Idube News Articles

LATEST LODGE NEWS

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:35:04 +0000

Sitting in the office, overlooking the new patch of lawn that has fully developed on the old access road, My mind is drawn to the many changes, developments, and achievements that we have successfully implemented as a team this year at Idube.
Entering our third year now at Idube, Melinda and I, are so proud of the team, that has grown from strength to strength, that assist us at the lodge in the daily operations.
It was a year of many highs, and a few lows, most notable, the passing of a true legend at Idube, Elliot Ngomane, tracker extraordinaire. Elliot suffered from a long illness, before sadly passing on late in August. It seems more than apt that we have a road on the property known as Elliot’s road, and this legend will be immortalised by having his name spoken by fellow trackers and rangers on a daily basis, from now till the end of time. Along with the mention of his road, will come the story of how this road got its name, and how he bravely fended off a lioness with his bicycle, many years ago, whilst travelling between Idube and a neighbouring lodge. A chuckle has to escape me when I think of being told how he got back to the lodge, and immediately sold the bike on to another of the trackers, Titus.
We could not have asked for a better replacement, Johandi, who took over from Magda in the Front Office in the last quarter of 2011. Magda, who many of you may have met, or spoken to over the phone, left us after being surprised by her boyfriend, with an engagement ring, and an offer to take up residence with him in Namibia.
Our Prue Leith Graduate Chef, Chrizette, is producing magnificent meals for the guests, and one can certainly judge the quality of the food being produced, if the ever expanding waistlines of the fellow staff members are to be measured. She is expertly guided by the Group Executive Chef: Mark Pretorius, who this year also took up an advisory role at Idube, from his base at our sister lodge, Lukimbi in the Kruger National Park.
The Rangers have been as productive as ever, hardly ever failing to find the animals so much desired by our guests coming on safari. Rob continues to lead the established team of Trackers and Rangers, with the addition of; Wessel, to the stalwarts: Andries, Promise, Ronald and Titus. For an updated look into the daily happenings from the rangers department, our suggestion is to find us on Facebook, where we have linked all daily updates to, not only Twitter, but also to our own Blogspot. For those that want a more interactive experience, Rob the Ranger wildlife videos are posted virtually daily on his very successful YouTube channel, and serve to bring the African bush and animals into the homes of so many thousands of people who are not privileged enough to be at Idube at that time.
We again had visits this year from many of our repeat guests, and it looks like the elite club of Idube regulars is growing larger and larger. We love seeing returning guests, and are always so excited at their arrivals, readying ourselves with tales from the lodge and the bush about changes since the last visit. Just this morning the Richards family, who have been here regularly since 1997, departed, noses pointed in the direction of Lukimbi where they will be spending a few days after spending New Years at Idube, I could name so many of our “family” of guests, but am bound to skip a few, so those that are omitted, please forgive me, but we wish to thank those that have given Idube their loyal support year after year; Jean Francois and Fany, so many of the Idube images you will see are attributed to Mr Poudron, Gary and Judy Norder, Ryan and Trudie Moore, Lee Pearson, Holger Jensen, and the list truly does go on and on, and by naming all individually, you may not get the chance to visit this year as you will still be reading the list long after your flight departure time.
Summer is most certainly here, and the temperatures are sky rocketing during the day. This does lead to the formation of huge thunderheads, and we have been lucky so far this season to have had a decent amount of rainfall. The plains are green, lush, and full of life, both old and new, with the addition of multitudes of young animals and birds. We have not yet had extreme amounts of rain, and these we usually expect later in the summer. When they do arrive, we will rejoice at the rising water levels in the various dams dotted all over the reserve, in preparation for the coming dry months of winter.
The monkey family at the lodge has grown recently, with additions to three of the mothers who are sporting new babies, the Nyala family too keep their numbers at about 30 individuals. The warthogs have a few piglets, at this point there are 2 mothers with 1 and 3 piglets respectively. We even had a pleasant surprise yesterday with the arrival of a young female Bushbuck that has not been seen here before, we do hope that she establishes herself at the lodge and joins the large wildlife group seen in the lodge grounds.
Why not come and see these animals for yourselves, we wait with open arms for your arrivals.
From everyone here at the lodge, we wish you all a prosperous 2012, and hope that you had a magical Christmas and Festive season.

Bush Regards
Rudi and the Idube Team

November News

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:17:37 +0000

It has been a busy month for the animals as summer starts to take hold and the rains finally start in earnest. There has been a baby boom in the past few weeks and we have been seeing new baby elephants, giraffe, warthogs and of course it it’s the impala lambing season now too!

The first impala lamb reported in our area was seen up in the north of the Reserve. Sadly the next morning the Ximhungwe pride were seen snacking on it!
The fact that the impala have their lambs in a very short space of time means that despite the predators getting hold of some of the youngsters, many more are able to survive as the sheer number of lambs means only a small percentage are lost.

