Imfolozi Wilderness Leadership School
I was fortunate enough to be one of a group of 7 Grade 11 DSG girls who, along with Ms Griffioen, went on the Imfolozi Widerness Leadership trail. We travelled to the Imfolozi Game Park (home to all of the Big 5!), which is about 3 hours North of Durban, where we were to be spending the next 4 nights.
We then left behind all civilization, put on our back-packs and entered the land where the lion is King. We carried all we would need for the next 5 days; a change of clothes, food, cooking equipment, flysheets (in case of rain, as we slept under the stars) and no deodorant! We hiked for about an hour a day and other than the silence rule (so that the guides could hear approaching animals) and the single-file rule, these were really relaxed hikes, nothing overly strenuous, which meant that you could really appreciate the vulnerability and the immenseness of walking through a game park. On these hikes we came across rhino, elephants, zebra, kudu, nyala, impala, wildebeest, warthogs and buffalo as well as learning about the area and the animals.
The 2 guides would choose a place for us to camp for the night which would generally be a rocky outcrop on the side of the Umfolozi River (so that we could not be completely surrounded and always had an escape route) and we would then be able to spend what was left of the day as we saw fit. We slept, chatted, drank a lot of tea, swam in the river (when and where the guides said it was safe enough), wrote in our journals and soaked up the overwhelming peacefulness of the park. The view from the campsites was always extraordinary as we were elevated. Watching the animals come to drink from the river at sunrise and sunset was really special.
The food was extraordinary I, for one did not expect to eat very well...being in a game park and carrying all your provisions, yet I was pleasantly surprised to discover that food was plentiful and delicious! Each night we would each be allocated an hour and for that hour we alone would be responsible for the lives of the eight sleeping people around us. One would be given the night watch torch and we were instructed to walk around, looking for eyes and to keep the fire alive. For all our stressing and our fearful prayers it was actually not terrible - the only animal encounter we had during night watch was with a black rhino and the guides swiftly shooed it along. It was during these long, dark hours that I did some superb thinking, some nights you would feel utterly terrified, other nights you would feel elated and each night, after your duty when you could go back to sleep you would feel extremely thankful to be alive.
To end I would like to share two favourite memories of mine: The first memory is of hearing the sound of a lion purring, very loudly and very clearly during my hour of night watch! The second memory was when, on our last evening, we had been watching elephant, rhino, buffalo and a hyena drinking from the river and were making tea and settling down for the evening when we heard a thundering. There was an enormous male Nyala running full speed towards us, we all watched, gob smacked as it gracefully galloped through our campsite and then as three wild dogs came rushing after it.
I am so grateful that I had the chance to go on this camp! I have learnt a great deal and the friendships and memories that I made are very special. I would strongly recommend it to everyone.
Alice Ter Morshuizen
