We welcome Erin to our secretarial staff and wish her a long and happy stay with Viva Safaris.
We have had all our open vehicles re-canvassed and they all look very smart. Chris , who was a freelance guide with Viva Safaris , has been appointed as one of our resident live-in guides. Chris has the added advantage of being able to speak French.
NEWS AT TREMISANA LODGE :
The borehole issue with the elephants has been partly solved - we have had a trench dug and the pipes are now 1 metre underground. The gardens are looking beautiful and we had two showers of (unseasonal ) rain which helped .
Night drive sightings for July have included nocturnal species such as aardvark, porcupine, genet, bushbaby and scrub hare. Guests on our bushwalks have been fortunate to get very close to a giraffe bull that seems to be found around the camp. Birdlife inside the camp always improves during the winter months - a flock of over 15 yellow-billed hornbills is seen regularly. The pied crows that nest on the cellular tower are having a hard time keeping their youngsters of last year away.An unusual visitor last month was a
Trumpeter Hornbill. The nests constructed by the red-headed weavers under the eaves outside the main lodge are now being used by a pair of cut-throat finches.
The troop of monkeys that has made Tremisana its home is entertaining our guests - please remember these are wild animals and must not be fed. One monkey went for a slide down one of the thatched roofs and pulled out handfulls of grass on the way - leaving a mess on the roof. We have now cut away any branches of trees close to the chalets - hopefully our roofs will remain intact. The alternative is to cover the roofs with chicken wire mesh - we have seen this done at other lodges and think it looks hideous !
NEWS AT MARC'S CAMP :
There has been a lot of work done on the gardens - we hope that the dry season does not last very long as the nyala and kudu are likely to eat up every blade of grass . The hyena clan recently pulled down a young zebra on our boundary with Motlala. We have had good sightings of buffalo on the bush walks - they seem very tame but are still very dangerous and must be treated with the utmost respect.
The adventure camp has been going well and we had two big groups in July. Some of the braver individuals spent the night outside around the boma fire - they report that they heard hyena, lion and leopard in the early hours of the morning.
The Klaserie River is flowing well and the Klaserie Dam is still reasonably full , so we expect to have flowing water in the river all year. This results in excellent birdwatching all year round.
NEWS AT THE CHEETAH INN :
July saw our first big coach group of Dutch tourists. From all accounts, all went well and we look forward to many more visits. We engaged a one-handed artist to sculpt a cheetah head which now has pride of place spewing water into the pond. We have bought new cane furniture for the outside rondawels.
Bookings have shown a significant increase on last year . As the message filters out that Cheetah Inn is now in much better hands, we can expect even greater support.
Birdlife in the grounds is exceptionally good and Ziggi claims that the birding at Cheetah Inn is as good as at any other lodge. Ziggi recently added to his accomplishments by having one of his elephant photos adjudged the winning entry in a competition run by the Kruger Park Times - we are hoping to show you more of Ziggi's photographic prowess in our next newsletter.
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