South Africa 2014: No interweb for a few days

so here is the catch up

Wednesday August 20^th Mkhuze

OK – no idea when this will be posted as we have no interweb here @ the mo.

Began with 5 of us, but one went home on Tuesday so now we are 4: Sina who is German and has just completed her Master's, and a married couple of more mature years, Dominic who is French and his American wife Rebecca. They live in The States.

Yesterday – Tuesday – was “interesting”. The dogs are all in the south of the reserve, too far to travel backwards and forwards, so we camp out every second night (not compulsory) to monitor them.

First of all the telemetry went down, so we had to come back for a repalacement. Then there were 3 rhino in the road, who refused to move, so we had to take an alternative route and by this time we were already very late. If you don't get to the dogs by 5:30pm at the latest, they've gone and it's dark at 6.

Then there was the bush fire. Don't ask.

We finally reached camp at 7:30pm and stumbled into bed. There was a hyena very close as I went to sleep, but I don't know whether it actually came into the camp – which is unfenced. In any case, we all survived to see the pack at around 6:10am as they left to go hunting.

Friday August 22^nd 09:55

Oh, the bliss of a lie-in. No morning drive today, so I didn't emerge till 07:20. We all stayed behind last night, electing not to camp as the morning drive was very long. Left at 05:30 as usual, but didn't get back till 13:00.

We were looking for cheetah. Eventually, after a lot of fruitless driving around, Cole, our monitor, went into the bush and found two of the three we'd been tracking. We, of course, are not allowed to leave the truck as it's too dangerous, so for the second time in a week I absolutely did not see cheetah.

I have also failed to put up my mozzy net*. No malaria here, but there are mosquitoes and I have quite enough bites, thank-you. In addition to the mosquitoes, there are bush babies living in the roof and a gecko living in my bedroom. These are Good Things.

*Net now safely installed.

Small selection of latest pics: