Sundowners in Zambia – Team Buckley blog

Our passion and love of Africa has grown continued to grow since our first encounter back in 1997. Over the years we have experienced Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mauritius including climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and shark cage diving in South Africa.

In February 2016 Jamie my husband and I flew out to Zambia to commence our roles as Camp Managers at Flatdogs Camp a remote safari camp for the next 2 years. We left behind our cherished family including our 4 gorgeous grandchildren, many friends and our amazing neighbours in Ingleside.

So why do we want to say goodbye to our family, friends, our favourite cafes, the northern beaches lifestyle, sell up and resign from our long term jobs and rent our home?

The challenge, to learn new skills, to strengthen our relationship, to immerse ourselves in a different culture for an extended period, the physical challenge, view amazing African wildlife, immerse ourselves in a rural Zambian community, keep active mentally and physically, not sit in Sydney traffic, share our love of South and East Africa with the world and give back to a country that has given so much to us over many years.

Why Zambia?

We first visited Lower Zambezi and South Luangwa National Park back in 2007 and we loved the Zambian people and in particular the South Luangwa is truly an untouched stunning national park. It offers sensational safari drives and has 80 animals with good sightings of African wild dogs, leopards, lions, elephants and over 400 birds.

How did we prepare? The months leading up to the adventure Jamie and Wendy participated and passed in a number of courses including a four wheel drive course, Game Lodge Management course and a Trauma and First Aid course for remote places.

Team Buckley, Jamie and Wendy Buckley invite you to join us on this journey via our blog www.powerofthepositive/zambia

“Africa entered my soul, it became my passion and it’s our turn to give back”

Team Buckley Blog

Wild dog pups a safari highlight

7 Jan 2018

The wild dogs are one of the most sought after animals for the guests along with the lions and leopards. With less than 5500 left in the world they are highly endangered with the major impacts on them being population growth taking over their territories, disease from the neighbouring villages of rabies and anthrax, accidental snaring from poachers and general human conflict. They live in a pack and hunt over great distances. We have a pack of 23 that live in our main safari area and there are regular sightings of the dogs though at times in can be up to 3 months between sightings. It is primarily due to them denning while having their pups or generally moving around the park hunting. This season this pack of 23 dogs had 11 healthy and strong pups as shown. Over the peak season I had...