ON SAFARI: Nancy Casu and her daughter Bre read the Narooma News at the entrance to Kruger National Park.
NANCY Casu and her daughter Bre recently returned from an exciting holiday in Africa.
Here is Nancy’s report...
“We toured three countries on an overland trip from Johannesburg, to Blyde Port Canyon in South Africa to the Okavango Delta in Botswana and Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River in Zambia.
“It was all just fantastic. We saw lions, hippopotamus, warthogs, leopards, giraffe, zebra, rhino and elephants.
“We were camping so the accommodation wasn’t exactly four-star but it meant that we could just step outside the tent to see many superb sun rises and glorious sunsets.
“The people were lovely, I made so many friends. Both the tourists and the Africans were a lot of fun
“And they called me ‘Mom’! I tell myself it was because Bre was with me but I didn’t mind, she was my passport to the young set.”
Later, Nancy and Bre went on a mercy dash capturing animals from drought-stricken areas and relocating them to safer places where they will survive.
“It was often a bit hairy,” Nancy said. “Especially when a very cranky buffalo, who hadn’t been properly anaesthetized, thundered towards me.
He saw me as a target and I felt like a matador!
“Many of the other people on this trip were vet students practising their tranquilizing techniques.
“Naturally, animals don’t like to be tranquilized, as you can imagine, so sometimes the African guys captured untranquilized animals barehanded.
“Not only are they very brave and superbly fit but also very quick and agile.
“On one occasion I was caught in the enclosure and had to escape up and over the wall pretty quickly but luckily I’m still here to tell the tale!
“There was a variety of animals we captured from buffalo, wildebeest and zebra to many kinds of antelope - kudu, eland, onyx, oryx, nyala and springbok.
“As much as I had to admit it, most of the time we ate those pretty little impala when they were turned into burgers!
“They were really nice and there wasn’t a bit of fat in them.
“Apparently, I’m only the third lady of my age to go on a capturing trip, so I feel pretty chuffed about that but now I’m back, it’s business as usual. I hardly feel I’ve been away!”
(Editor’s note: Thanks to Nancy and Bre, the Narooma News has now travelled with locals to every continent on Earth, from Antarctica to Africa to Asia and all points between – well done everyone!)