91Pro

Final year students at 91Pro have returned from the trip of a lifetime to ZuluLand, in the KwaZulu Natal region of South Africa.

The field trip with a difference is open to all animal, zoology and wildlife students, and is organised by .

It involves one week each in two reserves and reflections on the first week, in Nambiti Game Reserve, can be found here.

In this blog, Dr Ellen Williams, Senior Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Welfare, looks back at the second week in Zingela River Safari.

After completing the beautiful walk through the African bushveld and seeing lots of cows in the community land, we were extremely excited to see the stunning camp that is Zingela awaiting our arrival. 

The only thing between us and an ice-cold drink from the bar was the Tugela river.

This year, owing to some heavy rainfall before we came, the river was really roaring! It was quite incredible to see. The little bit of sandy beach we stood on last year was now ankle deep. We saw the boats launch as the guys did battle against some serious waves!

Thankfully, they are extremely talented and they ploughed through the waves before pushing up the river to meet us. We piled in approximately eight per boat. This was officially the start of our second week, and the students were excited for what was to come!

_{We were shipped across the river towards the camp on the other side, the adventure was about to begin! (Photo credit: Andy Cherrill)} 

Getting to the other side we realised we’d left a member of our group behind!

Halfway down our walk we had been given a stick to take with us for the week - the idea being that the stick follows your groups’ journey and gets involved in all of the tasks and at the final goodbye the stick is burned at the last campfire. We named our stick ‘Vicky’ and then we apparently promptly abandoned her to her fate on the far side of the river! 

We were shown to our respective homes for the next week, there was lots of ‘wow’, ‘this is beautiful’ - the true Zingela charm!

After swift unpacking, hot showers and full body searches for unwanted passengers (ticks!) we were thrown our first challenge, a cooking challenge to be precise! We had to cook our own dinner using a cauldron pot, locally called a potjie, on a campfire. There were a range of foodstuffs and we had to light our fires AND cook edible food.

Not a small challenge - but the students dived into this, with dinner on night one  cooked by themselves! 

_{Everyone hard at work in camp! (Photo credit: Michael Anker)}

On our first full day we kicked off with a lecture from Scotty.

He has been living in South Africa for many years now but still carries the trademark Scottish accent that comes from someone with such a name.

He talked to us a bit about bush safety – and introduced us to the golden rule of ‘learn the things that can do you harm - and then only worry if you know the thing you have found’ and showed us some of the spiders and snakes we might be lucky enough to encounter.

At the end of his talk there was a chance to handle some of the snakes he had bought with him. This would turn out not to be the only encounters with snakes during the week, we got to see multiple boomslangs and a spitting cobra - incredible! 

_{One of the students handling a harmless mole snake which had been brought in by Scotty (Photo credit: Michael Anker)}  

After a quick comfort break it was on to another talk from Scotty, this time about fish species.

He told the students a bit about the fish monitoring project at Zingela. Then we had a chance to try our luck at catching fish to see if they had already been tagged.

It was a case of ‘if at first you don’t succeed, keep trying’ - although even the most persistent students didn’t manage to catch anything. They did, however, absolutely nail the throwing the fishing net technique. 

_{Practice makes perfect! One of the students mastering the art of casting the fishing net!}  

The afternoon was more water time… this is when the fun really began - whitewater rafting down the Tugela river! Woah, what a rush!

It wasn’t for everyone, and some students opted for a more relaxing time at camp. But for those that went, they faced a roller-coaster ride down the river, a great opportunity to see things from a different angle.  

After an exhausting first day, our next day was thankfully at a bit of a slower pace.

We had a couple of lectures throughout the week, which was really useful to help to set the scene for the activities we would be doing.

Shay, our trip lead for the week, spent some time introducing us to the giraffe in the reserve and going through the giraffe ID guide.

Once we were armed with the knowledge, we set out for a bush walk to find and ID giraffe.

There are more than 150 giraffe at Zingela and so keeping track of them can be hard.

Not all of them are included in the ID guide so the task here was to try to take as many photos as possible of the giraffe we saw. It’s amazing how difficult it is to get them to strike the perfect pose! 

 _{Giraffe monitoring on the reserve involved trying to capture different sides of the giraffe to create individual identification cards (Photo credit: Andy Cherrill)}

In the midst of the walk we were presented with a truly wonderful surprise – giraffe calves… and giraffe calves who had yet to be named!

The students named the first one Shadow, due to his dark facial markings, and the second one Harper.

_{Harper on the left and shadow, named because of the dark markings on his face (hiding behind the bush!) on the right (Photo credit: Toby Price)} 

We were settling into life in the new camp.

The next few days were a mixture of beautiful sunshine and heavy rain, which sometimes meant we had to hide under the cover of the restaurant area at camp.

Sunday was very much one of these days.

In the morning, a small group of hardy travellers went out and checked pitfall traps with Arion.

Every morning and afternoon he was checking the traps, making a note of what he caught and then taking weight and length measurements. Arion was using these data not only to just tell him about the species present, but also the direction of travel, v cool!

Over the course of a few days we saw lots of great things including a male albany flat rock scorpion (Hadogenes troglodytes) and quite a few common rain frogs (Breviceps adspersus), alongside a number of different species of beetle.

We then had a talk from Arion about the different scorpions and spiders we might find whilst we were there, and the students had an opportunity to handle a few that he keeps in his private collection. 

