News Update from May 2005
We only had 5 students on this course and all of them were from overseas, 4 of them from the UK and 1 from Tanzania. Brian had already been working as a guide in Tanzania for a few years and so had a bit of a head start on the others as far as certain subjects were concerned. For some of the others it was their first time in Africa and everything was a highlight.
It was a successful course with all 5 students passing the course well. Most of the activities were restricted to the area close to the centre for a large part of the course as the game viewing land rover was out of action for a couple of weeks. This meant that we had fewer game drives at the beginning of the course. As a result the game viewing was restricted to a few sightings of general game, including giraffe, zebra and wildebeest. About half way through the course the elephant herds started to make the annual winter visits to the reserve and the students enjoyed some good sightings close to the centre
Once the vehicle was operational again we spent more time driving around the reserve and the viewing improved. We spent one morning tracking some fresh lion spoor along the river bank but to no avail in the end, although I am sure we couldn't have been far behind. We came across fresh buffalo, elephant and leopard spoor along the way too, so everyone's nerves were stretched particularly as we passed close to some reedbeds. I was waiting for the crashing eruption of some animal coming out but thankfully nothing occurred.
Some of the students enjoyed visits to the Kruger Park and also to Thornybush for one night. The thrills enjoyed by these students at the end of each weekend certainly reminds one why a trip to the Kruger Park is an opportunity not to be missed for those people coming half way round the world.
For the non-snake lovers it was a happy course as we only came across one snake in the whole 6 weeks. A vast contrast to the previous course when the snakes were highly visible and moving around looking for food before the winter months.
Letaba Ranch yet again proved to be a success. We recorded over 100 species of birds which for winter isn't too bad, including a couple of species we hadn't recorded there before. One of the best sightings was that of a honey badger in broad daylight going about his daily business on the far bank f the river and being totally oblivious to us. There were also huge pods of hippos which the students enjoyed watching.