Buffalos, the brooding ones

Buffalos are maybe the most unpredictable of the Big Five, especially the old males that can’t keep up with the herd anymore and wander around on their own, or in a small bachelor herd. Because of their habit to roll in the mud they are also called “dagga-boys”. Dagga is the local name for cement and the dried up mud on the buffalos sometimes looks like cement. The first years that we lived here we saw mainly these dagga-boys, alone or in a small group, at our waterhole and in the dry riverbed next to our lodge . About two years ago we had a herd of about 40 buffalos at our waterhole a few times and last year we even had a herd of over a 100 animals!

Once I had an exciting (and little bit scary) encounter

Divining-rod, science or superstition?

On our lodge here in the African bush we have our own borehole from which we pump our water. We are lucky to have a strong borehole, since water is important and not always naturally in this dry area. Last winter we had problems with the water, we could only pump for a short while at a time. Since it was at the end of the dry season we were a little scared that the water level maybe dropped too much, but luckily that was not the problem. The handyman, André who helped us to take the pump out of the borehole, noticed that

Volunteer projects

In this area are many wildlife projects where they take care of animals in need. The best known are Moholoholo (a rehabilitation centre for animals) and the Cheetah project, where they breed with the endangered cheetahs. Bur there are many more projects, from rehabilitation for all sorts of animals and education of local people (Daktari), till specialised care for

(Exiting) encounters in the bush

Since I live here in the South African bush I regularly have unexpected, nice and sometimes exciting encounters. A nice encounter for example was the giraffe mother with baby that was on the road when I brought Niels to school the other day. The impalas, zebras and wildebeests that I saw on my way back are in the same category. In the seven years that we now live in the Balule Nature Reserve I have had many of these encounters with different animals while driving to and from Hoedspruit or just looking from our terrace. Even after seven years I still find it very special to see animals passing by from my office window.

Unexpected was the elephant that came to our waterhole last week. I walked out off the office

Moholoholo, rehabilitation centre for animals

At about 50 minutes drive from our lodge is Moholoholo, a rehabilitation centre for wild animals. Here they take care of animals that got wounded (often because of men). They also take in orphans and if possible the animals are rehabilitated and put back in nature. This is not always possible however. The animals that cannot go back

A monitor in my bathroom

A while back we woke up very early. Our youngest son woke up crying at half past four and I just had him back to sleep when I heard something on the attic. At first I thought of a mouse, but the sound was too heavy for that. My husband, Corné, heard it too and went to investigate. Armed with a flashlight he went upstairs. Soon he was back again and told me that it was a monitor, but that it went behind some boxes to hide.

The whole morning