Other young animals we see are the young cubs of the Ximhungwe lion pride: The pride has been having a bit of a rough time over the past few weeks with the youngest litter of cubs seemingly being lost to the Dewane male leopard and one of the slightly older cubs being badly injured by a hyena. The injured cub eventually seems to have succumbed to his injuries despite his mother’s long treks between the pride and him to try to help. The oldest female of the pride also died recently and for a while there was a great deal of concern over her cubs – the oldest in the pride but we are happy to report that they are now with the female who lost her cubs and seem to be fine. The main core of the pride has been moving up and down our entire traversing area and has been very successful with kills. Despite the setbacks the pride looks well and healthy. One of the meals they had was actually inside the lodge grounds, right up against the manager’s house – a fantastic start to that particular morning drive! The three Mapogo males were also present with the pride for a lot of the time and the interactions between the cubs and their fathers was always a delight to see.

The Mapogo males did also leave the pride from time to time and had a good time hunting Buffalo – one adult bull in the north and later on another bull and an adult cow – that time with the help of the one Ximhungwe lioness who had lost her cubs. They were also seen mating with the same lioness on a few occasions.
The Othawa pride is not seen so regularly these days so it was a treat to see first the three lionesses close to the river and later in the month the two young males in the south following the buffalo herd. The three lionesses are old enough to reproduce now and have reportedly been seen mating with young males from the east (Nkuhuma males) as well as the Mapogo males. The young males are looking magnificent, their manes are nearly complete and they are big strong lions. Despite their determination in following the buffalo they did not manage to catch one whilst they were in our area.

We have also been treated to many magnificent leopard sightings:
The Shangwa female and her approximately one-year-old son have been seen around the eastern stretch of the river a lot more frequently recently and we have been treated to some fantastic interactions between the two and also between the youngster and other animals as he learns to hunt. One morning we watched him stalking buffalo – the buffalo were aware of his presence and just chased him away each time he got too close.

The Xikavi female was also seen a few times very close to the areas that Shangwa has been in and the similar size and looks of the two (Xikavi is Shangwa’s daughter) has had many people momentarily confused. One sighting actually saw Shangwa and her cub together with Xikavi – there was some argument over the possession of an impala kill! Hlab’nkunzi is still coming through the lodge on a regular basis and she was seen with an impala kill up a tree just outside the lodge, there were also hyena and a herd of elephant on the scene.

The Tlangisa female is still moving all over the place trying to avoid conflict with the other female leopards. She also came quite close to the lodge where she was seen with a duiker kill. At over 2 ½ years old she will soon have to find herself a permanent home. She is already starting to show interest in the males and will need a defendable core territory by the time she has cubs.

The Metsi female has been trying very hard to attract the attention of the Dewane male recently and it seems to have worked as they were spotted mating recently. She was also seen on her own a couple of times but not very regularly.
The Tassleberry female has only been spotted a couple of times since she was seen mating with the Kashane male. The skittish female known as the Mobeni female was also reportedly mating with Kashane. This may mean she has lost her remaining cub.
The Dam 3 female was seen a couple of times and it seems she has a new litter of cubs. As she is not a relaxed female we won’t see all that much of them but it is nice to know they are there!

The Xinzele male was seen regularly in his usual core territory south of the river and there were a lot more sightings of the Dewane male. He seems to have settled in our Southwestern corner.

The Kashane male was seen with an impala kill for a few days in the south. He also managed to hide a bull nyala kill in front of the lodge for a few days and was only discovered when the kill was finished!
There was also a sighting of a handsome young male leopard up in the north. He was a bit shy and as yet we do not have an ID for him.

The pack of painted hunting dogs also came through the area quite a few times and as always, were very successful with their hunts whilst they were here. The three remaining pups are almost as big as the adults and it is getting quite hard to see which is which whilst they are all running around. The fact that the pups are that big now increases their chance of survival and it looks like the pack will stay strong for a while.

Recently the reserve has had an increase in pangolin sightings and we are averaging 1 sighting a week at the moment. These peculiar creatures, also known as a scaly anteater, are usually shy and roll into a ball when disturbed. One of the pangolins that has been seen was so relaxed, it actually walked up to the vehicles and had a sniff around!

The lush green bush has resulted in a lot of elephants being attracted to the area, many of which have had extremely young calves with them. The hot weather has also meant we have had some great sightings of the herds swimming in the many waterholes.
The buffalo herd has also been in the area regularly. It seems that a couple of the smaller herds have joined up at times leaving us with one massive group of close to 1000 animals on occasion!

Video highlights for November can be found on Idube’s facebook page: www.facebook.com/idubelodge and on youtube: www.youtube.com/iduberobtheranger

Kind regards,
Rob The Ranger

Obituary

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:28:34 +0000

It is with deep sadness that we learnt of the death of our senior tracker, Nwaxidekule Elliot Ngomane.

Elliot had been with Idube since its inception in 1989 and, in fact, worked for the Marais family prior to that.

His smiling face and gentle personality endeared him to all our guests over the years. He will be sorely missed and we offer our sympathy and condolences to his family.

Sally Kernick.
Marketing Director.