By Dr. Peter Slowe, Founder and Director of Projects Abroad

I just got back from South Africa where we are starting a lot of new projects.

The first place I visited was in the far north where we have leased a stretch of land on the Botswana border. I travelled up with the guy who’s going to be running the programme, Gerrit Prinsloo – Gerrit (pronounced “Kherrit”) is an interesting character, originally Afrikaner but now English-speaking but with such a strong accent that I spent a lot of time saying “pardon?” or “what?” – he’s a fully-qualified ranger and knows every plant, insect, bird and animal, so he’s a good companion and exceedingly enthusiastic.

The reserve itself, called Legodimo (pronounced “Lekho-deemo”) has plenty of wildlife, particularly when you get near to the Limpopo river – Rudyard Kipling’s “Great, grey, greasy Limpopo”. There are zebras and elephants which apparently you mustn’t get too near or they get very nervous – I startled Gerrit by jumping out of his jeep and going towards one to photograph it. In fact, one thing that struck me about wildlife in the bush (technically this is “bush-veld”) was that most of the animals are nervous wrecks because there’s always something around who wants to make a meal of them. The particular elephant I approached had a baby, which was bigger than me anyway, so it lifted up its trunk and waggled its oversize ears – these are apparently preliminary to a ten-ton charge at 40 mph, so I got back in the jeep. One of the most spectacular sights was a pair of fish eagles sitting on a dead tree in perfect sunlight – enormous and very impressive. An eagle owl ate a guinea fowl and a crocodile was just surfacing in the water. There were also masses of Marabou Storks, rare kingfishers and hornbills and a magnificent Goliath Heron.

More photos and information about accomodation and barbecues after the jump

The accommodation is a bit rough at the moment but we’re going to paint it, put in new beds and add a few cheerful decorations to make it homely. Once they’ve been tarted up, the facilities will be really good – and include a swimming pool which is occasionally shared with elephants and ostriches (which are really dumb).

Gerrit is a specialist in camp-fires. He is a great believer in the South African barbecue or “brai”. Personally, I’m not all that keen on strange South African sausages and tough raw Biltong, a kind of salty meat snack, but apparently they’re popular with many people. He assures me he can cope with vegetarians, although I guess the vegetables are all barbecued too.

Later on, I went down to Cape Town – fantastic new projects of which more will come.