Meerkat Katy

My fellow Kariega volunteer Katy stopped over in Joburg on her way to her new adventure in the Kalahari. Katy is from the UK. She studied animal management at university there and has been working as a zookeeper for the past four years at Longleat Safari Park in Bath. If you don't know, Longleat House is the Elizabethan manor house presided over by the 7th Marquess of Bath.

In 1966, the 6th Marquess decided to turn the grounds of Longleat into England's first drive-through game reserve in order to attract tourism. It worked. We visited in 1996 when we took our sons to England for the first time. I think we even have a certificate somewhere in storage given to us by Longleat for completing their other major tourist attraction - to my boys anyway - their yew hedge maze.

When I met Katy in Kariega, she had just found out she had been accepted into a meerkat study program in the South Africa's Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park where Namibia, Botswana and South Africa come together. It is the ancestral home of the Bushman. We are so excited for Katy and so excited for us too. Now we have a friend there to visit when we go to the nearby Tswalu Desert Reserve!



What do you do with a zookeeper in Joburg? You visit the Johannesburg Zoo of course.

I made arrangements ahead of time with Alice, the Zoo's rhino keeper, for Katy to get up close and personal with the rhinos Pete and Zimbie and pet them.

Katy is overpowered by her springbok shank dinner at Moyo at Zoo Lake. (This one's for you Becky!)

I think I may have even convinced her to write a blog while she is there and share her experiences as the marchioness of meerkat manor. I know of at least 9 other people who would be interested in reading it. Best of luck for the next year Katy! See you soon.