In the African night, the beat of a drum means news...

July 2002

Read about events at Djuma Game Reserve

Vuyatela

Bush Lodge

for more information visit www.djuma.com

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This newsletter is archived in the Drumbeat section of our web site

As South Africa prepares for the International Earth Summit in Johannesburg next month, we thought you might all like to hear about some of the behind the scenes environmental efforts being made here at Djuma Game Reserve.

Here at Djuma we are looking after the habitat that sustains the vast species diversity of the reserve, that is what our guests come here to see. Due to the amount of visitors we get, and no municipality to remove our garbage, we have to "get rid" of the waste ourselves.

The lodges themselves generate their fair share of waste. Glass gets separated out into the various colours as well as the different types of metal containers in the form of tin, aluminium and steel. These are then packaged into large bags and collected by a company called Green Waste in Nelspruit. We earn a small amount of cash from this, which in turn gets used for our Christmas staff parties!

Each day, organic matter from the kitchens are placed in big containers and taken to the local villages to be used as pig fodder. Hence the great big porkers we see on village trips, and a very happy community! We have tried making compost heaps in the past, but this impacts negatively on monkeys and baboons that continuously raid the heaps with the easy pickings on tap. Some of the brightly coloured plastic packaging material of a multitude of products we use are woven into tablemats and carpets by some of our staff and then sold. Other plastic, paper and combustible waste is taken to our incinerator for burning, which happens twice a week.

Up at the workshop we have a drum that gets filled with old vehicle oil, which in turn gets used to treat timber beams and decking. This old oil acts as a preservative, as well as a pest deterrent. All the French drains have water loving trees and shrubs growing around them to help soak up some of the excess water. All old cement rubble is stored and used for landfill when constructing new buildings and the like. We also have a storage area for old window frames, bathroom basins and baths, fencing and fence posts that always come in handy for building operations, not to mention the financial saving.

Living and working out in the bush makes one so aware of how fragile and beautiful this ecosystem is.

Pippa Moolman

After an extremely busy month, Rob, Landi, Pippa and Nicole sat down to discuss what we were going to put in this issue of Drumbeat. The conversation steered towards leopards and stayed there for quite a while! A couple of weeks ago the staff bumped into "Twitch", a young male, between the village and the lodge. Twitch also popped over the Scott's fence to check out their yard! A few nights ago we had "Shivati" male and "Kaalkop" female leopards mating in front of camp. You can imagine the scene of staff lined up on the deck, with the guests in their vehicles watching and the baboons screaming from the trees above…. Well, the happy couple did not seem to mind! There has also been a lot of evidence of a rhino family; mom, dad and calf have left their spoor on the dam wall and the roads around the lodge. "One Tusk" the tree feller elephant, moved off for a few weeks, but someone must have sent him a trunk call announcing that Mark was returning from leave, and both returned to camp in all their glory!
The reception building and curio shop upgrade have eventually been completed and is our pride and joy at the moment. A Boomslang has happily taken up residence in the small garden around there, feeding on frogs amongst other things that are in semi hibernation. In due time Rob and Campbell will have to bow down to the demands of the ladies in camp and relocate this snake to a less visible place. (I do hope they read this!)
On the guest front, we held a huge 21st birthday party for Siobhan Smyth, with friends and family joining her from no less than 5 countries around the world! The Smyth's have been returning to Djuma for years, even though they live in Ghana now.
We had three honeymoon couples here this last weekend, all of which were married on exactly the same date and coincidentally 2 of the couples had Elvis impersonators at the weddings! Congratulations and best wishes go to the Yorks, the Branfords and the Robinsons.
A week ago Steve threw his back out and we needed an emergency fill in guide. This came in the form of our dear tracker Solly Sithole, who has been preparing to guide for a few months now. He has done an excellent job and will certainly be in the running for a more permanent guiding position.
Wedding bells are sounding for some previous Djuma staff members. Bronwen is marrying Evan soon, a most delightful young man. Sean and Alice will also be exchanging vows in a couple of days time. From all of us, may you all have a long and happy life together.

You may have guessed, yes, Bush Lodge was also the scene of many leopard encounters! The guests ended one of their evening drives in the lodge after following the young female leopard (not named yet) into the camp. Could this have been a subtle suggestion as to where she thought people belong?
Another evening, Edward had a rare night off, and had settled down to watch some telly…. Out the corner of his eye, there was a leopard on his porch watching him! More likely he was watching his own reflection in the sliding door, but shhh, don't tell Ed!
Out in the bush, Piet is diligently recording all animal sightings on his "Cyber Tracker" http://www.cybertracker.co.za and has recorded no fewer than 8 individual leopards over a three-day period. Sadly, one of them was dead, possibly from a lion attack. We suspect this male to be "Jordaan's" male. In a future edition of Drumbeat we will reveal some of the data Piet has recorded.
A highlight for one party of guests whom were only booked in for a single drive, and had the rare delight of witnessing a cheetah nab an impala right in front of the vehicle.
We have a new guide that will be helping out at Bush Lodge for a while. He is Nick de Jongh who has been working in Pilanesberg Game Reserve amongst other parks. A hearty welcome Nick, we all look forward to getting to know you better. Tracker, Morris Mnisi has been filling in as a guide prior to Nick's arrival, and performed very well. Thanks, Morris.
Jay Hanson popped in for a few days visit from the UK, it was great touching base with him again as well as with Christian, who also volunteered here last year. Tristan Taylor has also returned to Australia to continue with his dentistry degree and pilot's license. We know it won't be long before we see them back at Djuma!

Bush Lodge continued ...

The month has flown swiftly by and once again its time to bring you up to date with the goings on at Bush Lodge. Business wise, we had a very busy month with an almost consistently full camp, which effectively kept us all out of trouble - well almost.
It has also been a very eventful time with animals in and around camp. The dry arid conditions have brought nearly daily visits of Elephant to the Dam. Not content with that supply of water, they seem to particularly enjoy pulling up our fresh water pipe, which is surely just a game to them to see us run around fixing it up again. Andrew and Pat who are the main 'fixers' agree! We have one young female Leopard who occasionally travels through camp in the early morning but on one evening decided to drop by a staff house only to put her face up to the window and gave Edward quite a shock, who was watching the evening News at the time! Edward spent a while convincing others that it really had been a Leopard, fortunately tracks were clarified by ranger Jimmy.
Triston finished his month long visit without too much mishap - he had a minor altercation with a scorpion which stung him on the hand. Luckily his reaction was mild and he fixed himself up later that night in true Australian style with a very enjoyable evening at Jimmy's Kaya (enough said about that as his Mother might read this!!!) Jay (ex-Assistant Manger) visited us for a few days and it was wonderful for everyone to catch up with him again as he is much missed by them all. He is at present on a trip to Botswana and Zambia, then returning to the U.K. to complete a course in business management.

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Djuma Game Reserve
P. O. Box 338, Hluvukani, 1363, Mpumalanga, South Africa
Tel: (+ 27 13) 735 5118
Fax: (+ 27 13) 735 5070
 

 
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