I would like to share with you a funny thing that happened quite a while ago when I was still working with the volunteers at the Cheetah Project.

We had to dip two rhinos… me and two other volunteers (Ellie & Hannah) decided we are not going to follow the boring route and decided it will be much more fun dipping the two rhinos with water pistols.   Mania was the tame one but Tanja (even though she is my name sake) was a bit wild even though she was use to people…

We stopped the bakkie (pick-up truck) in the rhino camp and started stalking the two rhinos, I must say we did a pretty good job in getting close to them.  Unfortunetly not close enough to get enough dip on them when Tanja started charging towards us.  Being a good ranger… we RAN!!  Myself and Hannah made it but we’ve lost Ellie in the process.

We took the same route back to look for Ellie, we found her stuck in a Buffalo Thorn.  This is a tree where if you get hooked by the thorns and it is not easy to release yourself, in Afikaans we call it a Haak en Steek boom which translated means it hook, grab and sting you .  With great difficulty we got Ellie unhooked and we safely made it to the bakkie.

It was a real funny day, one we will never forget on how clever we thought we where!

We would love to to hear any of your stories and exciting experience so please share it with us!!

We would also like to wish the students at UCD good luck for tomorrow, may it be a great year full of exciting new experiences!