Malolotja's Zip Lines

Swaziland is opening up to be the place to go for adventure - whether it be white water rafting, horse riding, caving, hiking, abseiling or even extreme mountain biking, Swaziland seems to have a wide range of activiti4es.

And the the new adventurous activity is a collection of massive zip wires in Malolotja.  Malolotja is a place of stunning beauty, and do not worry, this has not be spoilt with the addition of a zip wire.  In fact, you can not see it until you are clipped in.  There are 12 lines, of varying lengths and heights(!), the longest being 140m long and about 80m high.  I have to say from an ecological perspective they have done a good job as there has a minimal impact on the surroundings.  The zip line goes through the trees, rather than having them all cut down, the bases between each zip blend into the surroundings and the best thing of all is that you can get a birds eye view of Malolotja gorge.  Stunning!

Give it a go if you dare.......

Giraffe Necking Duels

Whilst in Swaziland last month I was on safari in Mbuluzi Game Reserve.  Mbuluzi is a small and intimate reserve where you can drive or walk at your own pace. In my opinion, it is the place for giraffe sightings in Swaziland as it is where you can see them up close and personal, it is breath-taking.

It was the time of year where males were pumped up with testosterone, ready to take on some poor unsuspecting female.  And if they had not got a female in their sights then they were fighting amongst themselves to assert dominance.

So on safari, one sunny morning, I came across two giraffe circling each other and trying to beat the other into submission....with their own heads.  These two giraffe were sizing each other up, constantly walking around each other before unleashing their in-built mallet. I was amazed at the force that each of them mustered and the accuracy of the blows, at times the force lifted the other giraffe off its feet.  The longer the neck and the heavier the head then the more damage the blow can inflict.  And this maybe one of the reasons for the giraffes to grow a long neck, natural selection in action. Some of these battles can be fatal but more often or not one of the giraffe will surrender before anything serious happens.  Despite the fact that these battles can be bloody, they often look graceful and choreographed, more like a dance than a duel.  But then appearances can be deceptive.

Later that day I saw one of the giraffes again, and he had a bleeding horn, but I was not too sure whether he was the victor or not.  Necking is serious business.

Reverse Culture Shock

I find that coming back to the UK is often more of a culture shock than arriving in Africa. This could be because of the lack of smiley faces in London this morning, the unhelpful attitude of the people in rail ticket office (my flight had got in much earlier than expected so my pre-booked tickets had me waiting for 2 hours for my train home) or maybe just the grey overcast morning that I had arrived in. It made me want to turn right round and fly back out to Africa.

Despite the lack of sleep, which I am sure did not help my state of mind, I am genuinely pleased to be back and with a host of memories about the school expedition.

So, "when I was in Africa...."

Last Days - White Water Rafting in Swaziland

This was our second to last day of the expedition and one that the girls were really looking forward to as most of them had never been rafting before.  There was also a new dam half way down the stretch of river that we were rafting, so some of it would be new for me as well.  The Great Usuthu River is quite a friendly river to raft as there are rapids followed by pools of calmer water to collect paddles, rafts and people and as we were doing this in two man inflatable croc rafts it was likely that we would be thankful for these brief sections of tranquility!  I knew that I would be as I am not a fan of white water rafting.

Begi, our rafting guide gave us an amusing safety brief, along with a warning to everyone about the crocodiles which would be sharing the river with us....  The eight of us paired up and unfortunately poor Lexi was partnered with me, which she regretted as I got us stuck on the first rock we saw and fell out at the first rapid.  This did not instil her with confidence in my white water rafting ability.  The first stretch of the Great Usuthu River is pretty tame and we meandered past people washing their clothes and cows drinking at the waters edge.  This was a chance to get to grips with paddling as a team - or not as the case maybe.  Lydia and Menace spending most of their time going backwards.

The first major drop in water level was next to the weir by the new dam.  There is a large weir with a gap for the overflow, this is about 7m high and forms a shute into the river below and we went down this.  The scary thing about it is that you have no idea what the drop will be like until you are on top if it and by then it is too late to do anything about it.  Looking back, that was the easiest rapid of the river, but at the time it was a BIG drop.  The river then flows into a small gorge where it gets even more exciting.  This is where carnage occurred and a few of us spent more time swimming than in the raft, myself included.  I was gutted.  The last rapid is the largest one and only Kate and Bex stayed in their raft and Jess managed to stay in hers whilst watching Ellen take a little swim.  The rest of us, Lydia, Menace, Lexi and myself managed to fall out at the beginning of the rapid and between us all I think we managed to visit all the rocks in that stretch of river.  We were pleased that it was lunch and all over!  We all slept on the way back, a cumulation of shear exhaustion and a massive dose of adrenalin.  But what a great adventure.

In the afternoon a visit to he Cuddle Puddle was on the cards where we soaked in natural hot springs, had a sauna and some of us even had a massage.

The last day was spent shopping for souvenirs in local markets, visiting Ngwena glass factory and the Swazi candles workshop.  All rounded off with a fantastic last night meal at a nearby restaurant with time to reflect on the memorable parts of the expedition, which are many.

Thank you girls for a fantastic trip and I wish you all the best in the future.

The Opening Ceremony

This was one of the best opening ceremonies that I have been to, really well organised by Ellen and with some unexpected surprises.

We left the camp at 8 in the morning, to prepare for the opening ceremony, which had been arranged for 11am.  On arriving at our newly built kitchen we had time to make our mark by signing our names on the kitchen wall, above the entrance into the store room.  The ladies, who were going to use the kitchen, had cleaned the floor from paint splatters and everything was newly swept out, it was ready for the official opening.