_{A beautiful male albany flat rock scorpion that was found in the pitfall traps at Zingela – you can tell how dangerous a scorpion is by looking at the size of the pincers in comparison to the tail! This scorpion was quite happy to walk across our hands! (Photo credit: Ellen Williams)}

 _{For comparison, this was a thick tailed scorpion which was found at Nambiti game reserve during the rock flipping – the tail was significantly larger than the pincers in these case! (Photo credit: Ailsa Miller)} 

 _{My personal favourite, a common rain frog! (Photo credit: Ellen Williams)}

After that it was all hands to the pump, we had serious manual labour to do!

The group split into two and one group went to do some invasive plant control. The plant in question was prickly pear.

The fruits can be used to make a beautiful sauce - but the spines are incredibly painful if you end up with them in your finger.  

 _{A prickly pear fruit! We spent a good few hours digging these out! (Photo credit: Charlie Wanstall)} 

Prickly pear is exceedingly difficult to eradicate because it grows from just the tiniest bit of leaf, so every last bit has to be collected after it has been hacked back. It’s actually quite a therapeutic process though!

It was really great to be back in that area because last year I had been with a group that had done invasive plant control around that patch and there was still a really large area that was cleared - I’m hopeful that this control method is going in the right direction!

The second group were digging some pit fall traps closer to the camp. These were going to be added to Arion’s monitoring process.

The plan was to swap over in the afternoon and have a go at the other activity but rain stopped play!

_{The weather may have stopped play but the food was always sensational thanks to the amazing kitchen team at Zingela (photo credit: Michael Anker)} 

Our second to last full day got brought up many times as a highlight on the last night.

Thanks to generous funding from GAP Africa Projects, the students had another incredible experience - this time they were offered the opportunity to go into the community and help Jenny (a state veterinarian and member of the Zingela team) and her colleague deliver vaccinations to a number of goats.

There was such a buzz at camp in the morning, with everyone excited for what the day had to offer!

We drove out of the reserve and met Jenny outside a school at the edge of the reserve.

From there, it was just a short drive to the first farm.

The students were split into groups: those happy to herd and catch; those happy to draw up injections; those who could deliver injections; and those to help Jenny with treating goats with conditions that needed some additional care.

We also had an additional person to count out the goats which had been vaccinated. Everyone got to have a go at whatever they were interested in and it was awesome to see everyone getting so stuck in!

 _{Just some of the many goats who were caught, given a quick health check and vaccinated (Photo credit: Ellen Williams)}

A few students are from farming backgrounds so they made catching a goat look easy - I can confirm it is a skill!

The first farm was easier because the goats were kept in a small corral.

The second farm we visited, the goats were running in a field so there was the added challenge of herding them BEFORE catching them!

Peter (Owner of Zingela) and Jenny’s nanny had made some beautiful flapjacks -they call them crunchies - which were much needed and very much appreciated!

All told, we vaccinated more than 400 goats and sheep that day!

The funding from GAP Africa enabled the team to purchase the equipment needed to do this and the labour provided by the students meant lots of benefits to the farmers.

If you know anyone who is wanting to get rid of any out of date but still usable veterinary equipment - it would be very much welcomed for these sorts of projects!  

_{One of the goats being restrained for vaccination – goats could either be held on their side to be vaccinated or standing up, depending upon the size of the goat and where they seemed most comfortable (Photo credit: Andy Cherrill)} 

 _{All of the goats were checked over and vaccinated (Photo credit: Andy Cherrill)} 

 After showering the scent of goat and dirt off, a trip was made to feed the wild pigs on the reserve. A great end to an incredible but exhausting day!

_{The pigs are always grateful for left overs from the kitchens, alongside some grain – this practice also helps to ensure no food is wasted! (Photo credit: Charlie Wanstall)} 

There were a lot of sore bodies on the final day -muscles people did not even know they had were activated!

It was a slightly slower morning.

Some people went out to do the final check of the pit fall traps and then after breakfast we all went out on the reserve to collect in the camera traps. Some went on foot and some in the car – the people on foot had an amazingly close encounter with the giraffe, capturing some stunning photos!

Back at camp we reviewed the footage – identifying giraffes that had been seen over the preceding few days.

After a good lunch some brave students joined Jugs for abseiling... down a 28 metre cliff face! Wow!

The views from the top were stunning and lots of fears were faced as they made their way down, with many of the students reflecting on how pleased they were with themselves that they had taken the plunge!  

 _{The view from the top – 28m of height brings with it good views! (Photo credit: Georgia Atkin)} 

_{Smiles all round from this hardy crew! (Photo credit: Georgia Atkin)} 

 That evening brought the biggest thunderstorm of the two weeks.

There is nothing quite like a South African thunderstorm and seeing the rain coming down and the lightning flashing over the river was an experience that will stay with those students for a long time! 

_{When there wasn’t a raging storm, the evenings were spent around the campfire – mulling over the day (photo credit: Michael Anker)} 

Before the storm came one of the members of staff had very kindly headed across the river to retrieve Vicky for us.

On our final morning, Peter and Toby spent time chopping Vicky up into pieces.

We had one each, and as we threw bits of Vicky into the river, we reflected on what an incredible week we had had here.

Whilst there was a feeling of some people looking forward to their home comforts, there wasn't one person that wasn't going to miss the beauty of South Africa.  

Before writing this I asked the students if they had any thoughts about their journey. These couple of quotes really summed up the conversations we had during the last two weeks: 

• 'A truly inspiring and humbling experience amid nature and those who dedicate their lives to serve it' - Michael Anker 
• ‘Would definitely recommend this trip to anyone considering it in the future... ‘I’d do it all again in a heartbeat’ - Charlie Wanstall 

Thanks to GAP Africa Projects and all of the staff at Nambiti Game Reserve and Zingela River Safari for a truly unique and life-changing experience!