Arnoud Quanjer Wildlife Photography

The Keer Keer camp is a privately owned camp in the Timbavati. This camp is not used for tourists, it's only used by the family that owns the Keer Keer property. Some months of the year EcoTraining was allowed to conduct courses at Keer Keer (It has been discontinued as a training camp by EcoTraining in 2004). At Keer Keer students stayed in hutted accommodation overlooking the seasonal Zebanine River. All rooms had en-suite bathroom facilities with toilets, showers and washbasin and hot and cold running water. Informal lectures were conducted either outside under the trees or in a large rondawel. If you compare the Keer Keer camp with the Sabi Sands location (Elephant Plains, discontinued as training facility by EcoTraining in 2005) then Keer Keer was pure luxury.

Facilities at Keer Keer

At Keer Keer all students (at least in our case) had a two person bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. There was no electricity in Keer Keer, but a generator was run for a couple of hours every other day for the freezer and fridge. While the generator was running we could also recharge batteries, so luckily we didn't have to worry about video cameras running out of batteries. We had limited MTN cell phone reception and no Vodacom. Sending text messages was no problem, but when making phone calls the signal would sometimes be lost in the middle of a conversation. At the Sabi Sands EcoTraining facility there was a cook who prepares breakfast, lunch and diner. At Keer Keer we had to prepare our own meals and do the food orders ourselves. The good thing about this is that we could more or less decide what we wanted to eat so dinner at Keer Keer was more varied then dinner at Keer Keer (according to to one of our instructors).

Maybe the best thing about the Keer Keer camp was the tree platform. This platform is build in a Tamboti tree and overlooks the dam. In the daytime you can sit here and study while you watch the animals at the dam, and at night you can sleep there if you want. Four of us slept up on the platform for something like ten nights. We would park the landrover next to the platform and tie the spotlight to the platform so we could spot animals if we heard anything at night.