A traditional South African Christmas involves a braai (the local term for barbecue) and to make the most of the warm weather, we hosted this outside on the patio. One of the rangers was in charge of keeping the braai alight and cooked a mixture of turkey and roast beef, which looked delicious. This was served with a mixture of yellow rice with raisins and seasonal vegetables. I made sure I had a good old peck at the leftovers, once the students had left to sing carols. The desert was also festive and the students gobbled down a mixture of plum pudding and mince pies, although some of the students admitted that it felt slightly strange eating them in the hot African climate.

Later on the students all made their way over to the pool, where those that weren’t too full joined in on a game of water polo. The day was a great success and I can’t wait to watch the real event with the remaining students on Friday.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Zazu xx

The students had a spare weekend and decided to take a break from working with animals and visit the capital of Cape Town. Nine students had decided to take the trip and together they rented a minibus to take them the nine hours along the N2 to Cape Town.  The trip had been carefully planned and a rough itinerary drawn out for the duration of the stay. The students also swapped drivers throughout the route, so that one person wasn’t responsible for the long and arduous journey. On the way the students stopped at Plettenberg Bay known for its beautiful …

Elephants are one of the most majestic creatures in the world and, for many of our students, they are the animal that they’re most looking forward to catching a glimpse of on their trip. Shamwari Game Reserve has more than its fair share of African elephants but those that want to work mainly or exclusively with elephants often go to the Addo Elephant Park, which is just a short drive from Shamwari. I often flit between the two reserves and I know that many students also choose to spend a few days of their Shamwari holiday working with animals at Addo …

All of the students, currently carrying out animal conservation work at the Shamwari Game Reserve, had travelled to South Africa from London Heathrow via Johannesburg and then the Port Elizabeth regional airport. That’s a journey of exactly 12,298 miles and it would take me a very long time to fly the same distance. However, the length of the journey was the least of the students concerns. Each student would create 2.21 tons of carbon dioxide for taking the round-trip and with Copenhagen and the Geneva Convention in the news at the moment, the students wanted to make sure that they had …

Last week the students were getting ready to dive with sharks in Durban, a prospect that they were very excited about. All of them had chosen to work in shark conservation because they were passionate about these fish and to many of them the experience was a dream come true. If any of them were the least bit nervous they certainly didn’t show it as they emerged into the sea and once they emerged from their dive most of them were so high from adrenalin that you couldn’t get a coherent word from any of them. They were all high …