Saturday 26th October 2013

The final two EcoTraining assessment drives were this morning and then it was back to camp to collect our results from the last two months of tests and exams.

Now we have five weeks of specific training – birding, wilderness medicine and tracking before doing our actual FAGASA exam and assessment drive. Everything up then will have been preparation for that final week.

I impressed myself by not picking up one book during the afternoon, it was a day of no study but of relaxing hard. So much so we were able to persuade the camp manager to let us out in convoy to the local bush bar. This meant we could have a proper celebration and say goodbye to the ’55 day’ students who all leave first thing tomorrow.

The most unnerving thing about the bush bar is that people are going at the booze hard with knives and side arms hanging from their belts. Not something that you’d see back home in the UK, but they seem to cope just fine.

One of the best things about going off the reserve is driving back onto the reserve! You leave the tarmac road, unlock the gate and then you’re on the dirt roads and back into the wilderness.