Three St Anne's staff members, Mrs Jennifer Forrest, Mrs Sandra Schwartz and Mr Craig Elmer-English, were recently afforded the unforgettable opportunity of spending three days in the wilderness area of the iMfolozi Reserve in Northern KZN. Mr Rob Humphry of the Wilderness Leadership School invited staff from a few local schools to experience the trail in order to gain an appreciation of the benefits thereof for our learners. The following report, written by Physical Sciences teacher, Sandra Schwarts, sums up their experience....
"Led by guides Siphiwe and Janet (with big guns!), and laden with our bedding, food, cooking utensils and personal items, we set off from the cars 'into the wild'. A safety briefing made it clear what constituted 'cover' (i.e. not a flimsy bush) and when we would actually need to climb a tree. Within five minutes we came across a herd of breeding elephants and had to backtrack and make a two hour detour (uphill and in sweltering heat!) before arriving at our riverside camp. We came across elephants, herds of buffalo, lion in the distance, a crocodile in our stretch of river and a lazy puff-adder 10m from our sleeping area. Craig was in his element, explaining to us the habits of ant-lions, dung-beetles and trapdoor spiders, which bones belong where in a buffalo skeleton and spotting a rarely sighted chameleon in the trees around our camp. We were witness to majestic birds of prey in flight and the even more majestic Milky Way in the clear night sky – astonishingly, even the moons of Jupiter were visible with binoculars.
The hardships (sleeping outdoors on a thin mat, nightly guard duty, drinking purified, luke-warm river water, no deodorant, no toilets or toilet paper – just a spade and leaves, and washing in the river) were irrelevant as we experienced everything the brochure had promised: "a physical, mental and spiritual adventure during which trailists discover a sense of wonder and re-examine their priorities. A chance to exist for a period in the original, primitive atmosphere of wilderness; to watch from a respectful distance the intimate lives of wild animals and to listen at night to the compelling sounds of the African bushveld."
We are so grateful to the WLS for this amazing opportunity and will definitely be aiming to send more St Anne's staff and girls on the trail in the future."
News supplied by St Anne's.