We still get the old faith full elephant even with all the small pans of water in the bush. There must be something in the water at Nkurru that they like

Guess what this is?

We did get some white rhino in the evenings as well !

One morning after breakfast a whole troop of baboons came in as well. Luckily they stayed clear of the lodge.

Well that was the story for this week at our waterhole.

Below is a few other images the cam picked up

Till next time

Warmest Regards

Grant

We also got our rifle at last after many months of waiting.  So we did our first bush braai again in a long time and had a great time, I must say the insects are quite hectic around the lanterns on the table, but nonetheless we had a great time as zebra and wildebeest grazed around us during dinner.

Things at the lodge are going great with no major changes during the festive season. All the major maintenance issues are up to date. We will recap in January on the clean up at the building site and get the whole staff area in order with the boma and braai area.  The guys are busy moving into their new rooms and are very excited about it. In the beginning of December I also redid our whole garden at our house with new grass in front and back, you are welcome to pop in when you are at the lodge next time. I also started a small herb garden that got sponsored by Simon Dabbs , thank you Simon ! We will see how long we can keep the klipspringer out.

We had just over 40mm of rain for December and everything looks great. We also had a beautiful full rainbow the one afternoon over the Inselbergs. Was one of my most special scenes in Madikwe ever.

Sighting wise we cannot complain. We got treated to magical African scenes here in Madikwe once again.  I am not sure if all of you know about Ditaba Sepedi that got killed by the Lenyalo males a while back. It was time for them to give the rains over. The North East of the park is ruled by a coalition of three now and they are busy mating with the females in the east.

The Etali female had 2 new cubs and she hangs around Tholo dam. I am sure that some of you who have been to Nkurru the last 2 months can really see a difference in general game numbers since the lions have been reduced. It is great seeing herds of everything around.  The relaxed Maukeng male leopard is also still around and treat us every now and then to a great sighting.

Every now and then we get treated to some or other special moment and one of those days were at Tholo dam where a big bull elephant played around with some lions.

I am sure some of you will agree that it is nice staying out a bit later in the morning and see what is happening at the waterholes. This specific morning we passed Thlou dam later then normal and we found some lions , ellies and rhino at the dam with some general game.

Here’s a few photos of what happened out there:

Hope you guys have a great new year and may all good things come your way in 2012.

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru Team

She is 7 weeks old and very tiny. You guys will definitely get to meet her next time you are at the lodge. For those who we won’t see over Christmas and New year  , have a great time and travel safely if you are going anywhere.

I also just want to thank Asher and Duncan who organized our rifle and brought it to the lodge last week. So the headache of waiting for the license is over.

Warmest Regards

Grant, Monique and the Nkurru Team

The following images were taken on the first night and morning at our waterhole. We will try different angles at the waterhole, but for now it is safe from the ellies….I hope.

I am sure you will agree that it is awesome to get close-up shots of the animals without them even knowing about it. It is quite funny to see the animals reaction on the light when it takes a photo. Some animals react and some just ignore it.

This buffalo was quite curious and really wanted to see what was going on, luckily the taste buds for cameras have not yet been developed in these bovines.

Hope you enjoyed the Nkurru cam update

Cheers

Grant

Hi Everybody,

Hope you are all well ?

I can not believe it is almost Christmas, I only realised it when I made  a point to look at the date yesterday. When you live out here in the bush everyday is a Wednesday and everyday is the 3rd ………. No it is not always like that I just can not believe this year flew by like it did. Regarding the rain we had in total about 60mm so far and everything is turning green and new flowers coming out all over the park.

We had very interesting month at Nkurru again like always. The staff building is 95 % complete and looks great , thank you again to all of you ! All that needs to go in now is the windows and basins. The staff can not wait to move in.

