2 September - Tree Clearing (and few animals)

It was a cool morning when I awoke and there was a mist on the opposite side of the valley as I stepped outside from my room; the start of the day can be cold here at times. Today’s plan was for more tree clearing a mile or two from the lodge. We arrived at the area of mixed scrub and small pine, dismounted and unloaded the tools. I was just putting on my work gloves and looking for a decent saw when one of the rangers asked us in a voice of controlled urgency to get back on the vehicles; he had just seen a pair of lions about 30 feet from where we were to work. They had headed off on seeing him, apparently a young male and female and slightly under-confident about humans, but clearly this area would have to wait for another day. So it was off to an alternative site for more of the same. There are no great wooded areas here on the reserve but there are copses of trees spread throughout, the remnants of the days when this whole area comprised farms. The non-indigenous trees that the farmers introduced may have served a useful purpose then, but they outcompete and take more water than the indigenous trees so for the purposes of Shamwari they are not helpful.

We spent the morning clearing young trees across quite a wide area before heading for lunch and the usual afternoon of looking for animals. We found one of the buffalo herds, counted and accounted for them all and saw a few giraffes. After that we saw little. Today we had two guides with us. One was a tracker and spent time looking on the dusty trail for interesting prints to show us. The other was a botany specialist and told us interesting facts about the plant life we came across. Between them they proved there was so much more to see when you know what you are looking for and that the terrain has a rich story to tell you if you only know the language.

We returned to Madolo's reserve for dinner where we met the new arrivals. We have eight new people: a selection of British, Argentinian, French, Australian and German. Most of them slid away early after dinner, weary from their travels, and I sat with a glass of wine chatting with a few of my more seasoned colleagues before heading off to bed.