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.
A stay at the Bitterwasser Lodge is usually beyond the financial means of young pilots. At the same time, the next generation is the key to the future of our wonderful sport—and of the lodge as well. That is why supporting young pilots is a core part of the Bitterwasser Flying Center’s mission.
Early October is the ideal time to prepare the runways for flight operations. You can land at the Bitterwasser Flying Lodge in every which direction—depending on how you look at it, on 8 runways (plus one emergency runway), each in two directions. Jeremias carefully levels the landing area over the course of several weeks.