From the beginning of our trip we instantly fell in love with the sunrises in South Africa. From the frist day in the wilderness reserve we started to get up early to see the sunrise I got up at 5 am and made some coffee for my love and a cup of black tea with milk for me. Then we both simple sat outside with tea, rusk and coffee and enjoyed the early morning hours. We could see how everything was getting alive. Birds started singing and flying around, from time to time lions roared in the neighbourhood, antilopes fed quietly on grass and everything was enlightened by a beautiful warm morning light.

When we started our road trip we kept doing this every morning and we were gifted with stunning sunrises in the Drakensberg mountains and along the whole coastline down to Cape town. Every sunrise was somehow different and unique and Natalie and me loved the quiet time in the morning. As the days obviously started early for us we went to bed between 8 and 9 pm. We did not miss any of the things we would have done usually at home. We lived our life in a natural rhythm, just driven by the sunlight. It was amazing to see how many things you can do more during a day if you get up with the first daylight.

Not to forget to mention are the stunning sunsets as well. It all started almost everyday with the golden hour between 4 and 5 pm. The sun light was smooth and touched everything in a warm golden colour. Followed by some of the most stunning sunsets we have seen during our entire travel so far. We still have a hard time selecting the best pictures for our webpage, so do not be surprised if there are a lot of sunrise amd sunset pictures ;).

Another point which really impressed us was the diversity of landscap and wildlife in South Africa. We had amazing animal encounters during our stay at the Askari reserve and we were introduced to bird watching as well. This was such great fun that we kept doing it during our whole time in SA. I was excited like a child about some chocolate when I spotted rare and endangered birds like the horned hornbill, the secretary bird or the brown crested eagle, just to name a few.

Further we were so blessed to see southern right whales from the shores of Hermanus even though we stopped there for only 2 hours. We stood speechless next to each other and couldn’t believe that a couple of days before we were looking at giraffes, rhinos, elephants and lions. It is not possible to name all the wild animals we have seen during our 6 weeks. Our pictures capture a lot, but often we were not quick enough to take a proper pictures, especially when it came to birds. The rich wildlife along the coastline as well as inland is remarkable and more divers than any of the other countries we have been to.

The same is to say about the richness and diversity of the landscape. We loved the Savanna in the north east, the mysterious Drakensberg mountains in the middle East, the lonely wild coast in the South East, the wine region near Cape town and the spectacular end of the African continent at the Cape of Good Hope in the very South. And everywhere the scenery is not just beautiful, but really stunning. We stood there speechless every time and could not believe that it yet again is so breathtaking. Each place is exciting in its own right and worth staying there for longer.

And there was great food everywhere. My first food encounter was South African rusk. I had it almost every morning to dip it into my English tea. What I loved about it was the strong texture and the mild sweetness. You can easily dip it into hot tea without falling apart immediately. Than there is the amazing barbecue, called Braai in South Africa. It starts always with a big campfire to produce enough hot charcoal. This means you start between 2 and 3 hours before the actual grill session. Because of that it is much more relaxing and longer than a typical German barbecue, it is more like a real celebration and get together everytime. Once the hot charcoal is seperated a metall rack is placed over the charcoal and the grill session starts. Maybe influenced by German immigrants they also have some tasty sausages to grill or just very good beef or lamb steaks.

And South Africa is a great place to dine with wine as there are many suberb vineyards. Especially the Stellenbosch or Franschoek region are famous for their suberb wines and first class cooking. And Cape Town of course with its closeness to the wine region and big city competition has some amazing places to eat. We had some incredibly jucy lamb roast, but also amazing fresh seafood at the coast, and everything is always so colourful and fresh. But the best is that you get extraordinary food and wine for good value of money.

So you feel like you can really enjoy life here and treat yourself to nice things, even if you are not super rich. Natalie actually inspired me for the final words. She said to me „the country is so alive, colourful and intense, it makes one feel more alive as well, more than in other countries.“ There is nothing I could add. We just absolutely loved our time there!

For Tuesday morning we were scheduled to burn at one of the camps with the whole reserve team. Fire plays an important role for the vegetation in South Africa. It clears out dead vegetation, enriches the soil with important minerals and makes room for the new generation of plants. Furthermore it prevents uncontrolled big bush fires. Unfortunately the weather was too cold that morning and the burning first was postponed and then cancelled for the week. Natalie and I were a bit sad, as we were really looking forward to it and now would miss this part as we were leaving beginning of next week. But the day should not end without a first surprise. After some unspectacular replacement work, we went out for a research drive late afternoon.

