Willi is three months old now and is totally fixated on Lodge Manager Rodrik van Neel. Usually you can see the adolescent walking behind him. Rodrik took him in as an orphaned baby and raised him with a bottle. There he is now the substitute dad. And Willi is a family member, he gets on well with the other children. In the garden of the manager's house, jumping around with the other small children.
Willi is already the second springbok that Rodrik is raising. Last year Bocky grew up in the lodge. He excelled as a guardian of a flock of young ostriches before his conspecifics lured him into the Kalahari. The ostriches are now mature, defensive animals. Every now and then they show up at the water hole near the lodge and can then also be observed on the webcam.
As a member of the Bitterwasser Board of Directors and CFI of the Soaring Society of Namibia, Dieter has rendered outstanding services to gliding in Namibia.
Sitting at his favorite spot in Bitterwasser, he has left us forever.
We will not forget him.
The season in Bitterwasser is slowly drawing to a close.
One by one, the gliders are being loaded into the containers. And still some teams fly over 1000 kilometers every day.