Drive away from our home in Porterville, North
towards Clanwilliam and up into the Cederberg mountains, where endangered Cape
leopards live. Since September last year Jurg has been volunteering with the
Cape Leopard Trust. In January he went to help refresh the Toktokkie Camp
before this year’s children arrived for their wilderness camps.
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| Klipbokberg on the road to Ceres |
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| Matthew and Quinton preparing Toktokkie camp |
This is all off grid. The power to install the
solar panel comes via a generator. Lights and the fridge will be run with the new
solar panel.
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| Toktokkie Camp Kitchen and campfire with boma Showers and loos |
Tucked in amongst the poplar trees
are a kitchen and a campfire. Further away are showers and long drop loos.
After lots of hard work in the blast of summer heat, the first group of
children arrive. Matthew Dowling
CLT’s Environmental Educator
is sorting children into tents.
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| Matthew and children at the tents |
Children from private schools pay
the fee, but children from farm schools are subsidised. CLT’s Education
Programme is sponsored by the National Lottery. The Firsts arrive with their
own hiking boots, the Thirds use boots discounted by Hi-Tec and Cape Union Mart
while they are at the camp.
‘Children from the
local Cederberg school of Eselbank were entranced as they witnessed both the soaring
flight of the parent eagles, and the Black Eagle chick perched on its cliff
nest’.
‘Wupperthal
School is situated in the heart of the Cederberg, and it is therefore
particularly important to us that these children are involved in our programme.
A highlight for us was when they broke into song in the magnificent Wolfberg
Cracks, in awe of the space and the beauty’.
‘To see a group
of teenage city girls bundu-bashing
through thick vegetation on a mountain slope is very satisfying to an
environmental educator. There’s something about not being on a path that wakes
up all the senses and this, in itself, is a fantastic lesson in awareness. The
Hout Bay girls eco-club were searching for a leopard kill site using the GPS
data collected from one of the collared leopard’s GPS collars. The aim was to
find the remains of the animal that the leopard ate’.
‘We planned a
lovely challenge for the children from the Dwarsrivier School who are already familiar
with the natural surroundings in the Cederberg through their walks with us – we
took them for an overnight hike where they had to carry their own sleeping
things and sleep out in a cave on the mountain. The children were so excited to
be proper hikers, and set out full of giggles and determination, leaning on the
walking sticks they had just made’.
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| Shower at Toktokkie wilderness camp |
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| Washing hands at Toktokkie Camp |
For your shower you get 20 litres of
water. Fill your chosen mix of hot and cold in the bucket, then hoist it up. No water restrictions '3 minute showers'. You HAVE only 20 litres in
your bucket. Refill and hoist again.
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| Children drawing a Cape leopard skull |
Elizabeth is a trained Waldorf
teacher. Her husband Quinton does the research, trapping and collaring. To book
wilderness camps for a school class or a ‘family’ of 6 children, please email Elizabeth.
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| Matjiesrivier old school with Agapanthus and Eucalyptus trees |
The leopard within - a wilderness experience for women - 26th to 29th April 2012, will be facilitated by Elizabeth Martins (who coordinates
the Cape Leopard Trust’s Education and Outreach Programme) and Bronwen Lankers-Byrne (working
to create a sustainable peaceful and united Hout Bay).
Last year – ‘there were women from the local Cederberg communities, as well as
from various parts of the Western Cape – a diverse and wonderful group’.
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| Grootrivier Pass heading for Ceres |
The little yellow Land Rover heads for home,
until the next Cape leopard calls to him!
If a wilderness camp in South Africa is a dream
beyond reach, Meredith creates schoolyard habitats in Texas. With Carole Sevilla Brown and my circle gardening for wildlife I-believe-that-children-are-our-future.
Quotes are from the CLT’s Annual Report for 2011.
Pictures by Jurg and CLT
Pictures by Jurg and CLT
words by Diana of Elephant's Eye
- wildlife gardening in Porterville, near Cape Town in South Africa
(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink. Those are my links.)