On our way back home, we could hear two lions roaring close to our camp. We stopped our vehicle every time the lions started roaring to hear which one was closer and where we had to go. A sound which makes your neck hair stands up. Then suddenly Natalie spotted the male lion as he was walking through the bush. Katie raced the game drive vehicle around the corners and finally he was there, directly in front of us. And he let us be and watch and follow him for quite some time, while he kept roaring and communicating with his brother, trying to meet up with him. It was truly impressive to see him walk and hear him roar just a few meters away from us. I have to agree with Natalie, it is one of the most impressive sounds in the animal kingdom and a unique experience to hear it live so close. I am so glad, we still got to experience it here. So we went to bed extremely happy and excited for the next day.

Wednesday had another highlight in store for us. We have several breeding camps here for the endangered sable and nyala antelopes. We had to move some of the male sable and nyala antelopes from one camp to another in order to keep genetic diversity of the breeding program. Two vets came to dart the animals and put them to sleep for the transfer. Everything was needed to be done as quickly as possible to reduce stress for the animals, as sometimes they can even die from it if it becomes too stressful and their heart stopps. Therefore we had a big team consisting of us, the vet team and the reserve working crew.

Once the animal was darted and dropped to the ground, it was first examined by the vet while we kept holding its head up on the horns. This is very important, as their horns are so heavy that the animal could seriously be injured or die if the blood does not flow to the brain anymore. Then we pulled it on a carriage and lifted it up on the pick-up truck. Brought to its new camp, we had to unload it before the vet could give the anti narcotic to wake it up. It was my first time to come so close to them. They are such beautiful and strong creatures, which deserve to keep their place in the South African wilderness.

But the day was not over yet and we went out for another try on a sleep out in the hope we will make it this time through the night without a thunderstorm. As we got to our place for the night again, we could suddenly hear trees breaking and falling to the ground. There were elephants around!! We waited a few minutes to see if they would walk into our camp. The sound was moving in a different direction though, so we immediately jumped into the car and tried to find them. After a couple of meters I could see something huge moving behind some trees. ELEPHANTS!!!

We stopped on the road and suddenly there were 21 elephants crossing the road. It was a big herd from cute little baby elephants up to fully grown adults. They were on their way to somewhere, unbelievably quiet for their size, yet fast and somehow very majestic. It was a truly impressive experience to see them in the wild. Back to our sleep out spot, we had a great time around the fire. And this time our sleep out was a great success. When we went to sleep at around 10 p.m., we could hear the elephants again. This time they trumpeted very loudly. Even though it was far from our place, it felt like they were right next to us. Furthermore we also heard some hyaenas and jackels calling around us. When the bush finally went quiet, everyone went to sleep except for the person on night watch.

There always needs to be one person keeping watch and making sure the fire keeps burning. We were taking turns every hour and Natalie and I luckily had two shifts one after the other this time. My shift started at 3:30 and it should yet again be a nice suprise for us. Two lions started roaring in the darkness. While one seemed quite far away, the other was closer and seemed to be on our side of the river. I could see Natalie waking up and listening to the roaring. They roared about every 10 minutes or so and when suddenly the roar felt really close, I saw Natalie and James both sitting up straight in an instance both saying at the same time: „Now this is defenitely getting close!“ From that moment on she got up and joined me. We both were sitting around the campfire in the dark with our torches on, searching the premises and waiting for the lion to walk into our camp any minute. The roaring still got closer, so close that our comrades James sat up and said it feels like the lion is lying next to him in the sleeping bag. While we were discussing, when would be the right point to wake up one of our Rangers for safety reason, Natalie saw that Ed was already awake and got up as well to have a stroll around. He told us there was nothing to worry about, the lion was still about 150 m away from us. What?! Nothing to worry about?! The next roar was a bit further away again though and we could hear that the lion had walked into the riverbed from the echo the sound had produced. So even though we did not spot him, it was still a great experience for us to share the night with a lion around our camp.

While some of us did not sleep too well that night (because of lions, hyaenas, jackals and elephants around us) all of us nevertheless enjoyed the sleep out. It was amazing to see the sunrise in the morning with a cup of hot coffee. South Africa is so beautiful in the morning! And we had survived! Compared to our sleep outs in Australia, there is a lot more going on around your sleeping bag in South Africa :).

