So we have had to say good bye to Mokolodi and the many friends we made there. I found it particularly hard to say bye to Blue (the vervet monkey), Black (the baboon), Kgosi (the African rock python) and, of course, Louie (our adopted Meyer’s parrot). But they’re being left in good hands. Georg has already taken over the duty of looking after Louie and I’ll be checking in regularly to find out how she’s doing!
Our last week
Our last week of Mokolodi was mostly spent doing fire breaks. The basic idea is to burn dry grassy areas of bush on the edges of the reserve so that any bushfires which come from outside the reserve won’t be able to spread into the Mokolodi reserve because all the flammable materials will already be burnt up. The main issue with fire breaks is keeping the fires that we start under control so that we don’t burn down the reserve ourselves. We found out just how hard it can be to keep the fire under control on our first day when a sudden gust of wind sent the fire racing through the bush. Luckily we have a tank of water and hosepipe, and around 12 people with fire beaters to put it out. It was still pretty scary for a minute or two!
On our last two days we relaxed a lot more, went camping with Sean, Scott and Georg, packed our bags, had a few drinks to celebrate my birthday and said bye to everyone here. We also gave some bananas to the monkeys in the sanctuary and a flat old football to Black the baboon which he loved! It’s been a great experience and we got very close to some amazing animals, both in the sanctuary and out in the bush. All the best to everyone at Mokolodi for the future and thanks for a great 8 weeks!
Lambey in Africa 