We aslo had  our Xmas lunch in Mafikeng a few days ago and everybody had a great time. We completed a few maintenance tasks as well this month and the lodge looks great:

• New deck lights got installed and looks fantastic
• New pump for rim flow of swimming pool
• New concrete entrance at front door with a slate finish
• New bird bath opposite the entrance to room 3
• We are installing new electrical lanterns along the path ways, it looks great
• Picked up the new umbrella covers for outside umbrellas
• All of us have uniform now and the Nkurru team looks great
• Trimmed down the reed bed completely, very important to maximize filtration and water flow to the waterhole

I just want to say  thank you to Simon and Lynne Dabbs who donated another Bushnell camera for the waterhole. I will do updates on the blog again on who is coming to the waterhole.  They  also donated  an ice cream maker for the kitchen, so get your sorbet recipes out for the hot summer lunches

It will be great to see who is visiting us while we are not around the lodge, hopefully the ellies and lions leaves this one alone

The sightings was again very exiting with good leopard and wild dog sightings. The birding is getting better and better by the day as well. On a more depressing note I am sure you guys are aware of the 2 recent rhino poaching incidents in the north of the Park.  But Madikwe management are doing everything in their power to fight this.

Most of you guys have been coming to Madikwe many years now and when we go out it is not always about seeing the big and fury stuff, but you can not argue the fact that it is great to see a beautiful leopard.  We have been very lucky with the male up in the North western corner, he is extending his territory to Tholo dam.  So hopefully we will get to see him next time you are at the lodge.

With that we wish you all a merry Xmas and a happy new year. For you that is lucky enough to spend the merry season with us we will tell you in person. Remember to pack your swimming gear when you do come , picture this: Gin and Tonic in the swimming pool under a blue Madikwe sky with zebra and impala lazying around the waterhole

See you soon

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru Team

Hi everybody,

I trust you are all well ?

We had once again a very interesting month here at Nkurru regarding sightings and just in general. As you all know the building was a bit of a disaster but it was rectified and the old building is broken down and the new building is going up as I write the newsletter. I just want to thank all the shareholders on behalf of myself and Monique and all the staff , they are all looking so forward to the new rooms.

We have done quite a bit in and around the lodge this month

• the painting of the family unit inside and outside, looks great
• Painted all showers on the inside
• Sanded/oiled windows at kitchen
• The deck lights gets put in next week
• Fixing up the rim flow of the swimming pool and the pipes next week
• The main entrance gets a permanent concrete entrance to main lodge no more mud when it rains
• All the fireplaces in the rooms were taken out and got given a good scrub down
• You guys will notice new products for him/her in the rooms
• All the rooms have new toilet seats, looks great
• Bush cleared infront of room 4/5 , what  difference
• New umbrella covers for swimming pool area got made, still waiting delivery
• There is a new espresso machine in the lodge, old coffee machine will be used for back up

So that is some of the things we got up to this month.

We are taking the staff to Mafikeng 22/23 November for a nice lunch at Mabatho Palms Resort to say thank you for all their hard work during the year.

Ok so enough of lodge matters.

Out in da bush

The game drives this month was out of this world again, even though we are struggling with general game at the moment. We still had quality sightings ,in one week we  had three different good leopard sightings. It definitely has to do with the lion numbers that is on the decrease.

This is the Maukeng male from the North West, we followed him in mid day round about 12:30 and sat with him for more then 15 min.

The next morning we went on another birding trek and I stoppped for I think was a Sabota lark and as we tried to figure out his number plate, someone said softly ” there is a leopard in the marula ” This is the female from the South West that we normally see on the fenceline at the view point.

A few days later we had  her again in a Marula tree after breakfast

It is amazing how one predator influence the whole system. We even see more smaller things at night like african wild cat, caracal and genet. Somebody spotted a white tailed mongoose on Wonderboom the other night, what  a sighting !

Even though the big cats were out we also made time photograph the smaller critters like this slender mongoose. It is amazing what happens when you sit still and let nature just happens around you.