When we got home we were surprised with the news that burning was planned for that morning again. Yeah, Natalie and I had not counted on that anymore. We left 1,5 hours later. Our job had two parts. We had to lay fire with burning fuel along the road of the selected area. The second part was to prevent the fire from jumping over to the other side of the road.

Well both jobs were a lot of fun. It was incredibly hot even though we burned on a cold day. The wind changed constantly and the smoke was sometimes all over the place. Birds of prey took advantage of the fire and filled up the sky watching out for small animals which tried to escape the fire. Unfortunately after 1 1/2 hours the burning was called off again. The fire did not burn and spread as quickly as we needed it due to the changing wind and cold temperature. We were hoping it would get warmer, but it did not. Natalie and I were still very happy we had the chance to experience a prescribed burn.

In the afternoon we had a lesson in rifle shooting. Each of us had five shots with the small calibre and two with the big calibre. The big rifle was difficult to handle and incredibly loud. Not surprisingly maybe, Natalie had the better shooting results since it was her second try. Friday started with a 4×4 driving lesson through the dry river bed. That was a lot of fun as well. After that we went out for some more fence painting. On our way we spotted a black Mamba crossing the road in front of us. I have never seen a snake go as fast as this. I was in heaven as it was one of my wishes for Africa to encounter a snake in the wild.

And the great animal sightings should not stop there. Until the end of the week we had more exciting animal spottings during our drive outs. We saw a rock monitor (large dragon like reptile), honey batchers, an only two weeks old giraffe baby, a clan of spotted hyaenas with 3 little cubs and many many birds. The only big things we had not seen yet were a leopard (which is incredibly rare to spot however) and cheetahs. Especially Natalie was keen to see the cheetahs again, as she had worked with them when she had been here before 3 1/2 years ago. Sunday came to an end and they had not shown themselves however.

I had another unexpected event waiting for me though. I had forgotten about the bees which recently had moved into our compost bin. While I was empting the bio bin, a swarm of bees came out. They stung me twice in my right hand and several times in my jumper, which luckily kept me safe. As usual Natalie took care of me. She took out the bee stings in my hand with love and after 2 hours I was fine again. Oh, and did I mention that of course I managed to hurt myself during the week again?! I got shocked when I accidently stepped into one of the electric fences, while I was closing the gate. Ed measured how strong it was. I had treated myself to a lovely 5000 Volt shock :). Luckily nothing bad came of it.

And then Monday came, our last day, here before we are to leave on our road trip down to Cape Town. We started this morning with another drive down to the honey batcher den we had discovered on our last tour. We wanted to set up a camera trap to start researching them. On our way there, Natalie started talking about how badly she wanted to see the cheetahs before we leave. Just in that moment, another reserve ranger messaged through the radio that she had just seen two cheetahs walking down the road. Ed turned the car immediately and raced down the roads to the place they were seen. And we were lucky!

When we arrived he cheetahs we sitting down on the ground yawning and grooming themselves. They are such strong animals and yet they behave so much like a cat. Now Natalie was in heaven. Especially because these two cheetahs were the same she had darted and transported 3 1/2 years ago. It was as if they were coming out on our last day to say „we are still here“. It was an amazing sighting as they got up after a while and walked around, marking their area and allowing us to follow them for 30 minutes. After that they disappeared into the bush. It is incredible how well they blend in with their colour.

The second part of the morning we set up amphibian traps that will mainly trap frogs. They do this every year to count population and species and any chances in the frogs that are an early indication for any potential change in the environment. Tomorrow morning we will go back for the first time to see if we caught something. In the afternoon we went onto another research drive to count animal population and sexes. As we get to our route start, Natalie almost gave everyone a heart attack when she suddenly breathed in so loudly by surprise, as she was the first to see the cheetahs again! This time they crossed the road just in front of us and then disappeared into the bush. What a great leaving gift!

And so it ends. Our time here was just amazing. Everyday was exciting, full of surprises with overwhelming nature and great people here to share it with.

I love South Africa!!!!

Our second week here in Askari started with some challenging work at our Sable antelope camps. We collected cut down thorn bush branches, pulled them over to the feeding area and packed them around as a wall. This is done to allow the Sable antelopes only one way through the thorn bush wall. At this specific spot is an anti thick spray pump installed, which is activated by a step-on trigger to spray them when they come in for feeding. To pull the branches over a distance of 200 m was quite some work, but even more challenging was to avoid to get stung or scratched by the incredibly sharp thorns. I did actually quite well until I managed to harm myself with the last branch I placed on the wall and had scratches all over my arm. Luckily Natalie cleaned and covered my scratches with love and her great experience she had gained from all the other injuries I had in the last months.

