South Africa Email 2

Week three brings new experiences and animals as we head off to the mountain camp to do research on small mammals. Kelly and I decide that 5 people and supplies in the back of the pickup truck (Bucky as it is called here) is a little much to for the drive so we rent a car for the trip. Also, we plan a diversion and sightseeing on the return trip. Our car arrives and we meet the remaining group along the way in the closest town – Houedspruit. We find a lovely café and spend a little time on the internet catching up on everything before meeting everyone else to follow the truck up to the cottage. Our travel to the mountain takes an hour or so from Houedspruit and we travel some 2000 meters up on the local escarpment.

The local mountains are known as the Drakensberg’s. The Drakensberg’s hold one of the greatest river canyon’s in the world - Blyde River Canyon. Blyde is largest green canyon in the world (meaning it has vegetation up to the summit) and the 3rd largest canyon behind the Grand Canyon in the US and the Fish River Canyon in Namibia. The drive is beautiful as we slowly get a bird’s eye view of the flat top peaks that we have enjoyed every day since arriving at Karongwe. The escarpment face that we see from base camp is the northern boundary of Blyde River Canyon. As we make our way up the canyon we see cows and farmers along with logging trucks even a small saw mill.

Once we reach a small saddle between two of the main ridges we find the small but beautiful cottage which will be our base for the next 4 days. We unpack and immediately head to the garden to admire the view and take pictures. This place has a view to the south of Blyde Canyon and the Lowveld to the north (base camp). We take pictures of the views and the local flowers among which are 12 foot high poinsettia trees. I never knew they grew to such heights.

Soon after unpacking we load the truck with small mammal traps and are off to set them. We use the traps to seed three spots on the mountain that have been determined in conjunction with facility at South Africa University. GVI works with several renowned scientists to determine the best research protocols and locations on the mountain from which to gather data. We actually travel from the cottage into a part of the canyon that was formerly a military base - Mariepskop.

Because Mariepskop was restricted as a military base, the local ecosystem holds unique plant and animal life and some of the only remaining virgin forest in this part of South Africa. Because Mariepskop was off limits it was partially saved from farming and the non-indigenous eucalyptus and pine that cover most of the remainder of the mountain. With a few hour of work we set our traps and return to the cottage for dinner and a quite night in the heavens.

Over the next three days we record the contents of the small mammal traps each day. We log size (length, weight, etc), species, and gender contained in the 80 traps on the mountain. After our daily routine we help establish new trap lines by taking GPS readings and marking the locations with danger tape. Future expeditions will use the new trap lines to continue the study in other parts of the mountain. The weather was not as friendly to us as the prior group as we have uncustomary cloudy and rainy days for the remainder of the mountain trip. No problem, we curl up with a good book in the cabin and stoke the fire.

That’s all for this installment. Next we will finish up our work at Karongwe and rent a car to explore Blyde River Canyon area and Kruger Park. Pictures can be found here. Some of them are a little ahead of the text here but we figure better to upload while we have the ability. For those following at home our schedule is posted again here. Hope all is well and your lives are a blessed as ours. Love to all.

Don & Kelly's Great Adventure – 2007 Africa - Travel Plans
May 3 – Fly from Houston to Myrtle Beach, SC for Olivia’s birthday. Will be staying with Kelly’s brother Greg.
May 10 – Fly from Myrtle Beach to London for short layover on the way to South Africa.
May 14 – Fly from London to South Africa; Stay one night in Johannesburg.
May 16 – Travel via bus to the game preserve / park. Will spend 5 weeks in the park tracking animals and habitat.
Jun 20 – Return to Johannesburg via bus; overnight in Johannesburg.
Jun 21 – Fly to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls; raft Zambezi River; and 4 day safari.
Jun 30 – Fly from Livingstone to Cape Town for shark dive and sightseeing over 5 days.
Jul 6 – Travel north to time share in the wine country for a week of R&R.
Jul 13 – Return to Cape Town; fly to Johannesburg then on to London.
Jul 14 – Visit with friends in England for two weeks.
Jul 30 – Return to Houston on Jul 31th – (Maybe)!