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Touching down at Limpopo Valley Airfield in Mashatu Game Reserve was my first experience of feeling total freedom in a truly wild place. This marked the beginning of the photographic
guiding career that would in time give me the privilege of accompanying guests to some of the world’s most sought after photographic destinations. This was my first job in the wild. I had dreamt of it since I was a child, snapping away pictures of hornbills at rest camps in the Kruger National Park on family holidays.
I was met by a colleague from the reserve, and after completing border control we headed to the camp where I would be based. To her surprise, I didn’t yet have my driving license, but she was brave enough to let me take the wheel and bump along the dusty track to camp, which I must say, I did with relative ease! Subsequently, driving through the reserve on my own is one of the most enchanting memories of that time.
The Northern Tuli Game Reserve spans some 72 000 hectares of privately-owned land located to the east of Botswana. The reserve borders South Africa to the South and Zimbabwe to the East. The mighty Limpopo River carves the southern boundary and the Shashe River forms the reserve’s north-eastern boundary. In one corner of the greater Tuli rests the Mashatu Game Reserve, this 29000 hectare slice of wildlife paradise was to become home for the next few years.
Previous Pages: ‘Encounters with Giants’
An elephant leaves a trail of dust in its path as it walks past the underground hide at Mashatu. The unique perspective from these hides allows for the creation of images usually impossible to capture from game drive vehicles.
Facing Page: A cheetah cub takes a quick pause from its playful antics, making for a beautiful portrait in the afternoon’s last rays of warm light.
Top Left: A baby Chacma Baboon clings firmly to its mother as she quenches her thirst at the water’s edge.
Left: A behind the scenes image of my guest photographing the world’s largest land mammals from ground level. A sensory experience in nature unlike any other.
TULI
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