Our weekly trip to town brought us to Tzaneen on Tuesday. On the way there we visited a 2000 years old Baobab tree. It is the one I recognized as being the most typical of the African Savanna. It seems unbelievable, but this tree grew up when the Roman Empire was ruling the world and was already grown to its majestic size when Christopher Columbus discovered America.

Back to the reserve we did a job, which we actually do constantly on our tours. We are locating and destroying alien plants. Specifically a cactus, originally from South America and introduced to South Africa, is our main target. We inject them a special liquid substance, which kill them and stop further spreading of their seeds. You can see me in one of the pictures with the injection needle. On one of these rides I saw my first lion in the wild. We were just crossing a dry river bed and than she (a female lion) was suddenly just there. It was my first great sight of a big cat. To see them in the wild, behaving naturally in their habitat is truly a great thing and has little in common with watching them behind a fence in a zoo. Hopefully we will spot more of them before we leave.

This brings me to the other cat we have in care in our camp. Her name is Sophia. She is a caracal and was found with a broken leg in the wild. She reminds me of a little version of a puma with hairy bushes at the top of her ears, which most of you probably know from a lynx. Usually she gets dead chicken to feed, but since she is doing better our rangers decided to feed her life mice, which we catch occasionally in our house with a trap. So we got the chance to see this spectacle. Obviously she loves to play with the mouse once caught, but the bloody cat actually managed to let the mouse escape a few times :). Our ranger did not give her a second chance to teach her that she has to use her first chance to catch a prey. This is essential for her survival when she will be released back into the wild.

On one day we went out for a bush walk with our ranger Katie. It is a completely different experience from driving around in a game view vehicle. First of all the vehicle protects you against lions and all the other big and small animals. The big animals would not recognize a single person in the vehicle on its own, but instead just the car as one object. This makes you bigger and less attractive for attacks. Without the vehicle we would be an easy prey for a lion or could be run over by an Elephant or rhino. Therefore our ranger Katie carried a big rifle with her, which made us feel a bit safer Secondly in the vehicle you can focus on spotting animals around you from a comfortable upper position. Without the vehicle it is a completely different thing. You constantly have to watch out for thorn bushes and where you step on, it could be a snake. Walking by foot through the bush really sharps all your senses and allows you to get close to the smaller animals and plants in the reserve. I loved it! We used our walk to learn about the bush and collected some litter from the river bed.

One of our highlights of the week was our sleep out in the bush. Sleep out means we would sleep in the bush under the stars around a campfire, each of us in a sleeping bag and on a camping mattress. We arrived at our sleep out spot in the late afternoon. This allowed us to play some funny games to shorten the time to sunset. My favourite game was Impala pooh spitting. Yes you got it right, it is indeed what the name indicates. The target is to spit a piece of dried Impala pooh as far as you can. I did quite well and won the competition with 7,5 m. I can confirm that the Impala pooh is, once it is dry, completely tasteless

After a sunset beer we had a lot of fun to introduce our group into the secrets of German stock bread, which Natalie had prepared before we had left. After that Katie and Ed made us an authentic South African sleep out dinner. Prepared over open fire, we had a typical beef sausage and pap. Spiced with some spooky stories we had a great time sitting around the campfire. Essential for a safe night is the night watch. Each of us was supposed to take a shift of 1 hour during the night. It is important for the person on duty to stay awake. First of all to alert the group in case big animals would come to close to us. Secondly, lions and hyaenas would consider sleeping humans as dead and therefore as easy prey, which means you have to show them that you are awake! Usually the fire and the lanterns would keep them away, so the second important job was to keep the fire alive during the night. The whole evening dark clouds had been around us and we had a little drip here and there. The moment we went to sleep though a big thunderstorm appeared not far from us. Shortly after the little drip changed into rain and the thunderstorm was coming closer to us, Katie and Ed decided to cancel the sleep out. We grabbed most of our stuff and drove home. As sad as it was, it was the right decision. Once we had unloaded and went into the house, it started raining cats and dogs, spiced with some lovely thunders and lightings over us. Hopefully we can have another try for a sleep out next week.

