10/10/2011
Week 3 Blog
Binga!
After an early breakfast and ensuring all our bags were packed we were en route to Binga, which is situated on the shores of Lake Kariba. We finally arrived at Binga at seven o’clock in the evening, after spending seven hours on a bus we all immediately went for a swim in the pool.
Once Mr and Mrs Shultz arrived we all unpacked the Nissan and decided where we all were going to sleep.
On the first day we all got up early and Mr Shultz took us for a run and had a small talk with us when we arrived back before splitting us into teams. I was with Amy and we went to do the feeding where we had to make food for the crocs at the croc farm. We stared off by making food for the big crocs and working our way down to the smaller crocs. We had to mix all different kinds of meat and bone and make them into little pellets. That night we had a few people come over for a Braai and then met a guy called Nigel who had a talk with all of us. After everyone had left we were put onto a kapenta rig in the middle of night and could only get of at sunrise. A kapenta rig stays out on the lake all night harvesting the small sardine like fish in Lake Kariba, before returning to the factory in the morning to drop off the nights catch.
That morning we arrived back at the house where we were staying and managed to fit in a couple of hours sleep. We were again split into groups and this time I was with Patrick and we had to go to the hatchery to clean out the baby croc cages. While we where cleaning Patrick was bitten on the finger and that was the last cage he cleaned. We went back to the house for tea and then we went to do other things on the croc farm like collecting eggs, seeing how they kill and skin the crocs and a few other things. That afternoon we were all allowed to have a nice restful sleep and some guys that did not sleep went fishing. That night a guy came over to talk about crocs and all different kinds you get.
When we woke, we had breakfast and then Mr Schultz asked us to write a page of what we had learnt about crocs over the previous couple of days. After we had all done our page he made some of the other guys do it again and when they where done we got ready to go for a beach braai. We went in different groups however one group did not even show up. When we all got back after the braai we had a small talk about what had happened and then we had supper. After we had all eaten we played 30 seconds. Later that night some of the guys went croc catching and when they got back they put the crocs in the beds of the guys that where sleeping and Patrick got the fright of his life.
On the day we were due to leave we all got up at 05:00 to ready to go back to quest. We all had breakfast and then left Binga at 07:00 and we spent that day driving all the way back. It was about a 7hour drive. When we got back to quest we all unpacked the Nissan and met our new team mate named Tim. Later that day Ross made us go for a short run. At the end of the day we all went to Mr and Mrs Shultz house to watch a movie.
On Saturday we were all happy to get a bit of a sleep in and we did not do much that day. That afternoon we went to get firewood where we filled the whole truck with wood. Much needed for our hot showers, as we use a boiler system and rely on ourselves for this comfort.
Later that day we went to Falcon College for a swim in the school swimming pool and after a few of us went to the Falcon gym.
Sunday
Today most of us got up at 06:30 and had breakfast and then we
went to the Schultz’s house to watch rugby as it was South Africa against Australia. The game was a disappointment as South Africa were beaten. As it was a Sunday we spent the rest of the day just relaxing in preparation for another full week.