Africa changed me. Just not in the ways I expected. I guess that is one truth you can hold for all travels. It will never be what you expect.

I woke up at 2am for my 5am flight to Sydney. We left Sydney at 10am, having gathered most of the group, and spent 14 hours on the plane. After waiting another 2 hours on our arrival, we got on a bus for another 6 hours to reach our destination. By the time we arrived, it was midnight, and I had been awake for 32 hours, due to my inability to sleep on transport. The fact that I didn't have a bed when I arrived momentarily threatened to cause me to collapse on the floor in the middle of camp, whether to sleep or cry could be debatable. But a blow up mattress was quickly found a squeezed into one of the huts, and I was asleep.

I remember a few hazy things from my first few hours, in my semi-concious sleep deprived state as we drove to our camp. The first would be the light. The quality of the light was very gold, and very pretty. Even at midday it was slanted. The second came when we stopped at a service station along the way. A truck was parked there, with several cars on its back. After watching it for a bit I realised there were people sleeping in the cars on the truck! The guides assured me this wasn't totally normal, but later experience suggests that it possibly is. The third thing I saw was when the bus slowed to let a small animal get off the road. I later learned it was a genet. As the animal lover I am, this is what I had come to Africa for, and I was very excited. This very brief introduction probably sums up South Africa quite nicely. Its natural beauty, its people and its wildlife. It was the last I had come to see, but it was the second which had the greatest impact.

Crossing the Desert

I love my country. Not the politics or the figurative national identity, but the actual country.Dorothy Mackeller said it best.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains
Of rugged mountain ranges
Of drought and flooding plains
I love her far horizons,
 I love her jewelled seas
Her Beauty and her terror
A wide brown land for me

Travelling across Australia was one of the best experiences of my life. Once we left Adelaide, the real country began. We stopped overnight in Quorn a small town in the middle of nowhere, which has three pubs and 1 general store. We walked on the train tracks, we walked down the street, there was very little traffic to compete with. Further north and we were driving through desert, so flat and empty it was hard to remember the 22 million people on the continent. We walked across salt lakes, enjoying the optical illusions they make, and marvelled at the dust clouds caused by the occasional car. Yes they really do that.

Two parts to this trip made it truly special. The first was the company. Aussies have a bad reputation for never travelling their own country, and while I can honestly say there were a few of us on the bus, we were largely outnumbered. Some of those people turned into of the best friends I've ever had, and some of the best people I've ever met. It also made it interesting, to be able to see my country through their eyes. For me, I was not surprised by the desert. I'm not sure if it was me being Australian, or if it was that I already knew a fair bit from my parents that the absoultely desolate parts make up the majority. I didn't see anything I didn't expect. But for the others, from Germany, Belgium, France, they lived so closely and their countries so populated, that to see so much space with no people around was a shock. One of my friends couldn't get over the fact that in the state of South Australia, there are only two million people. There are more than that in the capital of almost every European nation.

The second part of the trip was that I was absolutely content. We may have had our dramas, but I was on the road, driving across the country I loved and somewhere I had never experienced. I'd seen rolling green hills, and lofty mountain peeks covered in snow, I'd seen cities, both modern and ancient, but I had never been in a desert. I've said before I was made for heat, and while it wasn't exactly hot, the warmth and openness of it suited me. New Zealand made me feel claustrophobic with mountains on all sides. The deserts made me feel free.

I had many great adventures. Our bus blew a tyre somewhere on a cold lonely road surrounded by sheep. We got dropped off, again in the middle of nowhere in the dark to walk around Uluru and catch the sunrise. I spent a night shivering uncontrollably in a swag, unable to sleep for fear of freezing. I watched the sunset from on top of a mine in Coober Pedy, one of the strangest towns in existence, with two of the best people I've ever met. I was heartbreakingly miserable, and euphorically happy. I swam under waterfalls with crocodiles and jumped off cliffs. I kayaked through Katherine Gorge, and I conquered Heart Attack Hill. I made friends I liked so much I cried when we had to say good bye. A feat that had not been repeated before or since. Possibly the greatest lesson I learned from that trip was that travelling truly is something I love. I have never been happier than I was on that trip, whether it was climbing a mountain, or just sitting on the bus with some amazing friends, content to just keep moving over the horizon.

The Land Down Under

It didn't take long after my return from Europe for me to start longing for another adventure. I once again tried to organise a trip overseas with a friend, this time to China, but bad timing and my parents worries prevented it from happening. Instead I made a decision that I have come to be very grateful for. I decided that before I went off overseas again, I would explore some of my own country.

I have seen a fair bit of eastern Australia, having been part of numerous family field trips around Queensland and once, down to Sydney. I had family up north in Townsville and Cairns and so was familiar with the northern half of my state. But I had never been down south, or much further west that Warwick. When I wrote the three places I most wanted to see in Australia, I came back with the Great Ocean Road, Uluru and Darwin. So I set off for a big trip coving half of my country, taking three weeks and covering the best part of 6000km.

My first stop was Melbourne. I have often complained that our cities do not compare to Europe for their variety of activities, nor their culture. Melbourne is excused from this. It is a very pretty city, though being Winter, I didn't see it at its best. The trams make a convenient way to get around the city and there is a lot of sandstone. Even by Australian standards, Brisbane is a young city, and I think suffers for it.

I spent three days in Melbourne. It was the first time I had ever travelled alone. I was in a strange city hundreds of k's away from anyone I knew and a little out of my comfort zone. But I had a great few days. And then I continued my travels, joining a tour that would take me from Melbourne, all the way up to Darwin.

The first few days of that tour were amazing. We took the Great Ocean Road and were just in time to catch sunset over the Twelve Apostles. I did my first proper hike the next day. I have done hiking in the past, and that has always meant to me, following a well worn path, usually through rainforest, usually up or down a hill. This was a different kind of hiking. We were climbing rocks, with no real path but a arrow painted sporadically on rocks pointing the way. We passed close to dangerous looking drop offs and precariously balanced boulders. It was almost dark on the way up, and even worse on the way down. But it was the start of my real adventure tour, one which would leave me with a deep respect for my country and an even greater thirst for adventure