Duke of Westminster CVQO Expedition South Africa 2014: 2014

At last comms are in from the Cadets. Herewith tales of the first 6 days as written by them!

Day 1: Travel to South Africa

We departed from London Heathrow at 1900 on our South African Airlines flight to Johannesburg. It was a long 11 hour flight, interrupted with several gourmet meals. It was hear that we met our mascot for the trip, our elephant called Thandi. You will be hearing much more from her over coming weeks.

With our mascot in tow, we touched down early morning and quickly transferred for the short hop to Durban. The weather was good at 25 degrees Celsius as we loaded our bags onto the minibus for the 150km road trip to Elandsheim camp. On the way we saw monkeys eating sugar cane at the side of the road.

The accommodation was in huts, complete with en suite showers at varying temperatures. The evening meal was a traditional fish and chips, which fuelled us for the evenings activities. Fireball hockey consisted of us hitting a flaming ball at each other, setting the grassland ablaze. After inhaling a fair amount of smoke, we soon hit the hay early, for our first night in South Africa.

Day 2: Zululand Battlefields Tour

An early breakfast at 0800 included a full English as well as 'sorgum'. This is traditional malt porridge served with yoghurt or milk. We then set off with our esteemed tour guide: Reggie, who is a retired Colonel serving once as CO of the 17^th/21^st Lancers. He gave us a very interesting commentary as we travelled deeper into Zululand. Several of us spotted giraffe, impala and grey duiker. Our first stop was the museum of Isanduwala for a short coffee and muffin break, followed by a look at some background knowledge for the battle which we would soon be visiting.

Reggie gave us an intriguing speech about the Isanduwala battle, from our perch on the sphinx shaped mountain where Lord Chelmsford's army pitched their tents. We learned about how the British army was split to meet the oncoming Zulu army, which turned out to be the wrong decision as the soldiers were in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a result the British garrison at Isanduwala, consisting of 13799 British soldiers were entirely overcome by countless thousands of “savages armed with sticks”. The biggest defeat Britain suffered in her colonial history was at the hands of the Zulu army. Only 52 survived from the battle, including Melvil Coghill, who lost the Queen's colours, but was one of the first two officers to be awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) posthumously.

We then followed the Fugitives trail, 10km through seriously thick African bush, to arrive at the mighty rushing and roaring Buffalo river, at the border between Zululand and Natal. On the way we saw Zebras and learnt about the healing properties of the Aloe Aloe plant. Some brave members of the group decided to swim in the extremely cold and fast-flowing river, before we settled down for a hard-earned rest and lunch. As the sun was going down, we paid a final visit to the monument at the site of the deaths of the two British officers who had attempted to escape and save the colours.

Passing several wild bush fires on our way home to Elandsheim camp, we got several nice pictures of the glorious sunset before turning in for another well-earned rest.

18th July

Today we started at 8am for breakfast which consisted of porridge, sausuage and egg. The girls we very happy with their dry clean washing this morning, however the boys haven't seemed to have washed for a while ...

We were ready for 9am to set off to Rorke's Drift battlefield and continue the story from yesterday. Here, Reggie gave an in depth and emotional talk about how 134 Welsh soldiers fought thousands of zulus to defend the remainder of thier regiment. After having relived this battle we went to the museum, which showed life sized models of the zulu and welsh soldiers and poignant moments of the battle. We were shown a model sized map of Rorke's Drift and we were very surprised to see how, in comparison to the amount of bristish soldiers, many zulus came to defend their land. To the zulus dying in battle is a honoury death and they have to kill someone with thier spear before they can marry, making them even more aggressive!

Later we returned back to base for lunch which was buger and chips, yum yum! Back on the bus we went to travel up the bumpy road to a local beading business. It was set up 18 years ago by a german couple to provide employment for zulu locals, especally women. This hit the hearts of all of us and the realisation of what life is like for them hit home. It was inspiring to see now that over 800 people are employed by one single couple and the business has gone global, how fantaistic!

We are wrting this sitting under an acacia tree whilst enjoying the last of the warm sun before our last night BBQ!

Day 4, 19th

Today we woke at 8am ready for set off at 9. Breakfast was sugar toast for one intrepated explorer, for everyone else ground maize was the choice. Then unfortunately left our temporary home of Elandsheim. After a 2hour journey we got out of the minibus and started out kentucky fried adventure. We then set off on an epic five hour journey through the South African countryside, in which many of the group were amazed to find out that pineapples do infact grow out of the ground.

On arrival at .... we were given a valuable and life saving talk from Tommy about the bush which scared one individual to pieces. We were greeted by two small but very excited little creatures who were very pleased to see us all and then we were shown to our "lodges" which consisted of a framed tent with bunkbeds.

Our first experience of life in the bush was the invasion of a small, female impala who was chased by Copper, the dog. After this we all changed into our swimming stuff to experience a dip in the cool pool and then we chilled for the rest of the night; star gazing, fire making and of course, we love to play a few card games; before lights out and well earned rest at 10pm.

Day 5

We woke with a sense of trepidation knowing that within a couple of hours the team would be preforming a dissection of the 'McDonalds' of the bush, an impala. Having had an enjoyable breakfast of bacon, scrambled egg and toast plus a few bowls of cereal; we ventured down to find an impala waiting for us. Having been shown the basics we all mucked in and proceeded to dissect the animal.

After cleaning ourselves up, which took longer for some than other, we had a rather enjoyable lunch.

Following a quick rest, we journeyed into the bush for our first even game walk into a reserve. Animals seen included; Zebra; common (grey) Duiker; Impala; Wildebees; Red Duiker; Antlion; Warthog; Crowned hornbill; Lesser Egert; Hadeda Ibis; cocked-tail ants; leafing ants; and a lot of trees.

The final part of the day involved taking part in an indaba. The translation of which is; informal meeting.

Day 6...This morning we visited an Elephant interaction where we got to feed in a variation of different ways the elephant, also getting up close and standing right under the head. With one elephant getting over familiar with one lucky member of the group, who might have a beard....

Having visited the elephants we went to Illala restaurant for lunch and to buy a few souvenirs. One member of the group who might still have a beard added to is Zulu tribesman image by buying an animal skin, to complement his spear. All he needs now is an a shield, and his image will be complete.

Finally to complete our day we visited Emdonene (a wild cat sanctuary) where we saw and were allowed to stroke a cheetah and a few other of the wild cats of the bush. seeing if she could push her luck, one of our team members asked with genuine sincerity in her voice is she could kiss the cheetah, much to the consternation to the keeper.