June was a very busy month for us as the camp was full for the school holidays and the sightings were plentiful.
We also completed our preparations for the dry season, burned firebreaks around the camp fence, hosted fire fighting training with Working on Fire for staff members in the Umbabat area, and finished up manual clearing around all infrastructure.
We have also officially opened our bush walks/trails, and were very busy taking Members out into the field for a stretch of the legs and some wonderful game viewing on foot. Temperatures are dropping, and there was minimal rainfall this month, but this was combatted by misty mornings and thick dew with a few drizzly days towards the end of the month. Our Fire Danger Index has dropped down to “Moderate” level.
As usual, please be cautious when making fires!
Lowest Temp: 2.6°C (Avg: 9.5°C)
Highest Temp: 33.9°C (Avg: 26.5°C)
Rainfall for the month: 1.5mm
(Avg: 3.9mm)
Projects of the month:
Our main focus areas for June were:
- Maria Mabunda’s farewell
- GKEPF/African Parks: Rhino Rewild initiative
- Burning of firebreaks around the camp fence
- Fire fighting training/experience for staff from the Umbabat area
- Continued manual firebreak clearing around all infrastructure
- Bush clearing on road verges on Op Goedehoop
- Road and river crossing maintenance on Argyle
- Upgrades to the firefighting “bakkie sakkie”
- New sundowner spot and road on Nkorho drive
- Road rehabilitation on Nkorho drive
- Bush walks/trails
- K9 Unit training at Enkhulu Gate
- Invasive plant and sightings monitoring, as usual
- Continued work in the garden area at Reception
- Water conservation as usual
- Continued tree wrapping
Our Month Expanded:
Saying Thank You: Maria Mabunda’s Farewell
Maria Mabunda joined the Ingwelala team in November of 1993, and has spent the last almost 31 years with us. Maria started out assisting in the Ingwelala Shop and later joined the Housekeeping Team, where she has been settled for many years.
Maria’s happiness at Ingwelala came from the people here - the Members, their guests, the staff and everyone she enjoyed forming relationships with. We held a farewell for Maria at the end of June, where tears were shed and many stories were shared as we thanked Maria and wished her well in her new phase of life. We will miss you, Maria!
Thank you for your dedication to Ingwelala over the many years you have been with us! We wish you all the health and happiness as you move into your retirement. We won’t say goodbye - but rather see you again soon.
Firebreaks and Training
We entered the dry season with a high fire load. With a lot of biomass available for fires to catch and move quickly, we decided to burn firebreaks around the camp fence to minimise the possibility of a fire moving into camp from the reserve. Working on Fire was here to assist us and provide some training and experience for staff in the Umbabat area, which included staff from Ingwelala, Ndlopfu, UWCA, the Umbabat warden and field rangers.
The total area burned was just over 120 hectares, surrounding the 5.5-odd kilometres of camp fencing. The burn was successful, with only small patches that did not burn where there was not enough fuel load to sustain the fire. This included the patches between the camp and the airstrip, and a small section south of Argyle gate. In these areas there is little biomass and large patches of bare soil/open ground, so there wasn’t enough fuel present to sustain the fire.
For the training provided by the Working on Fire team, the staff that attended got to experience training in how to burn stock piles effectively and safely, and how to control a firebreak burn as it is moving through. There were also valuable basic group-based fire fighting skills that were taught, which involved the staff having to team up in groups to practice putting out fires using bakkie sakkies, fire beaters, industrial leaf-blowers and knapsack sprayers. This is done to teach the most energy-efficient ways to put fires out effectively, using multiple techniques.
The staff had a wonderful time, and we want to thank everyone who joined us for the training and assisted us with equipment and manpower. A massive thanks, especially, to the Working on Fire team for making the 2 days enjoyable and incredibly successful. We are deeply grateful for everyone’s efforts and energy that was put in.
Our Ingwelala team in their fire fighting uniforms getting experience with W.O.F.
Bakkie Sakkie Trailer
Ruan du Preez has once again outdone himself in refurbishing a trailer to make a new housing for our bakkie sakkie. A bakkie sakkie is a water tank and pump that can be placed on the back of an open vehicle. To make this more serviceable, Ruan installed the loose bakkie sakkie onto the refurbished trailer, which can now be hitched onto any vehicle fitted with a towbar.