We also had some new animal encounters at the end of the week. First we saw a group of bandit mongoose crossing the reserve road in front of us. I could not believe it in the beginning. We counted 26 of them. I did not know before that some of them live in families. The other encounter was a troop of ants crossing the same road. Obviously they were on their way home after a successful raid of a termite folk. These little guys are not known for their humour. Katie showed us how easily they get aggressive when they are disturbed. We laid just a little branch in their way and they immediately started to hiss. I still have no clue how these little insects are capable of that On Friday, we visited a near by animal sanctuary, where injured animals are taken care of. Most of them will never be able to be released into the wild anymore. Sometimes however they also get animals that have been held as pets and once they started biting or just being a normal wild animal, the owners gave them away. It was sad to see these animals in cages, when you know just outside of it is there true habitat where they belong. One of the animals was a beautiful leopard, who used to live in the Kruger National Park. During a transport to a different location, his sedative was not strong enough and he woke up and tried to chew himself free of the metal chain. By doing that he ruined is teeth so badly that he is now not able to chew meat properly anymore. Leaving him in the wild would therefore mean he would die, as he is unable to eat his kill.

Last night, we had an authentic South African barbecue which is called Braai. It is the time when the whole group comes together, celebrates a review of the last month and says goodbye to the ones who have finished the program and will leave on Monday. It was an amazing party with great food, a lot of drinks and dancing. I am soooo happy that we extended out stay here and will have another week at Askari. I love it !!!!!

So all seemed to be going well, until we reached the luggage belt and had one of the traveller’s worst nightmares: Mathias‘ backpack did not arrive!! And to make things worse, they couldn’t even find the tracking number on the system! Oh no, I almost went nuts there and then. The backpack is our home for this year, we had just lost half of our home! The airline staff was also a bit too chilled for me and did not seem to care much. They just said to come back the next evening to see if it arrives with the next flight from Kigali, but we couldn’t! We had a shuttle leaving at 6:00 am the next day. There was nothing we could do though. They said if it turns up, they will send it to the reserve with a courier. So we went to the hotel to get some sleep. The next morning we got picked up as planned and drove 5 hours through the country to Hoedspruit, which is in the Limpopo region near the Kruger Park. As we were driving through the country side I can feel my nerves, which were still on edge, finally come down. Once again, South Africa has the same effect as it always has when I come here. The beautiful nature and its wildlife simply makes me happy inside and let’s me forget all my worries. I looked at Mathias and before I could say a word, he told me he was feeling exactly the same at that moment. I was relieved, as this was the only thing that mattered to me then. I wanted Mathias to understand why I am in love with this country and I am so glad he started to feel the same about it. When we got to Hoedspruit the rangers from the reserve were already there waiting for us with the whole volunteer team that is currently on the program. There are 7 others, which makes it a group of 9 with us. What a change to last time I was here, when we were only 3 volunteers. Before we drove to the reserve, which is another 1 1/2 hours drive away, the team went grocery shopping for the week while we got some time to buy some essentials for Mathias to survive the next few days without his backpack.

By the time we got to the reserve, it was already late afternoon. We all unpacked and then headed straight out on the game drive vehicle to see the sun set over the reserve plains. On the way there we already passed some giraffes. What a beautiful start to our time here. By the time it got dark, Mathias was already under the spell of this place as well. We headed home, dinner was prepared and then we were off to bed, as the next day would start at 5:30 in the morning.

Those of you who know me a bit better know how strongly I feel about Africa. For the others, I will give you some background. Ever since I was a young girl, I think it started when I was around 10 years old, I fell in love with wild cats. I honestly cannot tell you why, it just happened and my whole room was plastered with posters of them ever since. My biggest dream since then was to see them life in their natural habitat and maybe one day have my own reserve (my teenage dream ). It took some time, but when I quit my first job in 2011, I fulfilled myself that dream and came here to a volunteer wilderness reserve in South Africa. It was important to me that I would go to a volunteer program where the focus is on conserving the habitat and its natural balance and take part in it, rather than go to a tourist game reserve where everything they do is not done in the best interest of the animal, but of the tourist. I absolutely loved it here and it was clear I would come back again. In addition, I also met one of my now dearest friends, Kristina, here and through her actually later got introduced to Hector and thus Mathias. So you could say I only know Mathias, because I came here a few years ago. It was therefore a given that I would bring Mathias to this place during our trip, so he can understand why I feel so strongly about South Africa and hopefully share this passion. My gut feeling told me that he would love it here as much as I do, but you never know, right? You can imagine how happy I was, when Mathias told me on our second day here that he is overwhelmed by it all and loves it so much that he wants to extend our stay to 3 weeks, instead of two :). Well, I did not have to think twice about that!

