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MARCH 2006 CONSERVATION COURSE REPORT
Esingeni Bush Camp, Eastern Cape, South Africa

By Travellers Volunteers, (Graham Racher, Ben Kither, AJ Brewer, Eamonn O’Sullivan, Miriam Burrell) and Wayne Vos, Course Leader

Monday 27th February 2006 and our batch of students arrive. Graham (36) was already in PE. Ben (19) and AJ (20) were the next to touch down at PE, then Miriam (permanently 21), and Eamonn (18) arrived last after missing his connecting flight in Joburg. It had gone seven by the time we reached Esingeni and was dark and misty so it was a quick dump of stuff in the tents and back to find a cooked meal in the kitchen. After heating that up we all sat down to a nice meal in the lounge.

Tuesday was the first proper day and Wayne gave us an introductory lecture and a tour round camp; we also met Craig the owner of Springvale Farm where Esingeni is located. We all signed up to do the FGASA level 1 theory open book exam and the first aid course. Wayne is teaching us above this as part of his course but we all felt that we would like to try and pass the FGASA exam as well; these are extras in case you were wondering. Lunch was a wonderful salad affair and it was off round the reserve for a nature trek in the afternoon.

The rest of the time so far has been fairly similar with lectures by Wayne and field trips either here in Esingeni or out in the local surrounding area and reserves. I won’t go into these here as you can read about them elsewhere on the website, but notable excursions have been a day at Addo Elephant National Park. The Born Free centre located in Shamwari reserve; where we collected dead frozen carcasses from the walk-in freezer and later fed them to the big cats. AJ learnt not to turn his back on the big male lion called Aslan, certainly not while Aslan was waiting to get at his food! That afternoon we went to the wildlife centre and John O’Brien, the ecologist at Shamwari, gave us a talk. Craig gave us a talk on the local history of the farm and Olive growing. A morning game drive on Shamwari where the highlight was coming across the Lioness ‘CC’ calling for her cubs (quite big as over a year old), who duly turned up and greeted mum by jumping all over her, before they all laid down and dozed. Rosemary came and taught us the first aid course for two days, which we all passed. As SciFest was going on in Grahamstown whilst we were here, we decided to take advantage of this and went along to a few lectures and talk shops for three days. The best were a snake talk shop by Bill Branch from Bayworld (in PE in case you want to go), a geology tour of the local area by two of the Rhodes Uni Geology lecturers; and an evening lecture by Jane Goodall on her work now with her ‘Roots and Shoots’ initiative, which was very inspiring.

We have also rented a beast of a car (THE TAZZ) so after spending the first weekend getting to know the camp we have visited Hogsback, Port Alfred, and even went back to Addo Elephant NP and had an even better experience watching a herd of over 50 elephants with newly born calves. You don’t even have to go that far to find wildlife. Esingeni itself is a nice place to hang during the weekends. It’s sort of a fledgling nature reserve of 800 hectares. It’s nice because we can walk all over it without worrying too much about being eaten or mauled by a predator as Esingeni doesn’t have any of the ‘Big Five’. I say ‘too much’ because although leopards are not supposed to be on Esingeni, they are almost impossible to fence as they can jump so high and go under any fence! We’ve actually found leopard tracks on the reserve while out walking! Exciting! We also see gemsbok, mountain reedbuck, warthogs and baboons regularly around the camp and tracks of lots of other animals (caracal, bat-eared fox and otter). Kevin the Rain Spider is a permanent resident of the bathroom and others occasionally lodge in some of the tents. One tent even has provided temporary accommodation for a rhombic night adder!

There has also been time spent fraternising with the Shamwari students at Louis’ in Alicedale. Louis is a great little pub brimming with atmosphere and the friendliest barman ever, although the music leaves a lot to be desired! The Station Bar is awesome with the right crowd which we’re sure you’ll find easily around the area. Alternatively you can watch the sunset from the imaginatively named ‘Sunset Rock’ and unwind. The area itself is very beautiful and there is no need to travel far or at all for the perfect relaxation spot. The Esingeni Rally is a massive event with crowds of up to four people cheering on the driver of the fabulous but hardy Tazz! On the serious side the course has a lot to offer the wildlife enthusiast or even those less so but still willing to learn. Wayne knows his stuff about both plants and animals and has every question covered. All in all a brilliant experience so far and one that will continue to be for the remainder of the course I’m sure!