Off to Dwesa

Ok, so I am back from Mkhambhati. We arrived back at the Haven on Monday afternoon.

On the way to Mkhambhati one of the Land Rovers broke and we had to push it so it would start a couple times along the way. It was very trying doing that every morning. Then midway through another Land Rover started to not work at all. That made all three of them duds since the one that didn't work in the beginning of the trip was the only one working in Mkhambhati. We called the mechanics and they had to drive down from Joburg. They worked on the vehicles for two days and stayed at our campsite. Those two vehicles worked and then the day before we are supposed to leave Mkhambhati, which is also the day after the mechanics left, I don't know which one, but one of them decides to break while in the field. We tried to get it to work, but it wouldn't so we left it there. We just had to overcrowd the 2 other Land Rovers to go home and we rented another car once we got to a larger city after 4 hours drive. NEVER use Land Rovers!

The time spent at Mkhambhati was a lot of fun and great experience. We worked with the lead ecologist from the Eastern Cape Parks Board and a herpetologist from a museum in Port Elizabeth. The students were split into two groups and rotated every other day doing the fieldwork with Dr. Smithwick or catching amphibians and reptiles with the ecologist and herpetologist. My job was to keep records of the animals that were caught so I worked catching animals everyday since I already experienced Dr. Smithwick's class last year and that is what Warren and Evan were hired for.

We got to catch things in traps and with our hands. The only thing that can be dangerous are some venomous snakes and we only caught one venomous snake and that was in a trap. Reptiles were harder to catch with our hands so the majority of them were caught in traps except for a few skinks, geckos, and rock agamas. It was fun to catch the frogs (the only amphibians found in Mkhambhati) because we looked crazy chasing them around. I caught a few frogs, but none of them were kept because once we got too many of the same species we would let them go. From what I was told, we were pretty successful. A few of the species we found were finally confirmed for Mkhambhati whereas before they were just on a list of possible species.

As far as sleeping in the tents went, it was not as bad as I was expecting although I didn't sleep through the night at all which is unusual for me. I was on breakfast crew also so I had to be up by 4:30 or 4am each morning because our days started at 6am. The bathroom and shower accomdations were pretty good though because I was worried about that before I got there.

Our campsite overlooked the ocean so I took advantage and went to the beach most days even though the water was freezing cold. Most days at lunch my group would eat at waterfalls and swim in the fresh water pools below them. It was really nice and refreshing after hiking around in the mornings. Don't get worried, the most harmful thing in those waters were frogs, tadpoles, and maybe zebra pee, no parasites! That was also our drinking water because the water bottles from the first day did not last long and boiling the water was too time consuming. I think it tasted great.

I was going to try to upload more pictures that one of the other students was going to let me use, but we haven't had time to do it yet. Hopefully I will get them out soon because he also has a website that he asked me to post the link for because he is an avid birder and he has a lot of great pictures.

I do leave this afternoon for camping at Dwesa which is across the Mbashe River and is the other side of the nature reserve. I will bring my computer and hope that there is charging capability since I know that internet service is possible in this reserve. I think that there is a diesel generator available, but if not I will be back next week!