The arrival at CACH Headquarters

CACH Headquarters and the Karoo Wildlife Centre are about 15 minutes drive from Ladismith in the Western Cape.  The land is 175 hectares and has 1300 olive trees and 800 pomegranate trees.  The climate there is harsh: cold in winter with a dusting of snow on the Swartberg Mountains, and hot in summer.  We will have to adapt to our new centre. 

We arrived on a fine Saturday morning, got the key to the castle and the ex -owners left.   Wistfully - the owner’s wife shed a few tears.   We had arrived with our vehicles packed and pulling our Venter trailer. Malena of CACH Scotland was there to help us unload the vehicles. 

We spent a freezing cold evening.  We had brought a few items of furniture from the previous owners, but even so the house looked a little bare. The house has an extension which will be a great place for the volunteers.  The aloes were starting to flower and all the little sun birds were on the bright orange flowers.

The next morning we had a little bit of drama because with the very cold night temperatures, a water pipe had burst and to our horror we lost eight tanks of stored water.   It was freezing cold and the pipes froze as the ice expanded, so they burst.  Not much fun working with freezing water on a very cold winter morning.

There is a lovely big dam down the valley. We walked down to it and watched the little birds and ducks swimming about.  I had thought to put my garden bench there, but I think that if I do so, I will never get any work done.  

The top of the koppie (hill), the only place to get a cell signal, was where we went for me to call home (Wilderness) to make sure everything was OK with all the animals. Phone call went fine, but then we could not start the quad bike.   We had to push it all the way home.   Thank goodness most of it was downhill.  Phew! that was me done for the day.  

We have the Grand Canyon of soil erosion on the sanctuary which we will have to attend to in the coming months.   In fact it is going to take ages to get it right again.  The rains are just washing away more and more of the soil.   We are hoping that with volunteer help we will be able to reclaim the land the way it should be.  Overgrazing is very damaging in areas which have a delicate eco system.  We will be consulting with conservation officials to determine the best way to tackle this problem.

Because of the good rains that we have had at the sanctuary recently, the pomegranates have flowered and fruited for the second time.   We took Malena pomegranate picking so that I could take some of the fruit to the craft market on my return to Wilderness.

I came back to Wilderness and Chris stayed to sort out water pipes, fix the quad, repair the tractor and set up a watering system for the olive and pomegranate trees.
I wish I was there.  When I got home to Wilderness it was to find I also had no water.  It seems the pipes in Wilderness had burst too because they had also had a freezing cold evening.

Chris has an important meeting with the Conservation Officials for our area next week.  He will be meeting with them to give them a presentation on the work that we will be doing at the centre.   Permits are needed to establish a wildlife centre. 

We have an awful lot of work to get done to establish a wildlife sanctuary and rehab centre.  So we ask everyone to please help us with our new venture.  We have set up some super prizes which we would love to give away in our efforts to crowdfund for the new sanctuary.  http://www.cannedlion.org/crowdfunding.html 

To all of you who have already given us donations we thank you.   Your commitment and passion for our wildlife is truly wonderful.  We will continue to let you know as it all happens with lots of pictures and stories of our new adventure.   With your help we will be able to achieve great things for the wildlife in the Ladismith area.