Our African Adventure

Waking up at 6am, while the kettle boiled I checked the camera traps. Unfortunately, even though they were pointed at the entrails of a wilderbeast there were no leopards or hyena, but I did manage to catch a giant bat and I’d also have to settle for filming a dung beetle. Which was quite fascinating.
Val had promised us a flight in his 2 seater plane if the weather was good and not long after finishing our breakfast he came and got us to see if we were up for a flight.
Of course we were, and on the way to the airstrip he showed us the porcupine den which was massive.
At the small hanger we filled the little plane with fuel, Val done the flight checks and we picked a flight order. Ellie was first, and after a quick safety briefing we pushed the plane out out of the hanger, Ellie climbed in, Val started the engine and off they went. A 30 minute flight over the Kalahari.
When they came back Ellie said she had cried because she was so happy and obviously this was a once in a lifetime experience.
I was next and as soon as we left the runway Val said he wanted some altitude and he pulled the nose up straight away and as he did he did a hard bank to the right and all you could see in every direction is desert. No houses, No people lots of trees and bushes and desert to fill the gaps. As we climbed higher a black horizon line appeared which were the trees and bushes merging in to a blur in the distance. It was very much like the thin blue line of oxygen you see from spacecraft photos between earth and space, only this was the thin black line of the Kalahari.
Becky went next, followed by Hilda and we all thoroughly enjoyed the flight, back on the ground we were all grinning from ear to ear and it was only 11 o clock in the morning.
Back at the ranch we all sat and played with Caramel, the blind Caracol for a little while to wear her out, it was truly a privilege to be so close and cuddle a wild animal and then we just chilled around the camp for a while and Val told us how he came to be in South Africa.
Val is German, and Sarah is Danish and they both met each other in South Africa while doing volunteer work with conservation and animals at various camps. Val’s original work started out with an animal resetting program and flew helicopters for a South African without a license until he ended up committing suicide, which then left Val Jobless until he was called upon to sort out a lion problem at a camp somewhere up north. Basically it turned out the lions were over breeding because males and females were in enclosures together so Val sorted out a sterilisation program and manage to rehome 16 of the lions in various facilities but somehow he ended up rescuing a small cub called Sergi and then started his own conservation camp which he was forced to close because he was a foreigner, so someone donated him 7000 hectares in Botswana and now he’s setup the Medisa Foundation.
After him telling us this we went to see Sergi the lion who has a huge enclosure of 2000 hectares and his bond with is unbelievable, he not only plays with her, he walks her for 8 hours a day twice a week and even hunts with her so she can take down a wilderbeast and he has to make the kill because she was never taught how to kill from the pride. Sergi is very possessive over Val, and barely tolerates Sarah unless Sarah has food.
After seeing Sergi, all of the girls took Caramel the Caracol for a walk and us boys went on a short game drive, saw nothing except a beautiful sunset, so opened a couple of beers at the new camp Val is building.and then headed back to the ranch where Val and Pieter cooked us Oryx for dinner in a stew with mashed potatoes while a huge electrical storm broke overhead and gave us a massive light show. It was another late dinner and a late night and at 11pm we all wandered back to our tents hoping to see predators, but didn’t.Read more