The smell of the first rain drifted across the river. In
the twilight of a gathering storm our boat headed for home. Behind us lay a
beautiful sundown cruise on the mighty Kafue, a fitting end to a week spent in
God's amazing creation. Amongst many other things, we had learnt to tell the
difference between an impala and a puku, that the small grysbok always comes in
pairs and that bullies are not well liked, even among elephants.
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| Grade 9 and Mrs Grimes, Mr Vedder and Mr Grove snr |
Still rubbing the sleep from our eyes, we had started off
from Amano just after 5 AM on October 15th. The first day's drive brought us
via Kabwe and Mumbwa to Itezhi-Tezhi, were we were to spend the next two days a
Musungwa Lodge on the shores of the lake. Although we had already seen our
first animals (a baboon, two warthogs and plenty of "descendants of
buffalo", aka cows), this was not yet in the park proper. However, the
next day we spent a most interesting morning exploring an area of hot springs.
The water comes gushing out of the ground at up to 80°C here, the snaking
streams depositing salt and other minerals along their path. In the afternoon
Mr. Grove (Junior) treated us to a special "holiday hill run", though
fortunately we had a swimming pool to cool off in afterwards. Later we played
"The National Park Game", in which the students were given the task
of managing the (fictional) Liloba National Park. Each student took on the role
of a stake holder in the park, and had to convince the others to support his or
her group's proposal for the development of the park. Accordingly, the evening
saw politicians haggling with conservationists over the construction of a dam,
or lodge owners negotiating with village chiefs over hunting licenses.
The Liloba park having been taken care of, we turned our
attention back to the Kafue the following day. We started off south, visiting
Konkamoya Lodge for a lecture by a zoologist-turned-lodge owner before
continuing to the Elephant Orphanage Project's release facility. Here we heard
many interesting things, although we were saddened to see memorial plaques to
two rangers who had been killed in the line of duty by elephant poachers. As
this was now in the park itself, we got to see a lot of game on the way, too.
Spectacularly, we saw a leopard right up close, not 30 minutes after entering
the park. There were plenty of antelopes, but also an incredibly diverse bird
life: amongst many others, we saw a korhan, a sacred ibis, several
saddle-billed storks and (later) huge ground hornbills.
A very long day's drive finally brought us to our campsite
at the Kafwala Rapids, right on the banks of the Kafue in the north of the
park. After pitching our tents in the dark, we were quite happy to turn in for
the night. The next day was more relaxed, with a shorter game drive in the morning
and then some free time after lunch. In the afternoon we had a lesson on the
Kafue river system before going out to see it for ourselves in the
aforementioned sundown cruise. The highlight of this was the chance to observe
an African fish eagle up close. (This is Zambia's national bird, seen on the
coat of arms and the flag.) We even got to see the great bird "on the
hunt", as our guide had brought some fish along and threw these into the
water for it to catch. Amusingly, after the eagle had caught the fish, its
young came along and started begging for some food from its mother!
We finally returned to Amano on Friday night, after yet
another long drive (briefly interrupted by a puncture). All in all this was a
fantastic trip that we're going to remember for a long, long time. Although it
was very tiring, we enjoyed the fellowship and had a lot of fun together, as
well as learning many new things about African nature in general and the Kafue
National Park in particular. So we are very grateful to Mr. Grove, who did most
of the preparatory work for the trip - and we stand in awe of the One who
created all that we saw!
Grade 9 Field Trip
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