Benches from the classroom were arranged outside and the order of speeches was changed for the tenth time, the main issue was who was going to translate as December was taking a cultural tour around the community, and he was the best person for the job.  Meanwhile, Kate and Bex had organised a tie dying workshop for the women from the resource centre for 10 o'clock. I had never thought of doing tie dying before - it was a great idea.  To begin with there were three ladies and this swelled to eight participants and 40 on-lookers.  Kate demonstrated the method using sign language and Bex mixed up two different colour dyes for the t-shirts.  The ladies looked confused.  Small coloured bundles of material were left to dry in the sunshine and it was explained that they could open up the bundles after the opening ceremony - which they had been invited to.  They still looked confused but were very happy with it all!

Elizabeth, the lady in charge of the NCP building and the children with it, introduced us to an elder from the Shewula community.  The chief had sent him to represent the elders and this was a great honour - he arrived in traditional dress.

Eventually the ceremony was ready to start, just that we were missing December (but he was in the vicinity as he had been crafty and brought the cultural tour for the Dutch people to our opening ceremony) and we were also missing Robert.  Robert was the man in charge of the AIDS orphaned school and had helped with ordering sand and cement.  December and Robert arrived at the same time, December with the Dutch people in tow and Robert also in traditional dress.  It was going to be a big occasion.  A large number of people were present, I guestimated around 150.

Elizabeth started the speeches and December translated it all, although I am sure that he added his own bits to the speeches that he translated!  Elizabeth thanked the girls for all their hard work, thanked their parents for letting them come to Swaziland and for putting their trust in the Shewula community for looking after their children.  The speech did last a long time as she was very grateful for the building.  I then gave a much shorter speech, basically to thank the girls for raising the £1,400 to pay for the materials and for the wages for Matola the builder.  I even began the speech in SiSwati but after two sentences had to resort to English!  And then Robert gave a lovely speech about how happy he was to see this 'structure' and how grateful the community was for our assistance.  Needless to say December must embellished what Robert was saying.  Ellen then gave a speech on behalf of the group and gave books to Robert for the locally run school.

At this point there was an unexpected addition as the girls from the school did a traditional dance for us as well as a couple of songs, one of which had my name in it.  I am not exactly sure want they were saying but I got the gist and it was very humbling.  Shewula is my second home.

The girls then sang a song for everyone and they loved it.  I think this is the first time that I have brought a group out that can really sing, they did Sense Africa proud.

The ribbon was cut, people crammed into the kitchen, juice and biscuits were served and more dancing was done.  The ladies opened their tie dye t-shirts and loved the affect, and after an hour and a half it was all over.

But what a tremendous achievement. Thank you girls for supporting a well needed project in Shewula.

Conservation Project in Swaziland

Before even starting the conservation project we had two days in Hlane Royal National Park, looking for lion, elephant and rhino.  This was the first time that we were camping and some were concerned about the proximity of the wildlife - there was only a very small barbed wire fence separating us from a herd of elephant.  There were also a couple of small scorpions living in one of the showers, but these scurried away once the water was turned on.

Rhino were waiting for us when we first drove into the campsite, there were eight white rhino around the water hole, lounging in the mud or scratching themselves on a rubbing post.  We were very lucky to have seen so many on the first day.  Africa, our African guide for the day was waiting for us and we all set off to see what we could see.  Lion were high up on the list so we went straight to where the lion were often seen.  It was touch and go looking for them but eagle eye Jess spotted one of the lionesses from an extraordinary distance and just as we were leaving we heard the roaring of a male which we found as the sun was setting over the African sky.  Magical.

Early in the morning there was a game walk to track white rhino.  We were advised to make sure we were down wind of the rhino as well as always keeping an escape route in mind!  So we spent most of the time eyeing up suitable trees just in case a rhino decided to charge.  At one point we were within 20m of two rhino and got the world record for holding our breath and then our second game drive looking for lion was really exciting as we were within 5m of a lioness crunching bones from lasts night's kill.  There were three if them demolishing a nyala carcass, we were watching them finish the last morsels.

It was then onto Mbuluzi Game Reserve for our conservation project.  We had been asked to do a giraffe survey in the southern section of the reserve as they needed to know the ratio of male to female and adult to juvenile, it was going to be tough going for the next few days.  On top of that we had also been asked to walk the trails in the reserve to check that they were free from fallen trees and clearly marked.  The campsite was pretty rustic; in the middle of nowhere, no electricity and we had to cook over a fire.  All new stuff for the girls.  Anything could have walked into the campsite - and it did.  On the last night we had a herd of zebra and eight giraffe.

For three days we surveyed the giraffe in the southern section of the reserve.  To begin with it was pretty difficult to see the difference between one giraffe and the next, but Lexi managed to get to grips with it all and after two days was a giraffe identifying expert.  Lexi and I were also very lucky to see two males fighting, which was a first for me.  Meanwhile, Ellen, Bex, Lydia, Domenica and Jess walked the trails checking the routes and keeping an eye out for crocodiles along the river bank.  There were a few unmarked trails which could have confused them but they had Ellens map reading skills.....

The manager of Mbuluzi was delighted with the work that we have done in the reserve and the giraffe results will be used for translocating animals into and out of the reserve.

Last night of camping in the bush before returning to Shewula to complete the community project. Will just check around the tents for unexpected guests....