In recent months Wilderness Safari has enjoyed some incredible wildlife sightings and great community initiatives
(TRAVPR.COM) UNITED KINGDOM - October 5th, 2012 - In recent monthsWilderness Safari has enjoyed some incredible wildlife sightings and great community initiatives. The team is busy preparing for the Moon-Rock Festival which is taking place atChintheche Inn from October 12th -15th. The Moon-Rock Festival will be a three day celebration of local bands, DJ’s, artists and cultural acts.
Wildlife
Game viewing continues to be fruitful with the midday heat driving more elephant and antelope herds to the refreshing waters of the Shire. The heat also causes many animals to retreat to the shade of the thickets during the day, so the ideal time to enjoy game drives and boat safaris is during the slightly cooler mornings when the park’s inhabitants are more active. It’s currently mating season for kudus and bulls can now be seen in herds with females and their calves. The park’s nocturnal creatures (genets, civet cats and porcupines) are also all spotted on a regular basis.
At this time of year, zebra, eland and roan antelope are more difficult to come by. However, reedbuck and warthogs are very common. One of the Wilderness Safaris guides spotted a honey badger earlier in the month near Chisanga falls; it was trying to open one of the beekeepers boxes. Spotted hyenas and Side-striped Jackals are also very active; there has been had a sighting of hyena hunting on the grasslands, followed closely by a jackal. Leopard sightings however (despite the cold) continue to occur on a regular basis and there has been a total of eight sightings this month.
Tree Seeding
Tree seedling donation at Mvuu: On behalf of Wilderness Safaris and the Mvuu team, Christopher Mvula received a donation of 600 tree seedlings from Mr. Paul Yiannakis from Mangochi. The donation is part of Paul’s outreach to encourage tree planting in neighbouring communities. The boxes will be shared amongst the local schools in the area (such as Nanthomba, Nyafulu and Mvera school). At Chintheche Inn tree nursery seedlings have started to germinate nicely. Pot filling and planting continue as usual. Wilderness Safaris have hired another nursery assistant with extensive experience in forestry to assist Master and Lucius with the ever increasing demands of the expanding project.
Put Foot Rally
In other news, The Put Foot Rally is a fundraising and awareness initiative that is part of Project Rhino KZN (which is the first provincial anti-poaching associating in SA that brings together a State conservation body, private reserves, rhino owners and leading conservation NGO’s and anti-poaching security specialists). This year the African Conservation Trust partnered with the organizers of this Southern African adventure-race to adopt Project Rhino KZN as their key charity beneficiary in 2012. The Rally stretched across South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the fourteenth day of the rally brought participants through Liwonde National Park in Malawi.
Wilderness Heritage Day
The Wilderness Safaris team celebrated Wilderness Heritage day on August 31st by wearing traditional attire and carrying out a variety of activities across the camps and lodges. In Lilongwe and Blantyre several office members brought in food specific to their country or region of Malawi. From Malawi we had usipa (small fried fish from the lake), nsima (traditional maize),futali (sweet potato and groundnuts from all over Malawi but more common in the far north) ,chingudya (beans ), nkwani (pumpkin leaves with groundnut), malima (bean leaf stew from Misuku), sweet potato leaves, and chambiko (sour milk yoghurt from Karonga.)
Guests also were served Sri Lankan savory rice, biltong and ackee (salt fish with ackee fruit) from Jamaica.The Mvuu team celebrate heritage day in style and had a dress-up competition where the best dressed male and female employee shared lunch with camp guests. Their cultural background was explained and a story or two was shared. Festivities took place in the car park during the selection process with guest participation and a bush dinner with traditional drummers rounded off the day.
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