Now it is Sunday and we finished our first week here. So what exactly do we do here? We live in a big house together with the other 7 volunteers. Next to us is the house of the 2 rangers who oversee the program. We have a big garden, barbecue area and pool and the whole place is surrounded by electrical wire fences. Why? Because behind the fence is the open wilderness reserve where you will find a good representation of most South African wild animals, ranging from the smallest to the biggest, including what is known as ‚The big 5′ of South Africa: elephants, buffalos, rhinos, lions and leopards. And to my delight also other wild cats like cheetahs or caracal.

As a matter of fact, we currently have a caracal in the boma in our garden that was taken it to care for it, after it was discovered with a broken leg in the open reserve. It would have died without our help, so we will care for it until it is ready to live and hunt in the open again. Right next to our garden, we also have a buffalo camp where we currently have 3 female buffalos and another sable camp, where we are breeding sables which are endangered as well. One of the best things here though is getting up in the morning, which is usually with the sunrise around 5:30 to 6:00 am and sitting on the porch, listening to the lions roar in the background while you drink your coffee.

I hadn’t told Mathias that when we arrived and he discovered it by himself the first morning we got up and was totally captured by it. Well, it is a massive difference to hear a lion roaring instead of a rooster crowing! From Monday to Saturday morning we then work with the rangers on the reserve. The main objective is to maintain a healthy, balanced habitat as nature intended it and keep or build up a healthy animal population. The reserve the program belongs to is 25 000 hectar large and some of it has been used for cattle or farming in the past. It has therefore been altered from its natural state. In addition, South Africa has a big problem with poachers who break into the reserves and kill animals to sell them or their horns.

This specifically applies to rhinos, elephants or sables for example, but also includes catching any game by putting up wire snares and selling the meat later on. So our job varies from cleaning the reserve from old internal fences or wires, maintainig outer fences, assisting in anti-poaching or snare patrols, maintenance of roads or dams, eradiction of alien plants, assist in prescribed burning, assist in game counts and game capture and transportation when necessary, just to name a few. Some of these activities are done on a regular basis, others just seasonal or when a specific situation occurs.

While you are on your way to the job in the bush, you then come across or drive past the animals. That is, when you are lucky, as the animals obviously don’t come out to see us, rather it is mostly the other way around, they hide away. But the less you disturb them and just let them be, the higher the chances you will see them. And that is what I love about this place. Not knowing what will be around the next corner and if you do see them uncaged and living as they should in their natural habitat, it feels like a reward for the work you have done to maintain their habitat. So during our week here so far, we have been incredibly lucky to already have seen a lot of animals as you can tell from our gallery. Especially day 2 was a big day, with a surprise around the corner one after the other.

First we saw a group of giraffes drinking at a pond, which is always a joy to see them make that effort. Then we saw jakal puppies who could have been only a few days old. Even for our ranger, who has worked here for 8 years already, these were the youngest puppies she had seen in the wild since she has been here. The next corner revealed a group of rhinos, then we drove to a known hippo pond where we found 8 of them and on the way home we past a hyena den with little babies as well. No wonder Mathias said he wanted to stay longer at the end of the day :). And to make things perfect, the airline had emailed me, confirming the backpack had arrived and would be delivered the next day :). What a relief!

The next days passed really quickly. The days were really hot, but dry, and we did quite a bit of work in the open including an anti-poaching bush walk and wire removals. On the way we had some more great sigthings, including a group of over probably 20 vultures hanging around a giraffe carcass. Seen a carcass here is not a sad sight if the animal was killed by normal circumstances, that is in that case by two lions. It is part of the circle of life here. We also saw lots more alive animals.

And even if you have seen the animal already, you never know in which situation you will see them. Just like yesterday, when we came across a group of giraffes again, this time all males. They were practising their fight, which was an amazing sight, I hadn’t seen that last time I was here. They swing their head against each other with such a force that you can hear the bang loud and clearly. They were doing it directly in front of us on the road, so we watched the spectacle for about 10 minutes until they moved into the bush and we could pass. A fantastic sigthing to end the week.

Let’s see what next week will bring. So far we have only heard the lions in the morning, seen elephant tracks on the road and heard about a cheetah sigthing on the radio, but haven’t actually seen them. Hopefully we will get the chance in the next 2 weeks we are here now. But even if we don’t, I just love the peaceful and quiet atmosphere of this place. Being in the middle of nowhere with only wilderness around you and beautiful sunrises, sunsets and even moon nights looking simply stunning every time. This week it was particularly red when it was total lunar eclipse on Wednesday.