End of Year Adventure to Mokala

As some of the SANParks/GVI volunteers got ready to head back home, others were just embarking on the second half of their time here in South Africa.  The end-of-the-year trip is always a highlight of the program.  It gives the volunteers a chance to come together (some of whom have never met) and share all of their exciting stories and experiences over the last 12 months.  It also gives us the opportunity to get   feedback from them so that we can continue to make this program amazing!

Landscape of Mokala

We chose Mokala National Park as our location for this year's trip.  None of the volunteers had ever been (nor had I), and we were all excited about exploring a new park!  The volunteers had the opportunity to visit the bomas and see some of the buffalo who were in quarantine.  Mokala is home to a major game capture unit, and we were lucky enough to talk with some of the game capture rangers and even watch them attempt to separate the buffalo into family groups!  An exciting afternoon indeed!

Volunteers at the Game Capture Boma

The volunteers also had the opportunity to visit the EE center at Mokala and some of the special rock art that was found nearby!  Our tour of the park continued, and we went on many game drives to see what flora and fauna we could find.  The volunteers were not disappointed!  Mokala is known as a breeding ground for endangered species, and we found out why.  After only two drives, our species list was over 30 including gemsbok, red hartebeest, tsessebe, sociable weavers, suricates, springbok and many more!

We were lucky enough to be joined by Kevin Moore from SANParks, and we had a lovely meal at the restaurant and then a very nice feedback session with everyone the next day.  A lot of great ides came out of the feedback, and I want to thank everyone involved.

The volunteers also got a chance to give presentations about their time in the parks and all of the projects that they had been involved in.  I want to give a huge thank you to all of the volunteers and the amount of hard work they have put in to the program!  We will miss Alison from Golden Gate, Joris from the Garden Route, and Sam from Table Mountain.  Ben, based in Letaba, is half way through his year and I have no doubt will continue to do great work!


Also I want to thank the wonderful staff of Mokala National Park for showing us around and being extremely accommodating!  Thank you very much!  It was a lovely way to spend a week with all of the volunteers and see all of the hard work they have been involved in!

Volunteers checking out the rock art

GVI Volunteers: (from left) Sam, Alison, Joris, Ben

Good luck with all your future endeavors!!

-Benjamin Tupper, GVI/SANParks Coordinator

End of Year Adventure to Mokala