As can be seen from the exam results Antares continues to have an extremely good record with FGASA. Not all the students that attend Antares go on to write FGASA but those that do, tend to do very well.
This course went very well again and all but one of the students passed. 7 of them went on to write the FGASA exam and 6 of them passed and we wish them well.
This last course was made up of 1 South African, 1 ex-South African, 1 Zimbabwean and the rest were from overseas. Their reasons for doing the course were, as always, varied but some of them would like to consider continuing with guiding as a career. Their ages varied also from 18 to 52, which goes to prove that you don't have to be young attend the course.
One of the favourite activities during the course was our visit to the Swadini Reptile Park followed by a trip to the Abel Erasmus pass to view the rare Taita falcons and then to walk down into the gorge and take in the spectacular scenery of the area as well as the very different geology associated with the Drakensberg mountains.
As always the highlight of the course was the sleep out under the stars. On this particular course we were extremely lucky with our sightings. We had two days sleeping out under the stars and went on a long walk each morning. On both days we were fortunate enough to view buffalo and rhino. On the first day we had all the elements in our favour and were able to watch a crash of 4 white rhino for close to an hour without them realising we were there. At times the rhino were within 15m of our hiding place.
The second
day was a very different encounter with the same 4 rhino. This time
all the elements were in their favour and they smelt us long before
we could get too close. However they decided a closer inspection was
on the cards and this ended in 8 students and my wife scrambling to
climb the nearest trees, some with more success than others!! Fortunately
the rhinos turned at the last minute and ran off in the other direction,
after a few choice expletives being sent in their direction. The sleep
out finished on a high when we saw 4 lions as we left the reserve. Not
bad for one day-3 of the big 5. But that wasn't the end of the day.
That evening back at the centre we were treated to 2 elephant drinking
from our waterhole. And so ended a memorable course with 4 of the big
5 in one day to bid the students farewell.
We had many other memorable days on the course. We were joined at the
waterhole by a herd of 6 bull elephants the one day. Needless to say
the lectures took a back seat for half an hour as we watched them drinking
and feeding on the nearby trees. The next day we went of to the reptile
park and came back to a camp that had obviously been visited by the
same elephants in our absence. The next few days were spent cutting
up broken trees and clearing up in between lectures. The students also
spent many days helping to repair the leaking waterhole after the elephants
had cracked the concrete base.
The students had frequent sightings of zebra and wildebeest coming to drink at night as well as kudu and warthogs on a daily basis. All in all this was a successful and memorable course. It would be remiss of us to forget to mention "little Davie", one of our students best friends! Its a shame he's about to get squashed.
