Molelo Tau Pride Newsletter December 2011

MOLELO

Tau Pride Newsletter

Welcome folks to the Tau Pride newsletter. Tau has great aspirations that this newsletter will reach you all, wherever you might be and in doing so hope to rekindle those breathtaking memories of the sights and sounds of Africa.

News

It’s that time of year again where the lodge is abuzz with the excitement of the festive season. Christmas decorations have been put up and all guests and staff are in good spirits. After all, Tis’ the season to be jolly!

Over the last few months we have been working on something big in preparation for the summer and we are proud to announce that we have successfully introduced five crocodiles into our waterhole. The croc introduction was done with the help of the North West Parks and Tourism Board and Bakwena Crocodile Farm.

The crocodiles are approximately two meters in length and are three years of age. We have erected a croc proof fence around the lodge to ensure that the crocs enjoy the water hole and not the well-manicured lawns around the lodge and chalets. There is also a healthy population of fish in our waterhole for the crocs to feed on, in addition to this we have brought in loads of fine river sand forming a sand bar and providing         them with a comfortable area to bask on.  

Photo by Brad Leighton

Sadly we have said goodbye to Morah-Leigh Cooper in November. I am sure that her fellow rangers and everyone else at Tau will miss her dearly. Thank you, for all your hard work and dedication to Tau over the past four years and good luck with your future endeavours.

We also bid farewell to Merlin Jones, our Assistant Head Chef who left us at the end of November. Go well and all the best Merlin.

On another note there are always sad goodbyes but also welcome another new ranger, Garth Harrison to the Tau Team. Garth has studied Nature Conservation and has been involved in Madikwe helping our resident ecologist in various exercises for practical experience, one such project was the recent buffalo auction that was held in Madikwe which was a huge success. Here’s to a productive future at Tau. 

Garth helping out with the recent buffalo capture for auction..

Bush News

The bush is starting to green up after our first big rainfall of the season and summer is once again upon us. This time of the year is particularly very special as we are starting to see the general game start to calf. This is providing some lovely sightings of the youngsters playing and learning from their mothers.

The sightings have been particularly good with leopard becoming an almost every day occurrence. One leopard in our area, the Maokeng Male has become very used to the vehicles and allows for great photo opportunities. He has also been seen outside of our crocodile introduction boma on several occasions, providing some very accessible sightings for our guests.

Maokeng Male: Photo taken by Megan Matern

The wild dogs have also been active around the Tau concession over the last while; they are looking healthy, as active as ever and constantly hunting. The picture below is of one such successful hunt where they managed to bring down a large Kudu female in Tau’s waterhole. Being such efficient hunters they manage to kill around 75% of the time. The carcass was finished up within the space of 45 minutes, once again providing Tau’s guests with some fantastic photographic opportunities.

Wild dogs at Tau’s waterhole: Photo taken by Gerard Ramage

Did you know?

·        The average age of a crocodile is between 50-60 years, but some have been known to live to over 100 years of age.

  

·        They can reach swimming speeds of up to 40 km per hour. (25 mph)

·        A crocodile has the ability to grow new teeth to replace the old teeth

·        Crocodiles have salt glands on their tongues to expel salt making them more tolerable to living in saline water. Alligators do not have this ability.

·        Crocodiles can grow to lengths of 16-18 feet (4.8-5 meters).

From the kitchen

Our Executive Chef, John Carelse has been nothing but outstanding and has continued to create some culinary delights. Again a big thank- you and well done to all the staff in the kitchen. Below are a few things John made for high tea for a group recently.

Sweet treats for high tea: Photo by Markus Kleinhans     

Chocolate fudge cake: Photo by Markus Kleinhans

We thank you for taking an interest in our newsletter and trust we can keep your passion and interests alive for this beautiful place we like to call home.

Regards

Brad, Markus and the Tau Pride

Ps: We would love to post some of our guest’s pictures, experiences and suggestions in our newsletter. If you would like to share your adventures with others, please send it to gm@taugamelodge.co.za 

You can also follow us on Facebook and twitter

LORD MADIKWE

A while ago we had a big bull elephant that was aptly named " Lord Madikwe", the name resembles Lord Muck, and pretty much he used to do just what he liked. He damaged numerous lodges around the park and ripped geysers off of walls, damaged gardens in lodges, vehicles and water treatment plants...all within the confines of the lodges electric fencing.

One evening, after trying his luck at our lodge Lord Madikwe marched into another the camp, broke down the electric gates to the lodge and went straight into the fenced area. I was told that the elephant had done so much damage and was in camp for almost the whole night. He ended up smashing the window on their company vehicle with his tusks, then he moved on to a beautiful big Marula tree and pushed it over...Next he decided that it was a good idea to move to the water treatment plant at the bottom of the lodge and push the water tanks over and puncture them with his tusks, and then play soccer with the tanks, pumps and pipes.

Eventually the manager had enough, as the guests had left the lodge as they were too scared of the elephant, the staff were petrified to come to work and there had been so much damage that the decision was taken to destroy him. One .375 monolithic solid bullet to the brain did the trick, as you can well imagine, the rest of the evening was pretty quiet !

The next day the elephants carcass was moved to an open clearing where vultures could come down and start eating the carcass. Besides vultures the carcass made for all sorts of great sightings with numerous lions, hyenas and jackal feeding on it. In total the carcass lasted about 5 weeks, so you can imagine how it smelt...

