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| Sunday, 14-May-2006 09:01 |
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How it works...
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"Office Equipment"
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"Connected"
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Just in case you didn't quite believe or understand when I described my internet connection... here are the photos (taken by my dad a few weeks ago) to prove it...  
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| Monday, 8-May-2006 12:00 |
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Excitement in the field
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My first week in the field, well 3 days actually. Lots of plant sampling but a few other exciting things as well...
My FIRST South African Wild Dogs!!!! I've seen them in Zim but never down here before 
We (me and my field assistant) spent a night at the Greater Olifants River Conservancy (western Balule)... a lovely sunset over the river 
On Friday our last 50m of sampling was to the accompaniment of lions... but we only bumped into rhino on the way home
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| Saturday, 6-May-2006 12:00 |
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Slicing the sky
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A double rainbow, both bows complete... 
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| Tuesday, 2-May-2006 12:00 |
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A few random photos
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Lion eyes (Thornybush... on foot!)
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Little Kariba (Timbavati)
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A shaky sunset... 23rd May 2006
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When I got home and turned on my camera, I realised that although I hadn't taken any in Jo'burg for that update, there were a few leftovers from before I went to Jo'burg... here they are
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| Monday, 1-May-2006 09:15 |
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A busy week
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In fact... so busy that I haven't taken a single photo! 
Have you noticed the date today? 01/05/06... 1 + 5 = 6
So what have I done... on Monday I drove through to Jo'burg... and that probably should explain everything else! A week in the big city 
Monday: a day of driving
Tuesday: a day of admin and the first time I watched Prison Break
Wednesday: a day of admin
Thursday: a day of avoiding work and a braai (it was a public holiday after all!!!)
Friday: a fascinating day at a conference, the Resilience Alliance Symposium, in Pretoria
Saturday: Dancing!!!!!!! then working and shopping and I watched Ice Age for the first time
Sunday: shopping and working and working and a housewarming party
And that's that! I'm off home tomorrow... until then it's work work work. I managed (so far at least ) to survive the big city... At the moment I'm sitting on campus, downloading pdfs... and it's a public holiday again  
Ah well!
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| Monday, 1-May-2006 08:22 |
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A few random photos from Nairobi
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A common transport method
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Sunset on the way to Karen
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Me and my LITTLE sister
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| Thursday, 27-Apr-2006 13:49 |
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The amethyst at Da Gama
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| Tuesday, 18-Apr-2006 12:00 |
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Easter Weekend at Da Gama
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A weekend of relaxing... and not much else! Good food... good wine... a beautiful place and a lovely dog...
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| Monday, 17-Apr-2006 12:00 |
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Bits and Pieces
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The most important event of the week… sometime in the morning of Monday, the phone lines came back!!!!! They were down for 10 whole days…
Monday
Reinvasion by the Swimming Skink
Several weeks ago I heard funny noises underneath my fridge, after investigation with a torch I found a skink. I couldn’t catch until a few days later after it gave me a big shock by hiding under my desk… I then evicted it with strict instructions never to do that again…
I was sitting, buried in a paper, working hard, being very quiet, when I heard funny noises underneath my fridge. Upon investigation with a torch you can guess what I found… the same skink… I decided there was not much I could do so I went back to my desk to keep working and hoped that he would leave.
Eventually he did… but the movement of a skink on a shiny concrete floor has to be seen to be believed! Normally skinks are fast movers, running over all sorts of substrates at all sorts of angles… but shiny concrete floors have them stumped. They end up using a swimming motion on their belly because they can’t get any grip whatsoever with their feet! It is very very amusing to watch 
Tuesday
Ummmm…
Well usually something happens each day… today I worked, and worked, and worked! I could write about the freak shower that soaked my nearly dry washing, or about the rutting impala ram that crossed my garden, or about my short walk to the gate to play with the GPS but they’re not very *interesting* stories! On the other hand, I did get a large amount of quality work done I’m working on my literature review this week so have stack of reading to do… I managed to get quite a way through one pile today
Wednesday
A Stormy Sky
Georgette decided to have a braai… the weather decided to change All day the clouds were getting thicker and thicker and darker and darker and from about lunchtime I could hear thunder way off in the distance. I had things to do at the office so headed over that side early. I remembered my rain coat… then left it in the car! Luckily it was a short storm, though it was incredibly heavy – the rain just bucketed down from the sky. Afterwards though the sky was stunning. Georgette lives up by the airstrip so there’s actually a good view from her house. We watched the sky and had a “fry” instead of a braai
Thursday
Pure Decadence
I’m a bit of a bookworm and it’s been a while since I sat down and just read a book… I borrowed a book from the “library” at the office and sat down Thursday evening to read it, at 5am on Friday morning I went to sleep
Friday to Sunday
Happy Easter!
