Adventure is out there.

What a week!

Setup is done as well as half of my first week of checks. First all I have to say this place is GORGEOUS, it is breathtakingly beautiful. I wish I could share where I am currently at, but unfortunately due to the high poaching risks, I am not technically allowed to say. But remind me towards the end of the year and I will let you know my top picks of must places to visit in South Africa (this will definitely be on the list). My colleague, Gareth, flew down from Cape Town and helped me with setup, which I am super grateful for because the ground here is so rocky and hard and hammer in 80 poles by yourself is not a fun task. We spent Tues-Thurs setting up then drove back to Joburg Thursday evening, I dropped Gareth at the airport, moved some Panthera vehicles around and then settled in for the night at my dear friend Lisa’s house. It was so wonderful to spend time with her, her Gareth (yes, another one, there’s four in my whole story), and their adorable son, Jayden.

I woke up super duper early Friday morning and drove about 4 hours north to another one of our Panthera sites to pick up a survey kit. This site is generally ran by the reserve ecologist so we just have to help with setup and then pick up the gear after the survey is complete. When I got to the reserve, I was told I can grab gear super quick and be on my way, or if I have some time I can help out on something interesting. Of course, I chose to help out and am so glad I did! I got to “help” (more or so just tagged along and took photos and videos) dart two bull buffalos, move them back to a boma and watch the vet perform TB tests on them. So cool! Another one of those right place, right time moments for me. The crew at this reserve was so friendly and sweet and I am definitely looking forward to helping them with setup later on in the year.

After my buffalo adventure, I loaded up the survey kit and drove the 4 hours back down to Joburg. Lots of driving around, but it means I got to spend another wonderful night with Lisa and fam! Saturday was a bit more chill, I dropped off the survey gear at our storage unit and did some lekker shopping in Joburg for items I can’t easily find out in the middle of no where (aka protein, supplements and egg whites). Lisa took me over to their new house that they will be moving into this week and I got to see my room. The house is STUNNING! They did such a great job picking the perfect home, and the garden is huge too. Ryno will be coming up next month and will be staying with Lisa until the end of my field season, and I will be using my room there as my home base between surveys and every so often as a getaway when I need some puppy time. I know Ryno is going to be so happy there and so well loved! I can’t wait for him to come up!

Saturday evening, I headed back to my site and settled in for the night. Sunday, I oriented myself a bit more on this reserve by going for an evening drive and got some beautiful photos. There are tons of white rhinos here! I have yet to go a day here without multiple rhino sightings!

Yesterday, I started my first round of checks. They went well, though it turned into being a really long day (about 13 hours in the sun). I lost two cameras to who-knows-what, they were completely missing, pole and all. And had one camera that got absolutely demolished by a rhino, it looks like a car had ran over it, backed up and ran over it again. But when I checked the SD cards the last photos are of a rhino walking by, stopping and looking at the camera and then super close up of the rhino before it stopped taking photos.

Oh, the life of a PantheraCAM. They live out in the harsh elements, get stolen by naughty humans, thrown high into trees by eles, chowed on by lions and hyaenas, melted by wildfires, demolished by rhinos and trashed by baboons.

This can got a little too close to a fire.

Some hyaena thought this one would be fun to chow.

You may have noticed a new tab in the top right corner of this site – I am doing a test run of selling my art prints. If you want to check them out or even make a purchase, just click on ‘Artwork.’ 😊

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ve Monday morning to start my field work, so this week has been really busy prepping and getting ready for that (and also spending as much time with my friends and Ryno as I can). I got to experience my first rugby game on Monday and went to UCT’s game vs Wits. It was so much fun! Definitely no where near the university football vibe you get in America, but we still painted our faces and had a blast rooting for our team! (UCT lost, but that’s besides the point). I could definitely get into rugby more and will make it a goal to learn what I can this year about it. Then really get on supporting my uni next year when I am back from field work. I also learned a really fun game called squash. It is a bit similar to racquetball, where you have a court and hit a bouncing ball with rackets.

I am really going to push for selling my truck while I am briefly in the states in April because I will need to buy a vehicle here once I finish my field work in December. Luckily, I have a Panthera truck to use from Monday to December for getting around. If you or anyone you know in the PA, MD, VA area want to buy a beautiful 2010 Dodge 1500 – let me know! 😉

Once I head out Monday, I won't have WiFi again for a few months or longer and while I will have good phone service at some places, data here is expensive which means I will be staying off most social medias. I will try to keep this updated as much as I can though and will still have access to email, FB messenger and WhatsApp if you need to get a hold of me.

I will miss this view and the ocean!

My next post will be coming at you from the bush!

Chow!

Hi guys and welcome to a new year!

My trip to America for the holidays was lekker! Though I didn’t get to see everyone I had hope to see (talking about you, Pavlick), I still had such a blast catching up with friends and family – I got to get lots of love from my boy, Diesel, go to the National Zoo’s BrewLights with Graham, Poolesville’s holiday light up night with the Bug and dad, wine tasting with Casey, met up with a big chuck of the family for Indiana’s first birthday, went to a hockey game (go Pens!) with Josh and Emily,

caught up with my furbabies and zoo family at the zoo, spent an amazing week with my best friend soul mate Becca, helped her adopt a new cat :-P, saw Star Wars the Last Jedi twice (once was opening night), explored and got lost in DC with Andrew, impacted the minds of some future ecologist at PHS, got to learn more details than I can remember about Teslas, got to play with my toys at the gun range with Matt and Greg, met my absolutely adorable nephew Atlas and spent an amazing week with Erin, Blair, BerBer and Atlas, had a lovely Christmas with the family, then spent a final few days in Maryland catching up with some more family and friends before hopping on a plane back to Cape Town. It was a BUSY four weeks, but I loved every minute of it!

I landed back in Cape Town New Year’s Eve and got to spend it with Joselyn out in Rooiels – such a great way to bring in the new year! Annnnd back to the grind. At Panthera, we hit the ground running. This is going to be an extremely exciting year and very busy year! I will be running camera trap surveys practically all year. I head out to the field at the very beginning of February and am expected to be back around mid-December! Just like before, I will have very limited internet connectivity, but will try my hardest to get a post out as often as I can. And yes, that will mean LOTS of new wildlife photos, if I am not a pro by the end of this year I am giving up. 😛

I am trying to make the most out of my only month in Cape Town. Ryno and I have been going on lots of hikes. I went to my first cricket match last weekend and had an absolute blast! Though I still have NO clue what is going on in cricket, I just now understand that it really isn’t like baseball at all. I spent this weekend in Simon’s Town, I got to go relax on the beach surrounded by penguins! Yes, there are penguins in Africa, they’re called South African penguins, and they are utterly adorable. This morning Vinny and I went on a lekker kayak excursion around False Bay to see the Cape fur seals and another view of the penguins. The weather was AMAZING and made for a perfect morning. Oh yeah… did I mention that it is SUMMER! Woot so I get to enjoy long sunny hot days while my American friends are dealing with some polar vortex (sorry, I’m not sorry).

And now I get to do something I have not done in years and years – school work. On top of an entire year of field work and some busy, exciting new things from Panthera, I am now a graduate student and have deadlines I need to start hitting. So, wish me luck! I will try to get up another post just after set up at my first site.

Toodles!