The minute I advertised on my facebook account that I was headed on an expedition with Kingsley Holgate I had flocks of replies expressing: “not fair,” “take me with you!”, “awesome,” “I want your job!” and more.
I was excited enough just to camp in the Mozambican bush for four days and pop into Kruger – both a first for me – but with the King that was the cherry! one large, hairy cherry!
It was a wild dog and cheetah census expedition to tally up the number of sightings people in the area had had of these rare animals and to basically learn more about their whereabouts. So on day one, I flew into JHB then to Phalaborwa – which has the best airport I have ever landed down at: imagine statues of animals, trees and a pond in the entrance – and then hopped into a Land Rover with photographer Jacques Marais and in a convoy of other Landies – carrying other journos, reps from the Endangered Wildlife Trust and Land Rover itself – headed into Kruger.
We met up with King and his son Ross at the Punda Maria restcamp – our bed for the night – and sat around drinking red red wine and eating delicious vegetarian tortillas (me at least) as Kingsley told us stories that make you realise how big and awesome this world is!
