Okkie Jooste: The best and worst couple of days of my university life.

On a cold and rainy Monday morning, sacrificing our week break from campus, my fellow Life Science classmates and I jump on a bus and make our way to the Okkie Jooste Nature Reserve in Stellenbosch. As soon as we got there we unloaded our bags from the bus, chose our rooms and headed back to the hall for our first talk of the camp. Sharing a room with seven other females was going to be a new experience for me, barely having space to change your mind in the dorm rooms. Not only was our rooms packed with eight females, but also with the bags of eight females! One of our bathrooms' geysers was not working and we woke up at 4am to take a warm shower. This limited our sleeping time and this affected concentration levels and also our ability to do the work that needed to be done. The next day was hike day, so burning calves, aching legs and complaints were all over the place, because it felt like we were climbing a mountain. As we made our way back to the rooms, we discovered some stuff 'missing' and declared that there was a "teaspoon thief" in the room as a teaspoon was the first thing that was missing.

Next to the hiking, breakfast duty was the toughest challenge for me as I am NOT a morning person. The red team killed breakfast duty, but failed to do so at supper duty as two members of our group failed to rinse the chicken correctly. This caused chaos in the kitchen and after correcting our mistake the red team was good to go. The last morning of our camp the girls discovered that there was warm water i the bathroom AT ALL! Since no one wanted to get out of their hot and cozy bed and jump into a cold shower, many girls did not wash on the last day. Nevertheless, the couple of days spent at Okkie Jooste was not that bad, after all, it was a CAMP.

                                          Figure 1: The Inside of our dorms.

                                          Figure 2: Okkie Jooste dorms.

Cape Point Nature Reserve- One point, a million points of view

The Cape Point Nature Reserve is a Natural World Heritage Sight which is located within the Table Mountain National Park. Named the “Cape of Storms” by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, the “Point” was used as a navigational landmark by day, but by night it was a menace tormented by violent storms and littered ship wrecks around the coastline. It was later renamed by John II of Portugal as the “Cape of Good Hope”, because of the great optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to India and the East. The Cape of Good Hope is the legendary home of The Flying Dutchman, damned by ghostly sailors. 

As part of a practical for our LFS 151 group, we visited this beautiful landmark and had to make certain comparisons to the Cape Flats Nature Reserve. After a very long one hour trip, we had finally reached our destination.  We studied the different animal and plant species living in this area and had to state which reserve had a greater diversity of organisms. Various questions were answered in our first part of the excursion and we had to identify the different animal and plant species that occur in the reserve. There was an information center, which made the answering of these questions much easier. We discovered the different animal and plant species that occur in the Cape Point Nature Reserve, which include the Chacma Baboons, the Cape Mountain Zebra and Cape Grysbok. There are also more than 250 species of birds in this reserve. The main type of flora found in this reserve is Fynbos. The Peninsula Sandstone Fynbos is an endangered vegetation type that is endemic to the Cape Peninsula. An interesting fact about the Chacma Baboon is that they have developed a taste for seafood and adapted to eating this food. Unfortunately, we were not able to see these baboons or see them feed on any seafood. 

We visited the first lighthouse that stands 294metres above sea-level. It was built in 1859. I had an intense workout making my way up-hill to the lighthouse and it felt like a never-ending journey. Valuable information was found at the lighthouse, which we needed to answer our questions on our worksheet.
I also experienced my first time hiking up a mountain to Devil’s Island. Here, once again, I had an intense workout and did not even make it all the way to the top, because fear took over! At first I thought I could do it when I saw some older people doing it, but when I saw one of them fall, I did not even think twice before turning around. The wind became too strong afterwards and I had to make my way back to the bus. 

This was my first time visiting the Cape Point Nature Reserve and I would definitely do it again. The experiences in this lovely landmark would never be forgotten. New memories have been made with friends and this is a great example to show that work can also be made fun when doing it in a practical way. I just have to ensure that I am fir enough before climbing up any mountains or walking that up-hill path to the lighthouse!

Experiencing something new: The Cape Flats Nature Reserve

There is always a first time for everything in life. The moment I heard that me and my fellow classmates were going to be working in labs, wearing lab coats, I felt a great amount of excitement, because working in a lab is a huge dream of mine. We do various experiments and tests in the lab, but it gets boring after a while, because your working environment is constant. So when I heard about the nature reserve practical we were going to do, I was really excited. This would be the first practical that did not take place in a laboratory, we had the opportunity to choose our team mates, which meant working with friend, this was an outdoor practical and we did not have to wear our long and warm lab coats. I had a fear of some spiders that were going to crawl on me and when hearing the branches rattle you would think that something would pop up out of the trees or bushes. There was also a feeling of interest as we learnt about the different animal and plant species in the nature reserve. There was also a bit of history involved. The nature reserve originated in the early 1960’s through the interest of a group of academics attached to the University. I would not mind doing more outdoor practicals. This gives you the confidence to mix with other people and to physically take part in the activities needed. This practical made me realise once again why and how much I love science.