20 Nights for 20 Rhinos

Hello everyone, I am really sorry I have been so quiet for a while, the reason is I have just spent 20 nights with my brother surviving in a big 5 game reserve with no tents, no rifles and no support, well apart for our water being dropped off we carried everything that we needed with us.

Another sibling pair Amy and Josh Attenborough came up with a great initiative called wild again for 19 where they spent 18 nights raising funds for the Zululand conservation trust which is based in northern Zululand. They decided to put the focus on the many families that now due to covid are living bellow the bread line and so Amy and Josh ate barely enough food to keep them going for the 18 nights, they also experienced high rainfall which would have made the challenge that much harder.

Before they left for their trip, I called Amy and said good luck and let me know if there is the possibility of a follow on, she said she would ask and let me know. Amy and josh were successful in wild again for 19 and contacted me to say that the reserve needed to raise funds to relocate 20 white rhinos from one game reserve to another. So, it was so simple 20 nights to move 20 rhinos.

We started planning in earnest as we only had just over 3 weeks to get all we needed in place. We decided that we did not want to follow Amy and josh and only eat very little we decided to carry all the food that we would need for the 20 nights, this would be our challenge, to carry a 35 kg backpack for 20 nights that’s easy we thought, my goodness we were wrong, on day 2 we had a huge physical and mental challenge and the bags nearly beat us, luckily our competitive spirit prevented us from giving in.

We were so fortunate to have some amazing sponsors for the trip, cape union mart and k-way made sure we had everything we would need for the trip, bags shoes torches, sleeping bags etc. food was something that we were very worried about, what to take?? EPAP, we contacted Epap to ask them if they would be willing to help us out and they like the legends that they are said of course. On the go nuts, like a trail mix they also sponsored us, so food was mostly sorted all that was left was getting some biltong which my father and law bought for us from a local chap that my uncle recommended, this is really a family affair.

Family that is our driving focus for these 20 nights, we are fully aware that these magnificent animals we are trying to relocate are one of the species that are so massively under threat due to human greed and insatiable hunger for destroying our planet and that it is very possible that our grandchildren will not get to see the wild as we have been so privileged to witness. So that was our second challenge is that would be away from our families for 20 nights.

We have completed our 20 nights now and fundraising is still ongoing, so hopefully we will reach our target and be able to help relocate the rhino in October.

I will be putting up some more short stories from the 20-night adventure over the coming days.

Thank you so much for your continued support.

Keep dominating

Jonty