One of the canines everybody asks about when they come to Madikwe is the Wild dogs. We have been seeing them here on the ridge between Kukama, Motswiri , Nkurru ,Tuningi and Buffalo ridge on a regular basis. Zede from Motswiri saw one puppy with them still black so the den has to be here somewhere around us.  We did have good sightings of them as well.

The birding was also very good the last two weeks, when John and Margie Austin were here we did 152 species during their stay which I think is not too bad. The glossy Ibis made his appearance at Tshukkudu dam as well. The rest of the birds including the raptors are all over the show. At Makwepa pan we see a pair of Willow warblers. The black cuckoo shrike can be seen on Greenhouse road in those thickets. Well Id’d Jono The lion sightings have been a bit quite but the other things made up for it.

Madikwe had the buffalo auction in October and they auctioned 46 buffalo…………drum role and hold on for this……they made R 58 ooo ooo . Well done on this project ! No one expected this, it went very well.

They are talking about bringing in 2500 heads of general game next year with the Cheetah introduction early next year as well.

I will keep you guys posted. This is me for this month, see you guys soon at the lodge

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru Team

The Lodge

Monique and myself are on leave after quite a long cycle and a change in the seasons where our days have become really warm and pleasant. Sean Van der merwe will be freelancing for us, we will start work again on the 6th of October.We had quite an interesting month at Nkurru with Nicolas getting attacked by the honey badgers and luckily he just got a big fright and not a single scratch. I am informing you with great sadness that our resident Small spotted genet died underneath the main deck of the lodge,of what I am not sure.

We are busy with quite a few small projects in and around the lodge and have completed a few maintenance tasks as well. We have completed the Nkurru plains project and it looks fantastic. In front of room 4/5 will be cleared next so that one can see through to the firebreak.

We had a walk through all the rooms and drawn up a list of things that needs attention and we will work through list as we have time and days available to attend to it.  Some of the things that we completed the last 2 weeks :

• Sanded and oiled all outside furniture at main lodge and rooms
• Electrical issues in room 1/2 sorted with new fittings and dimmer switches
• Cleaned out all the water tanks.
• Trimmed and cleaned out the reed bed.
• Cleaned up at the staff village
• Nkurru Plains done.

News on our rifle is that the license and accreditation have been approved now we are just waiting for the white card. We have done something new regarding activities at the lodge and that is getting out an astronomy expert for a presentation on the  Southern sky. His name is Vincent Nettman from Astronomy for the nation. Vincent was brilliant, he brought his telescopes along and we did a drive and he did a presentation out in the bush.

All though it was full moon we were able to see for example Saturn and a few other stars and constellations. After dinner he gave a talk and slideshow presentation. If you guys would like to something like that next time you are up here just let me know well in advance. Vincent suggested that after November is the best time to do stargazing.

Game drives:

We had once again brilliant sightings of everything this month and the waterhole also never disappointed. We spent quite a bit of time around Vlei Pan where the sightings of general game have been out of this world.

The Northwestern pride also provides us with hours of entertainment and fantastic viewing. The consist out of 3 females 8 cubs 2 big males with the old Tshaba female with them as well.  With the cubs getting bigger they are moving more and further every week. The 3rd week of September they were all on a giraffe kill up in the North Western corner of the park and Rob the Jackal man were planning on getting some images of his jackal around the kill, but the youngsters had different ideas for the camera trap.

So it is not just Nkurru Cams that gets eaten by the lions. These cats are quite in tuned with todays technology These cubs are really getting big and prviding for them are getting tougher and tougher. The females are really coping well, with the two Kgala males constantly by their side.

Our sighting of the month was of a bird of completely different feathers, we were sitting at Vleischfontein waterhole watching some lions and elephants when this lady showed up on the other side of the fence with her camera clicking away and ignoring us completely, as we are trying to let her know the lions are like 20m. away from her. I can not understand the ignorance of some people , but hey each to its own I suppose. Below is some of the images I took this month.

