TESTIMONIALS
| "One
of the best parts of the Kariega experience was Jacques, our volunteer coordinator.
He is a wonderful guide and a mentor. Some of the highlights were watching the
lions hunting and following their hunt from beginning to end. Another one had
to be the elephants. We worked with and watched the elephants for hours. Seeing
the elephants at night was also a great experience. I also did a fantastic canoe
trail and spent the night at a rustic, but great tree house on the trail. Thanks
very much to all for this great experience.” | | -
Andrew Dainty |
| “Best
experience I ever had! A big thanks to Jacques, the volunteer coordinator, he
really makes Kariega’s volunteer programme great. The most exciting part
was seeing the lion cubs and watching them play and get bigger. I had an almost
buffalo capture, and a real lion capture – AMAZING, terrifying and exciting!
I loved Kariega as a game reserve, the scenery is gorgeous. After 8 weeks I will
miss Kariega and everybody here. I am really very grateful for this great experience!" | | -
Charlotte Westendorf |
| "I
cannot think of any better way to have spent my summer. As well as being a totally
unique experience in the bush I learnt to cook and became more confident just
in time for university!" | | -
Ellie Ellwood-Miller |
"WHY
am I leaving?!! This has been, and always will be the best experience I've ever
had. I have met so many awesome people, done so many amazing things ... some highlights
have been: Canoeing on the Kariega river and getting soaked (so went swimming),
our road trip to Plettenberg bay and doing the highest bungee jump in the world
and the "thorn game" (you had to be here!) ... to name but a few.
The
best bits are the game drives, we always find game with Jacques and he knows way
too much so we get double the experience that the guests or anyone else gets.
I now like birds more than I should - I have found myself watching them instead
of elephants! Unfortunately I'll be on my way home tomorrow, but with a mass of
memories, knowledge and friendship that I will never let go. I am going to miss
being woken up by monkeys on the roof and watching warthogs from the tree house." | | -
Eleanor Ellwood, August 5th - September 14th 2009 |
| "Best
holiday of my life and at 42 I can say that! Glad my son and I were able to do
this, made all my hard work back home worthwhile!" | | -
Julie & James Bentley, August 4th - August 31st 2009 |
| "Best
experience of my life. I met some great people and saw some brilliant sightings
(example a lion kill!). Thanks Jacques for all, hopefully see you soon!" | | -
Gregory Gosden, July 6th - August 31st 2009 |
"I
must start off by saying that I have really enjoyed my time at Kariega. The program
has a very good combination of work and fun. The work was so cool and I felt like
I was actually really making a difference.
Some of the work activities
we got involved in included invasive plant eradications. We used a combination
of methods like chopping the trees down, ring barking them as well as spraying
them with chemicals. We also did game counts - which are used to estimate how
much of each type of game is on the reserve. Another work activity was doing birding,
where we marked down the different species of birds we saw for a week to help
record what kind of birds are present in the reserve. We also recorded the individual
markings on various elephants in the reserve for identification purposes.
All
the work was great, but be did not work all the time. We also spent a lot of time
having fun like canoeing and swimming in the river. We went to the beach and learned
more about beach ecology as well as played in the Indian Ocean. We went camping,
had plenty of braais (barbeques), swam in the Kariega river on a full moon night
etc. etc.
A lot of the time we got the opportunity to view game, which
was so amazing – I got a whole bunch of pictures of all the different game
species. We also got to go on a couple of night drives. One of the highlights
was seeing a lion kill!
I have learned so much over my time here about
plants, animals, birds, the environment and also about South Africa in general.
One of the things that made it such a great experience was the volunteer coordinator,
Jacques. He is such a great guy and so knowledgeable. He took the experience to
a new level and made it amazing. My time at Kariega has been so wonderful and
definitely worth it – and I think I got a ton out of it!" | | -
Abby Seymour Volunteer at Kariega 16 March – 11 May 2009 |
| If
you have a testimonial you would like to share with other volunteers, submit
your testimonial to us, we would love to hear from you! |
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