A VOLUNTEER'S REVIEW ON OUR CONSERVATION EXPERIENCE TRIP

After a year and a half hiatus of hosting volunteer groups in South Africa due to COVID-19, we welcomed back our first Wild Tomorrow Fund Conservation Experience Trip in August 2021. Read below to hear a volunteer’s P.O.V. and review of the trip!

You can also find more information about our volunteer trips, or sign up, here.

The group of August volunteers posing with Leko, an orphaned rhino at Zululand Rhino Orphanage, after a morning of hands-on work helping the rhino carers.

Hello! My name is Julia, I recently returned from Wild Tomorrow Fund’s two-week conservation experience trip in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, and oh my goodness I cannot recommend it highly enough!!

A little about me, I am a single twenty-something with a passion for our natural world and the animals that inhabit it. In pursuit of this passion, I have travelled the globe from the Galapagos Islands to the Australian Outback, but I had never been to Africa. When a friend-of-a-friend introduced me to the Wild Tomorrow Fund and I learned about this trip they offered, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to visit a corner of the world I had never been to safely and affordably, gain first-hand experience in a field I am passionate about, and of course it provided a chance to admire the charismatic megafauna of the African continent. A true triple-win in my book! I knew I had to go.

Julia King next to a rehabilitated and released Temminck’s Ground Pangolin. A once in a lifetime experience, read more here.

The way I saw it, the overall cost of the trip was divided into three parts. There was a very reasonable fee to Wild Tomorrow Fund that covered accommodation, food, and park entry fees on the trip; there was the cost of airfare to and from Durban, KZN; and there was a $2000 donation to Wild Tomorrow Fund made on behalf of the attending. While I was happy to pay the trip expenses out of pocket, I am a full-time graduate student. So, I decided to solicit help for the $2000 donation portion, which was exciting, fruitful, and honestly a ton of fun. Plus, I introduced a bunch of new people to a great cause!

With Wild Tomorrow Fund’s help, I created a GoFundMe account strictly for the donation portion of the trip. I spammed my social media with videos of myself explaining the cause and asking (okay, begging) for donations; I sent emails to friends, family, coworkers, celebrity crushes, and anyone else I could think of. For two months I became an advocate of Wild Tomorrow Fund’s mission which I found extremely easy and gratifying to do. I learned that when you care about the message, and when you effectively communicate that message, people are generally receptive. Bit by bit, the donations came in until I reached my goal, which I am so grateful for.

Julia took to social media to crowdfund for the donation portion of her trip!

So, I booked my flights, packed my bags, and headed to South Africa. I met my fellow volunteers in Johannesburg, and we all flew into Durban together where we were enthusiastically greeted by Tori and John of the Wild Tomorrow Fund. After a three hour-drive into the bush we arrived at our accommodation, Hluhluwe Bush Camp, where we stayed for most of our trip. The accommodation was beautiful— large semi-permanent canvas tents with hardwood floors, doors, separate rooms, electricity, a fully-stocked kitchenette, and the most luxurious rain shower I’ve ever seen. Not to mention a farmstall onsite stocked with anything you may have forgotten or needed, though I think I may have single-handedly cleared out their selection of South African red wines… whoops.

Julia’s view from Hluhluwe Bush Camp’s luxury tents.

Our days were packed but were well balanced between work and play. While volunteering we helped the staff of Wild Tomorrow Fund with landscaping projects like invasive plant removal, erosion control work, and even a snare patrol. More animal-centric projects included identifying herds and individual zebra (or trying to anyway, the zebras didn’t really feel like helping us with this) and participating in bird banding/ringing on Wild Tomorrow Fund’s Ukuwela reserve. Since a large part of conservation work is community support and outreach, we also helped the community by delivering a monthly food package to two different schools, sharing a meal with an orphanage after helping to paint their fence, and we also had an amazing homecooked meal followed by a very exclusive VIP shopping experience featuring KZN’s finest handmade woven baskets. A real treat.

We also had plenty of time for sightseeing and exploring. We took a day trip to the beach town of Saint Lucia where we saw dozens of hippos and crocs; we spent the night in Sodwana Bay where we got to dive the reefs and watch humpback whales migrating; we went on game drives in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park and Bayala and saw almost all of the big five; and we even had the extremely rare opportunity of meeting a pangolin in a neighboring reserve! Through all these incredible experiences, the Wild Tomorrow Fund team remained cognizant of our needs and allowed plenty of R&R at our beautiful bush camp whenever we needed it.

I found the most meaningful experience we participated to be the rhino dehorning. Rhinos in South Africa are at an extreme risk of poaching, which unfortunately is driving the species towards premature extinction. Because of this, a large portion of the donations we raised for this trip went to fund rhino conservation, both rhino dehorning and supporting rhino orphanages. We got to witness the humane dehorning of three rhinos--a mother and a calf white rhino and a male black rhino--and helped the ground team collect data used to monitor their rhino populations. This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I am so grateful to have been a part of this bold and brave conservation work.

Team photo with a dehorned white rhino (you can see her calf in the background)!

Julia assisting hands on with the collection of data.

And let me tell y’all, they fed us like royalty on this trip and the food was incredible. I already mentioned the stocked kitchenettes. This is where most of our breakfast came from. For lunch we mostly ate at restaurants which offered your typical fare such as burgers, toasted sandwiches, fish ‘n chips, pizza, and salads. Most places also seemed to be pretty accommodating to dietary restrictions. Dinners were a mix of restaurants, or meals prepared at our bush camp, and the ladies who prepared these meals knew what they were doing! Each meal at the bush camp was served on a beautifully set table; featured a starter, main, and dessert; and each course was absolutely delicious. A couple of times, the Wild Tomorrow Fund team even cooked us a traditional South African braai with all the works. Not to mention all the G&T’s and South African wines we got enjoy, just amazing.

I have to say though what made this trip truly remarkable was not the food, accommodation, experiences, or even the animals. It was the Wild Tomorrow Fund team. Everyone went above and beyond to welcome us volunteers, include us, and truly made us feel we were part of the team. It was so great to get to know these people, and so inspiring to hear their stories and to see how passionate they are about their work. And for them to welcome us so graciously into their world was absolutely amazing. I extend my biggest and most sincere thank you’ s and gratitude to them!

So yes, I would recommend this trip to anyone and everyone. While the appeal to animal lovers and nature-nuts like me is obvious, I do think it offers something for everyone.

Team photo with Wild Tomorrow Fund staff and August Conservation Experience volunteers, having sundowners on our Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve overlooking the Msinene River.

P.S. - I will caution though, August in South Africa is a lot colder than you’d expect. But still 100% worth it.