Today's Photos

First up, the lovely Jade. Unfortunately she had suffered metacarpal paralysis in her front legs which you may notice in some of the photos. She gets around very well considering, but does not participate in the cheetah runs. She is a gorgeous friendly girl. 

Secondly, more of the lovely snuggly Nala. 

A Day at Dell

Today the skies cleared and we had our first 'proper' day at the project, so I thought I'd give a bit of a rundown of what a daily routine entails.

As I mentioned before, we get up early for a start between 6.30 and 7. This is to do the morning rounds of checking for poop, cleaning the water bowls, collecting the food bowls from the night before and feeding the small cats. This all takes about an hour and a half by the time we prepare food, walk around all the enclosures, and clean the dishes. Then it is back to the house for breakfast - 3 days a week this is a cooked breaky waiting for you when you get back!

The morning then consists of some sort of work around the project. Today's job was  fully cleaning out the mice, rats and rabbits that are kept and bred onsite. These form part of the servals' diet, though at the moment they are eating chicks instead while the rat and mouse population is built up. Having kept mice and rats as pets I found it a little difficult to keep removed from thinking too hard about why they were there - caring for something like a pet that is being kept purely as food is something I find a little challenging! 

After a break for an hour or so for lunch, we went for a walk to the dam to see if it had filled much with all the rain that there has been - the levels were much higher so it proved how wet it's been lately! Then onto the normal afternoon programme - cheetah time :) This is just where the volunteers (with a member of staff) get to sit with the cheetahs and just hang out and spend time with them. Today we were back with Nala and Jasmine for a while then we visited Jade as well. As an added bonus we witnessed two cheetahs mating- not something you see every day! Trigger is on loan to try and get some of the females pregnant. Jasmine is expecting late march, and today he was in with Tessa and mated with her as well. There is a chance that Nala is also pregnant, so there are high hopes for quite a number of cubs in the near future!

After cheetah time the last job of the day is feeding. We prepare the meat and feed all the cats their dinner. After cleaning up the cheetah kitchen that's it for the day and it's in for dinner and relaxing for the evening. 

I have some more photos to share but will have to put them in a separate post using my phone. Watch this space! 

First Cheetah Time!

The rain cleared early afternoon and we managed cheetah time this afternoon! The one I'm cuddling is Nala, and the paler cat is Jasmine. Just as incredible as I thought it would be :)

Tiggy

Some photos of the stunning Tiggy, one of the two servals here at the centre. 

Rain, rain and more rain

Well as you can see I managed to publish yesterday's post, so yes we have the internet up and running. It is still quite unreliable though, especially with the weather we're having. Unfortunately it is raining non stop. Today was supposed to be the first 'normal' day, but it poured all through the night and was still going steadily this morning. That means we pretty much can't do anything and are stuck inside for now. The forecast doesn't look too good for a few days, so I'm crossing fingers we do get a break soon. 

Because of this I haven't had a chance to get much in the way of photos, but I can at least tell you a little more about who lives here at the centre :)

The project is home to 8 cheetah, 2 servals, 1 caracal and 2 house cats! The cheetah - Jade, Shaka (pictured in my last post), Jasmine, Nala, Tessa, Shakira, Penny and Trigger - have all been raised in captivity but some are friendlier with humans than others. Jade and Jasmine have so far let me have a bit of a cuddle. 

There are two servals - I have some photos of Tiggy I'll try and post shortly - a smaller African cat. Tiggy lets you have a pat and likes to walk around the centre on a lead. Bells does not like to be touched but enjoys playing fetch with you with his ball! 

The last big cat is Pablo the caracal. He has the most gorgeous ears! Caracals are considered vermin here but they are a stunning cat. Pablo was raised in a house as a cub and neutered, but then the family decided they didn't want him. He has no option but to live out his life in captivity - he would not survive long if released, most likely he would quickly be shot by a farmer as he is not scared of humans. We don't get to touch him or spend much time in his enclosure, however he loves company and to have a chat through the fence. 

