Heine's Ramblings and Rumblings


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Bushveld Mosaic Borakalalo 16 – 18 June 2017

Friday 16 June

Back to Borakalalo for the next installment of our Bushveld Mosaic course . This weekend was going to be all about Geology and Geomorphology .

Our lecturers for the weekend were Dr. Paul Nex and Dr. Judith Kinnaird . (That’s Paul on the left BTW)

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After fighting the usual Jericho traffic and potholes , we arrived at the campsite at 1 P.M.

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Most of the group were already set up , and we assumed our usual position .

Winter had set in ,and it was a lot drier than our previous visit . (Don’t worry , the skulls have been there for a long time)

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Most of the students spent the afternoon studying for the mammals & antelope test that evening.

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Except Brian that is ….. he was doing Brian stuff

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And others were studying other things

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Rose and Cindy arrived just before sunset

 

 

Most of the students left to go write the test at the education centre (present company excluded) and judging from the quiet braai afterwards it was a tough one. Most of us retired early .

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Saturday 17 June

During the night , an unfortunate incident occurred , in that some of the students tents were cut open by a single individual. The HO’s and some of the students chased him , but he managed to get away. While this put a bit of a dampener on the weekend, I would like to commend the Park’s Board and our HO’s on their response , as we had rangers watching over the campsite that night.

The day was spent at the education centre with interesting lectures from Paul and Judith with plenty of specimens for us to identify.

Again , the quality of the lecturers was excellent , and the previous nights mishap was soon forgotten.

 

 

 

We ended the day with a short excursion to 2 different rock formations in the park .

 

The braai that evening was a lot more festive , probably because no one to write a test that day , and we were treated to Chris’ peach cobbler for desert. We also discovered that Amarula makes a great custard substitute for said desert .

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Sunday 18 June

After a fairly chilly night with no uninvited visitors we were back at the education centre for the next session .

 

 

We ended off the lectures with another practical session which included some road blocking and taking various soil samples with the use of an auger and Michael’s muscle power

 

 

After which we returned to camp and packed up

 

 

I would like to thank the team from Bushveld Mosaic , the HO’s and our lecturers for another awesome weekend of adventure and learning .

 


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Bushveld Mosaic Part 1 , Kgaswane Mountain Reserve, 27 – 29 January 2017

This was our first weekend of the course offered by Bushveld Mosaic and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience , that also led to us learning something 🙂

The weekend was hosted at Kgaswane Mountain Reserve , and this was also an amazing discovery , so close to Rustenberg and yet so in the bsh

We arrived laste Friday afternoon and shortly after setting up camp , we attended our first session , which was largely a course outline preparing us for the year ahead

Afterwards we were treated to a suprise platter supper , which was great , as it had been raining most of the evening and I really didn’t feel like still having to prepare supper or braai .

Saturday morning lectures sarted bright and early at 7 AM

But I was lucky enough to see this at an ajoining campsite just before we started the day

The first lecture was soon interrupted by rain , so we moved back under cover and were given a team task that involved building a tower out of uncooked spaghetti and super glue.

The end result was never judged , but I’m sure we would have won 🙂

Ulrich Oberprieler of Ulrich Ecoventures then spent the rest of the day covering an Introductory Course In Ecology . 

Deep in discussion on a presentaion point

We ended the day at about 5.30 PM with an awesome game drive. Did I mention that we were just outside of Rustenberg 🙂

Saturday evening was spent over a communual braai , and I must admit I was asleep by 9.30 P.M.

Sunday started again at 7 AM , with the topics being Principles of Taxonomy and the conclusion of the Ecology module.

I would like to thank Ulrich and the Bush Mosaic guys for a really interesting and entertaining 2 days . So much better than self study , and I look forward to our next session in February which is to be held at Botsalano Game Reserve

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In closing , some random shots of the campsite and the park .


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Posts along Hunter’s Road

Came across these on our latest trip up Hunter’s Road (July 2016). They seem to be railway tracks that have been placed in concrete and some have a numbered disc as well . Any ideas what they could be for? I doubt that it’s for a boundary fence , as it is too low , but it does seem to follow the border line , other than the double ones which are at 90 deg to the rest.

 


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Camping fun

Mabua Kgalagadi