Butterboy!..... Tell us about your trip!

I am dying to hear!

It was the trip of a lifetime! I diddnt want to come home. I am currently going through pics and i will write a photo essay type deal recounting the trip to show all you guys.

Here is a little sneak peek though
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This is Melman the Giraffe. Abandoned by her mother she is now being hand-raised. This girl is already 7 feet tall and drinking 12 litres of milk a day!

Ooh, I can't wait!

Ooo me too! Sounds like a very exciting experience. Where did you go?

For all of you that do not know, I have just returned from a 9 week trip volunteering in South Africa. Needless to say it was the experience of a lifetime.

I spent my time at 3 different conservation projects. The first three weeks were spent at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre Just outside of Hoedspurit. The next month I spent at the Hanchi horse project near Alldays and my last two weeks in Africa were spent travelling around with Bundox Game capture and Limpopo Wildlife Vets.

Moholoholo Is the largest wildlife rehab in the southern hemisphere. Its primary goal is to release all the animals that come in, but sometimes that cannot be done. Those animals that cannot be released have a permanent home at the centre for captive breeding and education.  The volunteers at the centre spend most of the time caring for the residents that ranged from lions to mousebirds. While I was at the centre some notable residents were a 6 month old giraffe, 1 year old black rhino, 4 baby servals, a martial eagle chick, 2 grey duiker, 2 sable calves and a rock hyrax. On my daily rounds I was caring for servals, hyenas, owls, kites, eagles, vultures, duikers and bush babies. On my rounds alone I was feeding over 150 day old chicks per day. In addition to feeding and cleaning we also did some training of vultures, hawks and cheetah. On the weekends we often went on day trips. Two trips that I went on were the the famous Kruger National Park and the Blyder River Canyon. In Kruger we saw a wealth of wildlife including Wild Dogs, 2 leopards, elephants and hippo.  On the canyon boat  tour we look in the 3rd deepest canyon on earth and looked at the Drakensberg mountains that surrounded us. We saw crocodiles, hippos, monitor lizards and many birds on this tour.

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This is Zorro one of the baby servals
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Rock Hyrax that was at the centre
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Flower a Bushbuck that could not be released. She lives at the centre and greeted all the visitors
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Peter Pan one of the hippos that had been rehabilitated and released on the centres private reserve
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Squishy Bum one of the Bush Babies that were my "babies". I was responsible for most aspects of their care which included night time feeds and enrichment.
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SOme of the birds of prey what could not be released. From top to bottom: Bataleur, Brown Snake Eagle, African Wood Owl and Hooded vultures
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Xinandi a cheetah that had been hand raised and acted like a giant house cat
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Me waliking Bullet one of the ambassador cheetahs that visits local schools to teach about wildlife conservation
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Me feeding Ollie the Baby Black Rhino
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Nandi, one of the 3 lion cubs being raised at the centre
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One of the Sable calves. This animal is worth nearly $50000 and some have sold for many millions.
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Melman the Giraffe and Philimon the White Rhino out for a walk. The whathogs came along too!

I have got some more to write and plenty more photos to post! Should be done the next instalment soon.

Wow a trip of a lifetime, so glad you were able to volunteer and help out.
This would be my dream to do this...maybe when the kids are gone off to college.

Ooohhhh!  You bring tears to my eyes!  What a chance of a lifetime!  To walk a cheetah!  Wonderful!

After Moholo I moved way north th the town of Alldays. Here I was working at the Hanchi horse project. I also had an opportunity to do some work with the Zingela predator research project. At Hanchi they have a stable of 10 horses. Some are ex racers, some show jumpers, dressage and everything in between. Now all the horses are work horses that are used for game monitoring, game counts and tracking. Every day I would ride for 5-7 hours in the bush. Tasks varied from counting new babies in the Roan and Sable antelope enclosures, tracking hyena, checking fence lines, looking for evidence of poachers, tracking buffalo to simply exercising the horses. It had been a while since I had done some real riding but I settled right into the saddle by the end of the first day. The camp I stayed in was completely off the grid. We were in tents and there was no fence around the camp so any animal could walk through if they pleased. The game farm I was at was amazing. They have 14 different species of antelope, buffalo, rhino, giraffe, cheetah, brown hyena, leopard and the whole set of small mammals ranging from pangolin to porcupine. The bird life was phenomenal and you would literally see millions of birds a day, sometimes in flocks over 3000. On horseback you are able to get very close to the wildlife, much closer than if you were on foot or in a vehicle. I also got to join the predator project to track cheetahs using radio telemetry. Using this we were able to walk up on them and get within 15m of the cats. We saw them on a few kills and it was amazing! At this project we also got to teach a weekly conservation class at the local high school. I even got a job offer to work as a volunteer coordinator, so I think I know where I will be gong after uni!
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A Gemsbok Bull. These antelope are designed for the desert and can live without water
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One of the cheetahs we tracked
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Pangolin. These strange mammals are very rarely seen. I spoke to one guide who had spent the better part of 20 years in the bush and had never seen one.
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Pale chanting Goshawk. The birdlife was amazing. You could see 30+ different types in a single day!
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African Sunsets cannot be beat and they are even better with a glass of wine in hand. Sundowner drinks should become standard worldwide in my opinion.
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Cheetahs feeding on a fresh kill only 5 minutes from our camp

Whoa…talk about an amazing experience you will carry with you forever! Incredible!  Thank you for sharing some of it with us, along with your amazing pictures. I am in AWE.  

So, how did you get in on this Butterboy?  How do they 'recruit'?

Yeah! Sign me up!

What a fabulous experience you had! Share more....

That looks like a great retirement plan. I only hope I can handle it when I am 95.

Very cool!