Finally there is Fury and Thunder, the super friendly house cats. They love having volunteers around and have already made themselves at home on my bed. 

I'm looking forward to getting to know them all during my stay, it is already apparent they each have their own very distinctive personalities and idiosyncrasies! 

First days at the centre

I am here at the Dell Cheetah Centre. It is actually Sunday 2 Feb, but I'm not sure when I'll actually get a chance to publish this post. I was concerned about how reliable the internet would be before I came, and sure enough there have been storms in the area and the wifi has been down for the last 5 or so days! Someone is coming to have a look tomorrow so fingers crossed I'm online soon. 

Anyhow, I've had a good day and a half and a chance to settle in. Estelle, one of the owners/founders of the centre, met me at the airport yesterday along with Isabelle - the only other volunteer here for the first 2 weeks of my stay. It is just the two of us for now until another 3 or 4 arrive on the 15th. We work with Estelle and Hardus, who lives on the property and works with the cheetahs while moonlighting as an amazing chef and keeping us fed. 

Upon arrival I was excited to lay eyes on a cheetah almost instantly - their enclosures are all around the house, some just steps from the front door and the others I can see from my bedroom window. We got to meet the lovely Jade who came straight up and head butted me, and I was able to have a nice big pat.  

Last night we tried to do the evening feed but got stuck in an absolute torrential downpour. So we ended up spending a fair bit of time stuck in the cheetah kitchen (affectionately known as the slaughterhouse) waiting for a break in the weather. I just concentrated on trying not to sing out loud about blessing the rains. 

Sundays are mostly a relax day at the house. There is still the morning routine to be done though so we got our first experience of our daily duties. Every morning around 6.30 we're up to scoop poop, take away the food dishes, clean and refill the water buckets and check on all the cats. Sunday is also bone day so the cheetahs all get a special treat - though when I say bone they are from a horse so not quite what you'd give your dog! I got my arm workout for the day carrying one to an enclosure. 

The rest of the day has been a chill out here before into normal duties tomorrow. It is raining again as I type and thunderstorms and showers are predicted for the next few days. It's keeping the temperatures down a little but I hope it doesn't interfere too much!

I've already learnt a lot about the cats and will post about them soon. I look forward to introducing them all properly once I have some good photos - I haven't had a chance to really take any yet. But just to prove I'm here, I've attached one of the gorgeous Shaka. 

I think it is going to be an amazing 4 weeks, I can tell I'm going to learn an incredible amount and have some very special experiences. 

Johannesburg

Good morning from Johannesburg! Well, good afternoon/good evening for all of you back home. I had a surprisingly good flight yesterday and everything has so far gone according to plan!

It was 14 hours straight from Sydney to Johannesburg but it went relatively quickly, lots of movies and a fair amount of dozing with the added benefit of an aisle seat with no one next to me. So not only could I get up whenever I liked, nobody had to climb over me either! 

I was a bit nervous about landing this end - I'd made the mistake of reading a few horror stories about Johannesburg airport. But everything went smoothly - in particular my luggage appeared looking exactly as it did when I checked in, thank goodness. I was a little surprised by customs - New Zealand is so strict with bio security but here you just walked straight out. There was an 'items to declare' lane but I'm not sure what the motivation would be to go into it - everyone just walked straight out the green lane without talking to anybody official!

Much to my relief once I got out the exit I quickly saw my name on a card :) The people here at African Dreams are just lovely, they've looked after me very well including feeding me a delicious dinner last night and they'll drop me back to the airport in a few hours where I'll be picked up by the people from the cheetah project. 

I haven't see a lot of Johannesburg, but it was pleasant enough to drive through.  I couldn't help but notice the bars on windows and doors and a lot of security gates, and I was pleased to be in the capable hands of a local. But my short stay has been a positive one so far :)

It's still only early here, I'm a bit muddled with my time zones. I did at least manage a decent sleep and hopefully will settle into having my night and day back to front quite quickly. 

I'm looking forward to getting to the project now, can't wait to share some cheetah photos soon!