From our conservation holiday volunteering with lynx, wolves, bears and wildcats in the Carpathian mountains of Slovakia (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/slovakia)

Paul and Astrid (expedition leaders) collected two shiny new Discovery Sports in Vienna

and then met up with Tomas (expedition scientist) at the base camp here in the village of Svosov on Thursday.

We received a warm welcome from our host Frantisek who treated us with his hot herb tea. Since arriving we have been busying ourselves with expedition preparation, including sorting the kit and paperwork. It’s not been all work though! Tomas treated us to a showing of footage that he has been shooting over the 18 months for a new documentary on the wildlife of Slovakia – some amazing shots that I am sure he will be happy to show again once we are all gathered.

It snowed a lot yesterday, and again last night so we have 30 to 40 cm on the ground, which will be great for the tracking. Everything looks beautiful around base camp.

Today we will make a foray into the valley to see what the snow conditions are like there.

Paul will be getting the train to Bratislava at 04.35 in the morning (Sunday) for our rendezvous with the Slot 1 expedition members at 09:00. Then we have a three hour, 20 minute train ride back to Kralo’vany, which is 15 minutes in the expedition vehicles to the base. We are looking forward to meeting everyone on Sunday.

From our conservation holiday volunteering with lynx, wolves, bears and wildcats in the Carpathian mountains of Slovakia (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/slovakia).