Bistro to Bush - a winning ticket...

Wow, I thought, this is my chance to pack up and leave! I had two days to put my story forward and hope for the best. I spent the next 24 hours thinking about what to say, then emailed my story. I left my email alone thinking it best to just forget about the entire thing, not even think about it.

Two days later around 4.30 pm, I got an email: 'Congratulations! You are our lucky competition winner!'

I almost fell backward off my chair I couldn’t believe it! I, the girl from Durban South Africa with no plan for the near future. This is it!

A week and a half of planning, flight booking, and shopping went by very quickly. Before I knew it I was on a plane to Johannesburg, calling up the ACE team and telling them that I’d arrived.

Every second week the camp culls an impala for population control and the ground staff slaughter it for its meat and skin. We witness the whole gruesome thing, it’s great! The whole animal is used for something from the skin to the brain to the hooves.

Going for our morning walks is the best part of my day! We learn so much about birds, trees, plants and tracking. Eight in a row keeping in time to our version of Colonel Hathey’s March, dodging twigs, jurassic thorns and rocks.

White rhinos have been near the camp and the tracks are still fresh. Following scuff marks to a make-shift game path and picking out the prints we can make out. Before we know it we are surrounded by elephants only a 15-metre radius away. Our only option is to move quickly, quietly and steadily away to avoid attraction. We manage to escape the elephant fort and continue on our way.

We are led to a water hole for our next experience. We are to hide out, spot, count, sex and age everything that we see. A croc slithers stealthily into the water escaping the midday sun.

We then push on to camp, an enclosure of long grass and thorny trees which Benjamin, our chef, has transformed with a fire, mattresses, and a table strewn with snacks and juice.

When our new guide, Hennie, joins the group and Trevor sadly leaves us behind. Everybody anticipates our new approach to the bush. Our first night with Hennie closes with the thunder of a lion’s roar and a troop of baboons going crazy. Two male hippos get into a tiff nearby and we excitedly head to bed

Day one with Hennie begins at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, another part of ACE, to see some animals we may not see in the wild. I get excited about a potential photo of a lion. After our trip we go and see the second largest baobab tree in the world which is about 3,000 years old, then end up at the reptile park where we have lunch surrounded by tiny monkeys and some parrots that only know the word hello.

An evening game drive surprises us with four lionesses lounging in the grass.

At camp we head for an early night’s sleep preparing for our Kruger National Park trip in the morning, never expecting the lazing leopard we will spot in some nearby trees, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Our days at Struwig are drawing to a close and I feel a heaviness in my heart, resenting the day it will all end. Hennie takes us out on a walk to show us shards of clay pot from a community that lived in the area about 800 years ago. I breathe in the cool, dry morning air and gaze upon the Olifants River and the never-ending landscape of leafless acacia trees which surround it. I imagine what it would have been like 800 years ago, the same, maybe more green.

Our last few days are spent cramming in all the information we need to know for our test but we can’t help being distracted by the desire to drive the game van and shoot a rifle. Later we go for target practice and I’m surprised at how well everybody does!