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)

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

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)

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

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

And others were studying other things

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 .

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.

‘Not quite what most of us were expecting at the mention of cleavage

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 .

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 .