More Safari Adventures...

One of the baby giraffes we saw on our bush walk

The baby zebra was adorable!

Our driver got us so close to this elephant that I thought he might charge at the vehicle. I actually had to switch to my wider angle lens to get photos of the whole elephant as we were too close for me to use my zoom lens. 

After the sun had set on our first game drive, we came upon a group of elephants. I love this photo with the elephant in the front and the African starry skies behind. 

Up Close on Safari...

Our safari package included three game drives and two bush walks, where we explored the African bush with a woman who had grown up there. The safari drives were incredible and we saw some amazing wildlife including four of the big five: lions, elephants, water buffalo and even a cheetah, which we were very lucky to spot on our last sunset safari. We also got really close to giraffes on our bush walks, including two baby giraffes which were believed to be twins—apparently a very unusual occurrence. 

Evening game drive drink break 

I loved pretending I was a National Geographic photographer. These lions, a mother and her cub, were less than 15 feet (5 meters) away from me! Although it would have been exciting to witness a kill, we only came upon the remnants. 

She had such gorgeous eyes

We could hear the crunching of the bones while she ate

Mommy and her children

Awesome Safari Lodge...

After having an amazing time in Mozambique, we headed to South Africa. It was a very eventful 17-hour drive, especially crossing the border where they almost didn’t accept the visas of some of the volunteers, including mine.  

Chilling with Charlotte outside our room

When we arrived at our safari lodge long after dark, I was awestruck—it was gorgeous. Set in the middle of a private game reserve near the Kruger National Park, the Ku Sungula Safari Lodge was wonderful. I was even more surprised when we sat down at a long table wrapped around an open fire and served dinner. I felt like I had been brought onto the set of Survivor.

Breakfast and lunch were served at a beautiful table overlooking the watering hole where we could watch monkeys playing and warthogs wandering. 

There were five of us in our traditional rondawel, which was much fancier than I was expecting considering the low price for this optional add-on to my volunteer program.

Picture Perfect Mozambique...

Some of my photographs from beautiful Mozambique...

My good friend Madi out by the beautiful seas

Sunrise from our veranda

Survivor Island

Volunteering at Schools...

Our final week was dedicated to helping out at the local schools. We were meant to do a lot of teaching; however, because it was exam week, we ended up doing more painting than teaching, which I actually enjoyed a lot more than I expected. 

In one of the two schools where we worked, my team painted a world map and flags of the world on the back wall. 

It was incredibly rewarding to see the room go from nothing to something beautiful and even cooler to see a teacher using the world map to teach her class. To see my overview video of my volunteering in Mozambique, click here.

The children loved my camera—look how silly they were! 

The final classroom!

Fisheries Research...

During week two, my team was in charge of the fisheries research. This involved a 40-minute walk to a nearby beach where local fishermen bring up their catches. Each day we lay on the beach in the sun napping, reading and waiting for the fishermen to come back so we could record their catches. This research is an important part of the effort to get the local bay qualified as a marine protected area. 

Most difficult to record were the shark catches, especially when they brought up an infant tiger shark; it wasn’t pleasant to watch, but was quite fascinating. 

The shark fishing locally is fairly sustainable as the whole shark is used, however the fins are sold to Asian markets for use in shark fin soup. To see my short video on the artisanal shark fishing industry in Mozambique, click here.

Diving in Guinjata Bay...

My first week of volunteering involved carrying out coral reef surveys on the local reefs. This involved dropping down on the reef, laying out a transect line and then recording video which we analyzed in the afternoon for species of coral and number of fish. While the analysis was tedious, the dives made up for it. We got pretty quick at doing the surveys, so we had the rest of the dive to just explore the reef. 

That’s me on the left taking images of the quadrant.

My Team: Daisy, Mattie, me and Abbie

My team was incredibly lucky as we got to see not only a manta ray on a dive, but we got to swim with a whale shark. We were all watching a free-swimming eel when I spotted a huge thing swimming slowly behind us out of the blue. My heart stopped for a second before I realized it would not harm us. Despite how slow it appeared to be swimming and how fast we were attempting to swim, we could not keep up with it for long and it was quickly out of sight. Safe to say, we used up our air pretty fast on that dive as we partied underwater after such an amazing experience. 

At least I managed to grab a photo of it before it swam away.

Francesca, one of the founders of Love The Oceans, is really into underwater photography and captured this photo of me filming a shoal of fish.