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Published: November 18th 2008
The Eastern Cape is renowned for weird weather and this week we got it all, a tropical start to the week followed by 4 days of hard rain and cold conditions more like being back in the UK. It was miserable all the animals were hunkered down out of the rain and the problem here is that the set up is not geared for rain. The tent leaks, the sides of our lodge leaked and let’s face it driving around in an open topped vehicle is no fun. Well unless you happen to be driving it in which case trying to remain on the muddy roads and to get up steep hills is excellent fun.
As usual Monday was the new Friday and Alex and Chris decided on a little trip into Paterson to visit the pub, as there are no taxis and because they were all dressed up with no where to go I gave them a lift, obviously for petrol money as it’s an hour and a half round trip. Apparently the evening went well and they did manage to scrounge a lift to the front gate but having forgotten the key had to climb over it and
walk for 2kms through the reserve again. Our hosts were less than happy and gave them both a written warning, bit harsh but then there are more than a few animals about that could easily kill a drunken teenager.
Tuesday morning was wet and rainy but we managed to escape for once to the Addo reptile park. This was definitely an experience, Darren the owner and snake wrangler of note, proceeded to get all his reptiles out and hand them out like sweets. Soon everyone was covered in anaconda’s, pythons, boa’s, red lipped herald snakes, striped skaapstekkers (meaning sheep killer in English). He then got the real venomous stuff out to demonstrate why we shouldn’t fear snakes. This included handling cobras, a green mamba and sticking a rinkals (cobra with some serious venom) in his mouth - please see photo’s for our experience! We also had our own snake action with a large puff adder caught near the camp, in fact one of the instructors found it in her garden with her baby crawling after it!!
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At the end of it all I wasn’t half as scared of snakes as I used to be but was extremely afraid
of snake handlers. The highlight was him inviting us all into a croc pit and proceeding o haul them out by the tails hissing and snapping in an ode to Steve Irwin.
Friday a few of us went into Port Elizabeth to sit our SASETA rifle handing training which involved a day of lessons followed by a bit of shooting to prove you could hit a target at 7m with a silenced .22 complete with scope. Needless to say we all passed as it was significantly easier than brain shots on a moving lion target with a .375 H&H which kicked like a mule. Yet again Sandra proved to be a crack shot and managed to hit the target 5 times, with each shot overlapping the previous. Her target looked like one big hole, rather than my scattered attempt.
On Friday we also acquired a new camp mate in the form of Buttons (see pictures) a ginger kitten that lives at one of the lodges and was found at an elephant sighting as she likes to wander around the reserve. We rescued her and bought her back to deal with our mouse problem which has already cost people,
2 jumpers, one mobile phone charger, one laptop cable and a pink duvet (luckily none of it was ours). Buttons has already proven her worth with four confirmed kills over the weekend. In between times she has also been stalking our bushbuck and was spotted by one of the guides chasing a herd of impala, I think she has a bit of an attitude.
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