But it didn’t matter about my late night because on Friday I was on holiday My parents came down from Kenya to deliver my mum’s latest commission. It was heading to the house of some family friends near Hazyview so I went down and joined them all for the weekend… more photos in the Da Gama update
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| Monday, 10-Apr-2006 12:16 |
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Sunsets and caterpillars (and a hornbill…)
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Sunset on Wednesday
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A weird kind of snakey-lizardey-caterpillar
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The punk of the caterpillars
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Why is it that mosquito bites always start itching just before you go to bed? they seem to have some sort of inbuilt itch timer to cause maximum annoyance and sleep deprivation… hmmmm…
So another week gone, it’s been quite an all over week and coming out of it I’m not entirely sure what I’ve achieved. I have managed to tick off some of the things on my to do list though so I must have done something…
Monday
Mainly an organising and working day. I had to go into Acornhoek to get money to pay my rent. I got a text message from Georgette first thing in the morning asking me to get a bucket with a lid… the ants had got into Cleo’s dog food and were having a party! The rest of the day I spent working on my method section. (I think something else happened but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was!)
Tuesday
Another working day but this one with some nice breaks scattered in. I found out over the weekend that I had managed to loose two papers from my MSc collection that I urgently needed. Luckily for me Georgette had digital copies! I went over in the morning to get those from her and to sort out a few other things. One of the people I needed to see had gone to Hoedspruit for the morning so I hung around working that side and then went to Georgette’s for lunch.
In the afternoon it was work work work and then a run with Eddie. There are now apparently (he told me she told me she told me someone told her) four leopards on the property – a female with three cubs – so our running routes have been drastically restricted. We decided to head across the road instead, into the communal grazing lands. There’s actually a nice loop that’s about the right length and it was much nicer than continually thinking about leopards!
In the evening Georgette came over for dinner, in return for the lunch she gave me She (and Cleo) were my first guests, kinda cool as it was from Georgette that I first found out about this place. We had pasta bake with roasted butternut discs and broccoli, Georgette brought a bottle of wine and we finished the meal with a few squares of chocolate… very civilized!
Wednesday
Now this was a day of new things, and absolutely exhausting! I met Mike, one of my supervisors, at the Kapama Cheetah Project and then went off to Timbavati for my first meeting with the wardens of the private reserves where I’m hoping to be working. It ended up being a 3 hour discussion of my project and how it fits in with what they’re doing but it seemed to go well. They’re all keen for the project to happen… now I’ve just got to get it past the people at the top.
After the meeting I headed into Hoedspruit for the first time… Georgette drew me a map the evening before so I knew where to find everything I headed first for the internet café she told me about… at this point it had been nearly 10 days since I checked emails so my inbox was rather overflowing. I ended up spending an hour and a half online… yikes! After that I went to Spar and found another internet café… turns out that one’s nearly half the price!
So… if you want internet in Hoedspruit, go to the internet café by Spar, not the one in the Kamegelo Centre!
However… there was a very nice email sitting in my inbox… those of you who have spoken to me in the last few weeks have probably heard me complaining mightily about the quality of the vegetarian food at the Kruger Network Meeting… For those of you who haven’t heard… it is horrific! I complained last year on the comment form, this year I complained every night and on the comment form. They sent me an email apologising!!!!!! On the comment form I also offered to help with the veggie catering next year… it sounds like they’ll take me up on it… could be interesting!
After such a hectic day it was really nice to sit and watch the sunset…
Thursday
I woke up feeling not too wonderful so had a chilled day working and sorting things out in my house. I had to get another proposal done… another different format for the private reserves. I had to send it off on Friday so that was mainly what I did!
The excitement on Thursday started when I turned out the lights and went to bed. There was an animal making the most amazing noises – it sounded like a warthog-impala-elephant mix… I later found out that it was a rutting impala! I was just getting used to this and falling asleep when there was a piercing whistle right outside my window. Of course by the time I got the torch on and the blind open there was nothing there… back to bed… it happened again, and again and again! Apparently this disturber of sleep is a reedbuck!
Friday
Yet another day of work… but I finished and sent off my private reserve proposal. I had my first experience of private reserve politics and received my first nasty email. It wasn’t a very fun few hours trying to sort that out but hopefully the situation is “fixed”. After that I didn’t feel like working so I started cleaning my car and making a poster for my MSc work!
When the call for sundowners came there was no way I was saying no Don, Eddie, Georgette and I went to the sundowner spot, watched a beautiful sunrise and decided to have pizza for dinner! I made the bases and they brought the toppings and we ate pizza for rather a long time… I have only one tray that fits in my oven… It was a nice way to end a not so nice day!
Saturday
A day off! I started by finishing the cleaning of my car… and wow it looks good! I still had some beach sand lurking inside and the outside was liberally dusted. It’s now gleaming Just as I was finishing up, Georgette texted to say she was going into Hoedspruit. I needed to check emails (the phone lines were, and still are, down) and to buy mosi repellent so I went along. We stopped at the deli as well for a while… a mixed berry yoghurt smoothie… delicious!
I came home with the intention of doing some cleaning and ended up taking a nap. I woke up later in the afternoon and decided to do dishes… I could see my car gleaming through the window and was happily washing dishes when… shock and horror! A hornbill (and a rather scruffy one at that) landed on my wing mirror… It got worse… he then went and sat on my windscreen wipers, admiring his reflection, picking bits out of the griddy bit at the top of the bonnet, fighting the windscreen wipers and performing the proverbial splat on my newly cleaned car! Grrrrrrrrrrr…… I didn’t like to chase him away so I took his photo instead, and a few short video clips of his antics ;o)
Sunday
Sunday… the end of the week! I slept late then finished cleaning my house and did some bits and pieces of work. Now I’m sitting typing this and soon I’ll be going to bed… a quiet day.
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