"I approached Mount Camdeboo with hope of experiencing and understanding a new style of culture and wildlife I have never seen before. Being from London, I knew next to nothing about the importance of conservation work in Africa, but the knowledge provided to me by the Mount Camdeboo team left me amazed. What I found most enjoyable was how involved we became with all aspects of game reserve life, interacting with all the staff and growing a real attachment to the animals. Mount Camdeboo is constantly evolving and I would love to return one day to witness its developments. I would recommend the volunteering program to anyone who wants to immerse themselves in such a wonderful culture."

"When I was searching for a Volunteer scheme to take part in, in and around South Africa I was recommended Mt Camdeboo through a friend of my dad’s. Hearing about their Anti-poaching measures was a large contributory factor to my decision to go there, given I hadn’t seen anywhere else that was so heavily based on the conservation side of things. Having booked flights, and accommodation I proceeded to spend the month living with the incredibly friendly Mt Camdeboo staff and other volunteers.

 

The whole atmosphere wasn’t like that of traditional volunteering, in the sense that you only did things if you wanted to do them. This I feel really brought out everyone’s passionate side for helping the wildlife.

 

One of the activities I really enjoyed was updating the species list. Flipping rocks and finding countless scorpions, insects and other creepy crawlies under them really brought out the inner child in me (as cheesy as it sounds). But our efforts weren’t in vain as we found several incredibly rare tarantulas that weren’t known to the area until we located them.

 

Aside from the rock flipping, there were two other aspects of the experience that stood out for me in particular. The first being tracking anything and everything. I wouldn’t have been able to tell a dog’s paw print from a foxes before arriving at Mt Camdeboo, but by the time we left it was almost a competition of who could tell what track belonged to what first.

 

The second, would have been how eye opening seeing the consequences of rhino poaching. It easy to disapprove of it from the other side of the world when you see an advert on TV. But seeing it in person really, affected me and made me even more determined to go into wildlife conservation as a line of work.

 

As a whole, living with our extended Mt Camdeboo family was life changing and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. Not only those who are already animal fanatics like myself but people who simply want to become a bit less ignorant to our effect on wildlife in South Africa."