My new office

I am so thrilled and chuffed to join the guiding team at Singita Pamushana. The warm welcome made me feel at home since day one!

The property has a wide variety of vegetation types besides the usual trees like mopane (Colophospermum mopane) and umbrella thorn (Vachellia tortilis). New trees to me are the tamboti (Spirostachys africana), poison-pod albizia (Albizia versicolor) and green-apple (Monodora junodii) just to name a few.

Activities offered include game drives, walking safaris, fishing, boat cruises and rock art viewing. Some activities like birding can be included during a game drive or on a walk. The walks are dependent on how thick the bush is, but this has to be one of the most enjoyable destinations in Africa to do a walking safari. By walking you get out of the vehicle and learn about small things like insect life, botany and have a closer look at tracks and spoor.

There are now over 123 known rock art sites, whereas before Covid-19 only 80 had been documented. Lockdown gave the guides a chance to really explore and map rock art sites and there is still the potential for new sites to be discovered. The state of some sites I’ve visited so far is very impressive. The rock art has been aged and varies roughly from 700 years up to 2 000 years. The animals painted give us an idea of the animals that were present at that time. The materials used to paint included ostrich eggshells, roots, red oxides from rocks, as well as blood.

I have already had some amazing game sightings ranging from black rhinos to white rhinos, African wild dogs, giraffes and wildebeest. One evening while driving from Pamushana to Kwali I saw six wild dogs lying down on the airstrip. I stopped to enjoy the not-an-everyday sighting. Not far from the wild dogs was a herd of zebra with a young foal. The wild dogs got excited and attempted a hunt but they were not successful.