The game has, as usual cooked this month, with the scenery becoming more beautiful with the rain and clouds. Insects are becoming active too, with abundant tiger beetles, and the rhinos have started to wallow to combat the heat. All of this makes for fun viewing and photo opportunities.

African wild cat near the school, relaxing in the sun (a male cat has also pitched up around the school and is being seen regularly too), and a view of the Hanglipberg on a cloudy day.

A mating pair of tiger beetles and also a rhino calf climbing out of a wallow.

Our six mothers are up to their usual sports in the bush, doing a lot of photography and game viewing while studying hard. They are still into their birding too which is great, and we have been following the development of the bush as we move into summer, such as the arrival of large Bushveld bolete fungus sporocarps, such as this one which was more than 25cm across...

It has been a busy month doing the trails syllabus with the Damelin and the six month crowd, trying to get them all up to speed on walks, shooting, and of course the ever present theory exams. The Damelin group are the same 11 that we had last year, and they have really done well, with ten new assistant trails guides going into the industry. Melissa prefers not to shoot, so she has not done the full qualification by choice. She did all the walks however, as a guest.

Some of the gang on assessment riflery!

Track and sign was tough this year, without the hectic preparation of the level 1 programme, the guys had to work hard at their tracks in a limited time period, as most of the month was spent trailing big game.

We had a lot of fun around the camp too, with the bush pig getting ever braver, eventually climbing onto the table to steal the coffee! He was, unfortunately taken by lions one night though, which could be clearly heard from camp! Jens also visited to do some reptile discussions with the guys, always an interesting event.

All in all it was a highly successful month, with a huge amount of hard work from the Damelin West Rand second year students, so well done to all of you!