Hope you enjoyed this months news and see you soon at the lodge.

Greetings

The Nkurru Family

We were with the North Western pride this morning where Rob put out some camera traps for his Jackal research. The youngsters of the pride had a different plan for his research. Here he/she is planning on taking it down.

HMMMMM………HOW WILL I GET IT DOWN ????

GOT IT !

I AM NOT SHARING STAY AWAY !

O YAH TAKE THIS..GIVE IT TO ME  I AM THE FAMOUS ONE !!

MOM HE STOLE MY  SPOT IN THE LIME LIGHT

So that was story of Rob’s camera…short very short.

Cheers

Grant

Lodge news

Well its been 4 busy weeks at Nkurru, but all great and exciting. We have settled in getting around lots of things. The two klipspringer in camp had a baby so they are three now. Their names are Klippies -Dad, Coke-Mom Ys-baby. As soon as I get a photo of them I will put it on the site.  We have changed all the products in the rooms to Andrew’s new Beauty Factory products the Earthbound Range. These products are fantastic….and yes I have used some of it as well Thank you Andrew.

We have started cleaning up in the back of the staff village and laundry, looking great so far. It is a great time of the year but we all wish the Tamboti trees will finish up dropping there leaves, Nick is permanently on his rake and broom flying around after the leaves. We haven’t put up another Nkurru cam yet, still working on a plan against the elephants. News from the Kitchen, Monique and Gabriel are working magic so be prepared to pick up a few kilos when you are at the lodge next time.

Water hole sightings :

• Lions
• Elephants
• Buffalo
• White and black rhino
• Leopard
• Brown hyaena/ spotted hyena
• a lot of general game
• The scops owl is calling around the waterhole every night.

We had a big Birthday bash at the lodge on the weekend of the 20th of August, went for breakfast at Madikwe Gardens and had a spit on the fire. For Simon’s birthday we Notched 4 rhino, 3 white and one black. It is great that more people get involved in the conservation and protection of these animals.

Park and Game drive news

It is that time of the year again, FIRE, FIRE AND MORE FIRES ! On the 27th of August myself, Nic and Godfrey help fighting fires in the South East of the Park started at 22:30 till 13:30 the next day. It was the biggest man made back burn in the history of Madikwe. It is amazing how quickly a fire can spread. Luckily no one got hurt and no lodges got burnt down.

The sightings the last while were fantastic and the lions in the South East with the new cubs made sure we had great experiences.

It is great seeing the cubs and the fact that they are all ready so use to the vehicles makes it special for us. They are only 2 months old now. The Madikwe buffalo auction will also be taking place in the park somewhere in October 2011.  The big herd around Thlou dam are hanging around The bush house and Thlou dam currently.

The females of the South East around Vlei Pan, the Jamala females have introduced the cubs to their fathers the  Naledi males and everything went well.  It is such a tense moment for the females when they do introduce them , but these two boys are so chilled out. The plan for the cheetah introduction might happen next year, Declan said. Well this our story for this month, below is a few images of some of the sightings we had:

It is great to be on the vehicle with people who shares the same passion of photography. We can try different things like shoot right into the sun and the results were great. Hope you enjoyed the Nkurru news

See you next time

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru Family

Just a quick pic to show that Nkurru’s waterhole keeps on delivering.  These elephants pitched up after our morning drive, and not seeing a single elephant out there. They were all gathered around our waterhole  Since the Nkurru cam is out of order  I will put a few images up during the month and let everybody know when it is on the blog. We will work on a plan to put up a Cam again so that it is elephant proof, sort of.

Don’t think anything is elephant proof !

At the moment Vlei Pan is the place to be if you want to see quality general game.  The water level at Vlei Pan is still so high and the scenes around that area are spectacular.

Hope you enjoyed the photos, will keep you posted on things happening at the lodge and the Park

Cheers

Grant