Thank you, Ruan, for all of your hard work! We really appreciate it!
New Sundowner Site & Re-routed Road
This month, created a new Sundowner site on Nkorho Drive! We used the existing high-point on the road, which already had a turning circle, to create the new spot. This also meant we got to practice our road rehabilitation skills, as we closed off the section from the new site to the boundary road, and re-routed it via a new section of Nkorho drive that comes out further south. This will give the sundowner spot some privacy from passers-by, but still allow you to see whether the spot is occupied before you turn down the road instead.
To rehabilitate the section we closed off, we have loosened the soil and tilled it, brush packing over it with ash, thatch and branches to allow the soil time and space to regenerate and hopefully encourage plant re-growth where it used to be a compacted road.
We hope you will enjoy the new site, and we encourage everyone to please keep the site clean once you leave. We do not want to see toilet paper lying around - please take it with you!
Brushpacking the closed section of the road after tilling the soil. New benches at the new sundowner spot
Clearing of Road Verges
The Conservation team has been hard at work clearing vegetation away from the road verges on Op Goedehoop this month. This is a hands-on task that requires the team to head out with tools and a vehicle to manually clear overgrown vegetation away from the roads. We have trimmed the brush back on multiple roads, including Oxpecker Road, Starling Road, Leopard Rock Road, Kingfisher Drive and Hammerkop Road, along with a few others. In a few areas, we have had to skip sections of the road where herds of buffalo and other animals have been in the area, but we will go back to those areas to trim the vegetation back in due course.
We’d like to ask for your help in this regard - it takes a long time for us to do each road on each property, and it is a continual task in the sense that we constantly need to trim back along the verges, so if you notice a particularly overgrown section of road that we haven’t gotten to yet, please report it to us on the radio or at reception so we can make sure it is prioritised if we haven’t already got it on our list.
Please also continue to report trees that may have fallen over the roads, so we can clear them as quickly as possible. Thank you for your help!
Garden Area Upgrades
We are really happy with the continued progress in the garden area at Reception. The Conservation team has been hard at work maintaining the garden beds and making some changes, and will continue to do so.
One of the more important changes has been the removal of the small stones at the main walkway from the carpark in order to make the area more easily accessible and comfortable for wheelchairs. We have kept the large stones demarcating the entrance to avoid cars parking in the wheelchair-accessible entryway. We will also be working on wheelchair ramps to make the Members’ Area and Reception more accessible.
One of our other new additions is the garden bed at the back of the laundry area, where we have removed the old bench and brush to add in a beautiful new stone and succulent-themed garden bed which will be added to in the coming weeks.
Our Staff Member of the Month
This month our superhero of the team is Timothy Khoza. Timothy is one of the Conservation Team’s general assistants, and you’ll recognise him from his hard work in the garden area at reception and at our recycling station.
Timothy was our sole recycling area attendant while Nellie was away for a month on her annual time off. Timothy is always willing to work hard, help anywhere he can and always brings a smile to the team with his jokes and fun attitude towards the team.
Timothy takes great pride in his work, and we want to thank him for his hard work and dedication, always! Timothy did not want his photograph taken, so we’ll honour him with extra words of praise this month. Thank you, Timothy. We appreciate all of your efforts!
K9 Unit Training at Enkhulu Gate
Our Conservation interns and Manager got to spend a morning at Enkhulu Gate enjoying demonstrations and taking part in training activities with the dedicated K9 Unit. We’d like to thank Riaan Kruger and his dedicated team for having us and allowing us to get some experience with the K9 Unit.
A special thanks to the impressive dog handlers, Joy and Emmanuel, and to the K9's themselves for making our day most enjoyable. We learned a lot, and had a wonderful time getting to know each dog and how they work.
This month, our “Food for Thought” section comes in response to discussions about tree damage by elephants. Read it with an open mind - we are aiming for some lateral thinking.
We hope you enjoyed the goings-on, and we’ll see you again next month (or on a walk!).
Josh and Tess
Words by Tess Woollgar. Images courtesy of Tess Woollgar and Josh Hibbett