The Kirks

The phone went off at 6am and we threw on just about all the clothes we owned and headed to the main lodge for a  quick coffee and then we were off for our first early morning game drive.  It is really cold in the morning but it’s a good opportunity to see the animals as they laze around in the early morning sun trying to warm up.  We didn’t really know what to expect when we turned down a trail and saw a cheetah with four cubs.  We must have taken 100 photos and many more of them will appear in the photo album when it’s uploaded.  It was a fabulous sighting of cheetah.  They sunned themselves for a while and then wandered past our truck without really seeming to bother much.  It’s very odd that small but vicious animals like warthog bother cheetah but a 16 foot Toyota land cruiser seems not to bother them.

After about an hour, they wandered off into a field and away from where we could follow them so we decided to look for lions instead.  Our ranger and tracker left us in the truck while they tracked the lions on foot but didn’t find the lions although they found a lot of tracks.  We stayed in the truck and pretended it was just like being on the BBC show “Safari School“.

Then it was back to the forest lodge for more food!  They do a fabulous “bush breakfast” at the lodge and after a cold morning on the truck, it’s very welcome.  The area around the lodge is infested with vervet monkeys which take every opportunity to steal your breakfast.  Although they’re very cute, the staff get really annoyed with them.

At 11am, we left Phinda to go to the local community town.  CC Africa have been involved in ground breaking projects with the local community across almost all of their lodges.  They put in water, build schools and clinics in conjunction with the government and also provide a huge amount of local employment.  Phinda employs 300 people and with a 10 to 1 dependent ratio, they support nearly 3000 people.  However, CC Africa used to rent the land of Phinda from a land owner.  As part of a revolutionary new scheme which has been negotiated for about 7 years, today was the day where Phinda was handed back to the local people.  It’s approximately 200m Rand worth of land which has been returned to the local community.  We were there for the ceremony where the government minister, Chief Buthelezi and just about every other dignitary in the region was there.  We sat in a huge tent with 2000 local people listening to (long) speeches and watching a great deal of extremely happy dancing.  It’s a good thing and is also a model for how the land can be return to its rightful owners in a controlled and managed way.  The local people will rent the land to CC Africa and will benefit hugely from the rental income.

We went back to the lodge in time for the afternoon game drive.  Once again, there were a huge number of animals to see.  The first thing we came across was a white rhino with a tiny baby.   They can’t see at all but they get very nervous of sounds and smells.  The rhino don’t really bother too much with the people eventually and so they just wandered off following a herd of wildebeast. These animals are big and scary looking.  Seemingly they’re dangerous and can charge trucks and people without much provocation.

Then we saw the tracks of the two lions that we’d been following the day before.  They were dozing in the grass and generally doing not much except yawning and washing themselves.  Like the cheetah, they didn’t seem to be much bothered by us in the truck.  One of the young lions had had a run in with a buffalo and had a huge scar down one side and according to John (our fabulous ranger) the other one had nearly died as a result of a viral infection.  The two brothers had been driven out of the pride so they have to find their own food unlike the leader of the pride who gets to lie around while the female lions get the food. Eventually, after a lot of yawning and scratching the lions wandered off into the bush looking for something to eat.

We drove back out of the bush and at various times we were very glad of the four wheel drive.  Driving is a pretty exciting adventure when you’re driving over trees and through thorny acacia trees.  Just down the track we came across a herd of about 30 elephants who were rumbling around in the brush generally making a big noise and being annoying and destructive.  One of them started to charge the truck but then stopped. 

Phinda is about 25,000 ha and it can support about 100 elephants just because they have such a big impact on the environment.  Sometimes they have to be culled because there’s no where for them to go.  According to John, many of the game reserves trade animals to keep the genetic diversity high but there’s just no market in trading elephants and lions.  There’s too many of them.  Which, in some way, is a tribute to the success of conservation projects.

After the elephants, it was time to stop and have more biltong and gin and tonic as a sundowner.  This is a great tradition.  After a couple of gin and tonics, a drink of hot chocolate and a belt of local brandy the cold of the night drive doesn’t seem too bad.

There wasn’t too much to see on the night drive except for some bushbabies which were hanging out at a water hole.

 We got back to the lodge around 7.30 and they’d arranged to have dinner in the boma.  A roaring open fire, fabulous food and endless wine made for a great evening.   We shared a table with John and an American couple called John and Nicole. They were extremely interesting and easy to get on with.  They had been on safari for four weeks and so had a lot of great stories and were just about to get in a tiny Fiat car and drive to Mozambique for diving.  Brave people.

6am seemed like it was going to arrive pretty quickly so we headed off to bed around 9.30.  Another great day and it’s amazing how much we’ve done since we got here 48 hours ago.