Above is a picture of a vehicle that was involved in an incident with an elephant that attacked the car and pushed it some distance. unfortunatley the driver was also killed. He was trampled to death as he fled from the vehicle. This is just to give you an indication of how powerfull these animals can be as this vehicle was pushed some distance before she decided that it was time to move off and get back to her youngsters and the rest of the herd. It's always a good thing to remember that we are in their space and that all animals can be potentially dangerous.



It is always sad when such a majestic animal has to be destroyed. Lets hope there won't be another "Lord Madikwe" for a long time.

Oz.....Down under

Here are just a few pics of our awesome 3 week holiday in Australia

At the Melbourne Cup, Oaks Day Races with Mark and Rebecca.

We had an awesome time, we bet a few dollars but did not manage to come right.

Kim at Whitehaven beach. So beautiful up that part of the country.

I was also lucky enough to meet up with some old school friends.

While in Tassie we managed to get up to Launceston to visit another old friend that I had not seen for
quite some time. While we were in Launceston we visited the Cataract gorge just outside of town.
Beautiful!

Bonorong Animal Sanctuary and animal rescue just outside of Hobart.

Great to see that these guys are doing such important work for the local wildlife.

.

On our way up to Launceston. There is an awesome little town called Ross.

The red bridge over the river was built by early prisoners on the island.

There are some huge Eucaluptus trees that have been carved out by an artist that tells the story

of the prisoners lives that built the bridge.

A local watering hole in Queensland just out of the Gold Coast.

We wanted to have a beer but they were closed unfortunatley.

We took Stew out for a early Christmas dinner to a Korean Barbeque resturant.

Awesome dinner and a really cool way to eat.

SNEAKY PUFFADDERS

The lodge director was up for a weekend at Matla recently and had brought some guests for this trip. They were sitting and having a drink at the bar. As the converstaion continued we started to talk about drinks, and one in particular called a sneaky puffadder. The concoction is 1 tot of Cane, 1 tot of Vodka, half soda water and half lemonade with a dash of bitters. It tastes great and is quite refreshing but comes with a bite! You really don't feel anything until it creeps up on you.

Talking about sneaky puffadders, it's getting quite warm in Madikwe now and this heat usually brings out the snakes. One night Kim and I were having a small braai. We poured ourselves a drink and I went out to start the fire. I had a few peices of wood in our little boma area from the last fire we had made. As I picked up the wood I noticed a puffadder under the pile, curled up and ready to strike. Luckily I moved away in time and the snake was pretty chilled. We got the snake tongs and stuck him in the cooler box and released him away from our house.

Puffadder bites are extremly painfull and there is a large amount of swelling with the venom causing necrosis(rotting the flesh). Not very popular. They are among one of the most common snakes forund in Africa, found from the Cape all the way up into Northern Africa.

A FEW PICS FROM MADIKWE !!!

Just a short one today. I wanted to post a few pics that I have taken of scenery and animals in Madikwe Game Reserve.


You Gotta love the bush !!!!!

another awesome sunset in Madikwe.

sunset at Thlou dam.

A pride of lions at Tholo dam with great afternoon sun.

A spotted bush snake that I found at the lodge and released him into the garden, completley harmless and very beautiful.

Moon over the Enselbergs. Pretty cool just because its during the day.

Another awesome sunset in Madland !

 

1 STEAK....5 PEOPLE....THIS IS HOW WE BRAAI "NYAMA"

So we recently had Kim's mates come and stay with us in Madikwe. Rebecca, Mark and little Leo from Melbourne. Kim and I had a great time with them and ate outside next to the fire almost every night they were with us. One night we decided that we would braai a nice big peice of steak, 2.7 kilos to be exact. Thats one big peice of cow!

We usually make a fire in the boma area and then take some coals out and cook it in the braai place, but tonight we just cooked it on the fire right there. It was done just right and we all enjoyed it....What more can you ask for....Good Company, Hot Steak and Cold Beer! 

CAUTION!!!! RANGERS AT WORK!!!

We have been spending an incredible amount of money on the roads in Tau's concession to fix them up, every time the road contractor comes out it ends up being a couple of hundred thousand Rand to do repair work. So the Owner baught a tractor, trailer and some other bits and peices for the rangers to fix roads with. This is proving a big hit with the rangers as they now don't have to do all the road work and loading of sand by hand! It's nice for me too as I used to be a ranger and was having to do this by hand. 

Here are a few pics of the Tau Rangers hard at work...I pulled rank and drove the tractor for a bit! Lol! 

Grant and ernest getting stuck in

loading sand in the quarry

another load.

Elephants and puppies

Kim and I have recently gotten ourselves a Jack Russel cross Fox Terrier puppy, she is extremly curios and also very naughty. Her name is Jaz and she is now 9 months old. we have a big yard for her to run around in and play, but as most dogs do, she has an overwhelming urge to explore and chase shit!(not that she has ever caught anything). Things like birds are squirrels are her best, but anything that she can get her teeth into will do!

As we live in Madikwe, the only thing that seperates us from the bush are 8 thin strand of electrified wire, and Jaz loves getting under them and going out to explore. One day Kim and I had come back from the lodge and saw that there was a large herd of elephants coming right past the front of our house, towards the lodge waterhole. Kim had quickly gone to grab her camera when Jaz raced outside. This was one of the first times she had ever seen such a big animal and we thought that she would make a break for the fence and go for the chase, instead she sat on the deck and watched as this big elephant walked by. It's always a worry for Kim and I as Jaz has a mind of her own and like I say, she digs to chase shit!