Immy 4x4ing in the African Bush!!

I'm a fairly competent driver when it comes to scooting around Norfolk on back roads and round blind corners, avoiding black ice and remembering to be "careful when it hasn't rained for a while" (thank you Granny I don't think I will ever forget that).  But for some reason I've been nervous about driving out here.  I think it's a bit of driving a car that's not yours but most of it was pure chicken livered.  So I have been slowly coaxing myself on little excursions into the wild.  Obviously never alone!!  Have to take someone to change my tyre!!  Who also doubles up as a cameraman when needed.

So I took myself and Monty down to the bushcamps to say hi to everybody and to visit Bili which is busy being rebuilt for next year.  In true African style of course I loaded the car up on the way back trying to reduce the amount of stuff they have in camps to make closing up not such a big headache.  We had a great day and saw some great game too.  Here's a bit of what we saw.

Spring is Here

I always look forward to Spring in England with the daffodils out, blossom on the trees and the lambs bouncing around.

Spring here in Luangwa is very different.  Temperatures sawing into the 40s being a big part of it.  Leaves falling to the ground to make room for the new leaves feels very strange to me.  It hasn't rained here now since when I first arrived in April so everything is looking a faded yellow colour and with all the leaves on the ground to me it looks more like the end of summer turning to Autumn.  But the most obvious sign pointing to the fact that Spring is well upon us is the sightings of babies!!  The most special is 2 seperate sightings of a lioness with cubs.  There is one near Kapamba (one of our bushcamps) with 2 cubs and then one a bit closer to home which is just around the corner.  Which our cameram has caught on video.  If you follow the link below you will get the most amazing clip of the lioness with her 3 cubs who are about 10days to 2 weeks old in the clip.

http://vimeo.com/15665401

Day in the life of an Ops Manager in Africa!!

I had a transfer scheduled to leave the lodge this morning at 7am with ice for all the camps.  The transfer was supposed to be taking staff in who had been on leave.  One of them didn’t turn up and when I spoke to him he claimed he wasn’t supposed to be back in until tomorrow when he knows full well that I have no relief chef for him.  He lives too far away to send someone to go and pick him up in time either.  So I've had to make a Kitchen Porters day and promote him to head chef for this evening!!  I then opened the freezer which the ice is kept in to find it empty.  It’s Sunday and the workshop is closed on a Sunday and they’re supposed to fill up the freezer with the blocks of ice that our machine makes.  So I had to go and get our workshop manager out of bed to get the keys to get the ice.  So in reality my 0700 transfer left at 0815!!  Very annoying.

On top of that the power was going on and off all day yesterday so the aircon in my office has decided not to work today and it’s about 38 degrees.

I then finally made it to our 8am meeting at 8:45 this morning as I'd been running round like a mad woman.  It was all made worthwhile when we got marooned on the library deck when “Wonky” (who is famous for walking through the lodge) and her family decided to pay us a visit.  They walked straight through the lodge one of them actually rang the reception bell was very funny.  I unfortunately didn’t have my camera on me, we made a sneaky exit round the back and managed to get back to our offices.  Where I was thrown back into work as my radio was buzzing from the camps calling out for all sorts.

I then looked up to see an elephant just outside my office window.  What a world I've ended up living in.