Every year at the end of the 2nd school term we go to Borakalalo Nature Reserve in the North-West province to help out with maintenance tasks around the reserve. We have done tasks ranging from rubble and invasive vegetation removal to building causeways and anti-erosion structures. 

This year I had a lot of difficulty in arranging the weekend. Fortunately, John Bennett from Friends of the Pilansberg was able to help me and everything was organised with about two weeks to go.

The 22 of us left from the hall shortly before 5 in the afternoon on Friday. The traffic resulted in us only getting to the reserve at 19:40, but the advance guard had already started to setup camp and dinner was on the go.

Saturday morning saw us up early (yes, it was cold) and getting ready for the day. After a hearty breakfast the tractor arrived to collect us. The group split up with two teams clearing and repairing hiking trails and the other heading off to harvest cacti. Cacti is an invasive alien species in this part of the world and is a major problem in certain areas of the reserve.

The cacti harvesters were a team of 11 but most of the time we could only manage a work force of about 7 as the rest were in the first aid station. By 11, we had a reasonable crop in the trailer and we stopped for sandwiches. I then went to check on the trail crew. They also stopped for sandwiches and then I took half to crew to join the harvesters as work on the trail was almost complete. We stopped for lunch at about 14:00 and decided to pack it in after that.

Back at camp, some of the scouts busied themselves passing tests while others played down at the dam. After dinner we had a round of stalk the lantern before bed.

We went for a game drive on Sunday morning before breaking camp and heading home.

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