Ulovane and Amakhala Game Reserve

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Ulovane and Amakhala Game Reserve

Work is work as they say but working for Ulovane has been unlike any work I’ve done before, no massive commute to the office - just a 30 minute walk across the farm and the only rush hour traffic is game viewers all converging on a cheetah sighting. Working with Candice and Schalk has been awesome it’s great to be able to use our skills to help such committed and genuine people. I hope that we have been able to help enough to help them fulfil their dreams in the same way that they have taught us some much about running a lodge and a business.

A Typical day consists of the following sorts of things:
• Morning walk with the students at 7am focus on birds and trees.
• Sandra helps with teaching and operations as well as all the food and beverage at the new lodge. I just plant aloes, move rocks and help build decks.
• Helping with finances and accounting, which I’m sad enough to enjoy.
• Game drive with students sometimes we also sleep out on the reserve.

Some of the pictures show you where we live, the animals and people as well as the snake which sometimes comes into the bathroom from the cold. Highlights have included:
• Darting buffalos - the picture looks good but believe me doing the rectal thermometer on a passed out beast is anything but enjoyable.
• Visiting the Born Free foundation which is on Shamwari across the road which rescues big cats.
• Meeting a celebrity in the form of Temba the elephant and Albert his sheep companion - he’s basically an orphan rescued at Shamwari who was a bit aggressive until he was given a new friend Albert the sheep to keep him company.

I’ve also done a bit of guiding for some of the lodges just odd days but it does allow me to put in a couple of decent photos of me changing landy tyres etc. Tomorrow we head off to Keetmanshoop to stay in the quiver tree forest, then from there on to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park for a few days in the deep Kalahari.

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