Kruger in style

Once in a while a beaut of an opportunity lands in your lap. I had just returned from the States when Ed asked me if I would be able to help him with fieldwork in Kruger National Park the next week. I was still thinking about it when he told me the type of work being done. After hearing his pitch, I immediately said yes. The job would involve all of my major interests: science, nature, gadgets and flying! Day 1 we would fly to the park and set up and test some technical remote sensing equipment. Day 2 would involve mounting this equipment in a helicopter and flying to a variety of sites in the park to collect data. Day 3 would be a backup day and then the return to Cape Town. My role would be to tag along and do the technical stuff. What a trip!

We flew to Nelspruit and drove into Skukuza, where we were staying in the research camp. On arrival I started familiarizing myself with the equipment, while Ed caught up on project business. All went well, so that evening we drove to the dam and had sundowners.

Our rondawel in the research camp.

Working on the gear with Thembi

Ed and beer

Pied Kingfisher

Hippo at the end of the dam

Dam sunset

The next day, I got up at dawn for a quick game drive before we got going. It was wonderful to drive around in the early morning and I hardly saw anyone else on the park roads. I didn’t see any spectacular wildlife, but was unhurried, so I could stop and enjoy the animals that I saw.

Impala does and lambs

Vervet monkey

Bushbuck

Warthog and redbilled oxpecker

After breakfast, we tested the equipment and discovered a problem. I spent the next hour on skype with some German colleagues trying to diagnose the problem. Eventually we found the fault and raced to the airport to catch our flight. We rigged the gear and the helicopter powered up. I took our final pre-measurements and found the one camera wasn’t working. It seemed as if the battery was faulty and so after replacing that, we were good to go.

Rigging the gear on the helipad

We took off and flew to the first site, about 10 mins away. Our protocol called for the pilot to hover at 3 heights on a precise co-ordinate with a precise heading… challenging flying. At each point, we would capture data. Every 20mins we would find a clearing in the bush and land to recalibrate the instruments to the new light levels.

The sensor array mounted on the helicopter

Over one of the sites at 500ft. Note the black triangle of a weather station
in the junction of the chopper skid and the sensor arm.

Coming in to land for recalibration.

Things went well for the first few sites, but then poor light and an unfixable faulty connection in one camera shut us down. I battled to fix the problem with the clock running in the chopper, but after site 5 out of 8 the light was too bad due to heavy cloud and we canned it.

Recalibration at one of our landing spots

Technical difficulties at one Rand a second... no pressure ;)

Flying back, we were treated to epic views of game… the sort one usually sees on documentaries. In one instance, our pilot, a game capture expert, circled a mixed herd of rhino, wildbeest, impala and zebra getting them on the run. We followed a group of rhino as they ran through the bush, hovering above them at treetop height as they ran.

Clearing ahead with a mixed herd

White rhino, Zebra, wildebeest and impala

Only one foot on the ground for the lead rhino

White rhino in full charge

It was epic, but after the second pass I felt like we were starting to harass the animals. On his third pass, a rhino ran straight into a wildebeest, knocking it and it’s calf down. At that point he backed off and we observed the animals to check there was no serious injury. You can see the collision in the photo sequence below...





The wildebeest seemed fine, although, it must hurt having a rhino run into you. From there, we flew at just above treetop height back to Skukuza to end an epic, albeit only partially successful day.

Cape Buffalo

The next day we planned to fly the sites again, continuing on from the last site to drop me off at Nelspruit for my flight back to Cape Town (that would have been sweet!), but the weather didn’t co-operate and we were grounded. So, instead, we drove back to Nelspruit and I flew out, leaving Ed there to have a short holiday. We will try again in January.