Under the clear South African skies, a group of young volunteers work on the land. They are in the conservation phase of their expedition, and today they are doing invasive species removal. Digging up prickly pears from the sun-baked earth.

The rugged Drakensberg Mountains loom large in the distance, peaking over barren trees and yellow dirt. As 21-year-old venturer Joe Vykopal digs, his attention is drawn from the task at hand. Ten metres away is a herd of giraffes, slowly walking by unperturbed. At this point on his 10-week journey, Joe had seen all sorts of animals wandering past the reserve, but never so close.

He thinks maybe the animals had gotten used to them at this point, as the graceful giants of the wilderness grazed on the neighbouring grasslands.

Surrounded by animals that loom so large above his six-foot frame, he felt a wave of serenity wash over him. A breathtaking sight, and one he will never forget.

This June Joe embarked on a 10 week expedition as a ‘venturer’ in the northern provinces of South Africa doing volunteer work. He went with Raleigh International, a youth expedition organisation based in the UK.

His trip was divided into three phases. Split between working on environmental conservation, community outreach, volunteering and general infrastructure, he and his fellow expeditioners then went on a 19-day trek through the Drakensberg Mountains.

He had just graduated from Notre Dame with a Pre-Medicine Certificate and before he embarks on the next chapter of his journey in medicine, he wanted to do something rewarding with his five months off: “I wanted to get some quality life experience and volunteer work under my belt.”

Each phase of the expedition involved different kinds of volunteer work. During the conservation phase of the expedition, Joe spent roughly six hours a day working on the land.

His days started with a wake-up call at 5am. Then by 6.30am, he was out working on the site.

“With the environmental stuff, bush encroachment, trail and road clearing, erosion control, that general gist, invasive species removal. We’d do that for a solid three hour block up until maybe 11.30am,” he says.

“Then we’d head back to camp, have lunch, free time maybe two and half hours, then head back out to the second project for around a two-and-a-half-hour block.”

Although it was challenging, for Joe the decision to do volunteer work seemed obvious, as both his parents were venturers in their 20s.

“My parents are fortunate enough to do volunteer work through the same company [Raleigh International]. So, they went as venturers back in the day when they were around the same age,” he says.

“Then they went back as team leaders further on. That’s how they met as well.”

Taking a break from his spring cleaning, Joe’s dad, Lev Vykopal, comes in to talk about his experience with Raleigh International.

He sits down and hands me a cardboard box with a collection of photographs inside. He shows me a photo of a young man with a small child on his back. They are both smiling as kids in the background look on.

“I was 19 there. That was my first time around, as a venturer,” he says.

On his second expedition to South Africa Lev Vykopal was 28 years old and attending as staff. He took photographs for the expedition and did art projects with the children and venturers in the evenings.

He hands me the Raleigh International magazine from the year of his second trip, and points out a photo in the bottom right corner of the last page. Its’ of a young Lev and a young woman trying to sit in his backpack. They are both laughing and smiling. The young woman as it happens, is Joe’s mum Victoria

“That’s where Victoria and I met, she was the project manager on that expedition.”

Although his parents found love on their expeditions to Africa, Joe Vykopal says the trip isn’t a fairytale. He says he enjoyed his time away, but he was open with the harsh realities.

They had been trekking through the Drakensberg Mountains for 19 days, the final phase of the expedition. It was the last three days of the trip when he recalls having problems with his left leg.

He says it was ‘shutting down on him’, cramping and seizing. The pain got so bad, he found it hard to sleep, and hiking through the mountain became a huge challenge.

It wasn’t until after the tick had fallen off that he realised he’d been bitten. But, in true Australian fashion, he didn’t seem that put out by it.

His family history led him to the expedition, but his interest in medicine had him looking at other volunteering options.

“Really do consider it and do your research as well. There are so many different opportunities to volunteer with, all around the world,” he says.

Joe paid around $5700 for his 10-week volunteering adventure, plus roughly $1500 each way in airfares, bringing his total to around $8700 for the entire experience.

He says: “A bit of a dent, but considering you’re there for three months and comparing that to how much you would spend on another trip of that length, it’s justifiable, I think.”

Prices range depending on where you go and what you do. Ellie Parsons, 21, has volunteered in Africa three times, and her most recent trip to Tanzania cost her $1074, minus flights.

Her first time volunteering abroad was to South Africa when she was 16 through her school. The second was a trip to Madagascar to teach English at an orphanage. Her third, and most recent, was a trip to Tanzania where she worked as a physio at a local hospital.

As she knew she would be working in a hospital, she took precautions and got every vaccine her doctor recommended. The vaccinations totalled around $800.

Ellie she says the price of her trip was worth it, considering the conditions she the hospital was in.

“There were two physios for the whole hospital and one of the physios there hadn’t been paid in over a year. So I can pay to come help.”

Ellie didn’t have high expectations for her Tanzania trip. She’s aware of how fortunate she is, studying at Notre Dame, and how easily she can access patient care. But knowing all of this, she still had a bit of a shock on her first day.

She was told the first week of her trip would be observation, the second would be under close supervision, and she wouldn’t have independent care of patients until the third week. But on her first day she was left to her own devices.

“They just took me behind a curtain to a patient and said ‘here you go’.”

It was difficult becuase at that point she had no knowledge of their first language, Swahili.

“I hadn’t had my first lesson yet. So, I knew nothing. And they just left me in there,” Ellie says.

Although it was a shock at first, she says after a few Swahili lessons and learning phrases to ask certain things, she could communicate with her patients. She even wrote down proper pronunciation of words in her notebook, and would prop it up behind patients so she could converse with them.

Ellie has some amazing memories from her trips abroad, but her best comes from her most recent trip in Tanzania.

“I had this one patient that was an amputee, and he couldn’t move at all. He was just so deconditioned and weak,” she says.

She says there wasn’t a booking system so he and his family would just show up to the hospital the next day for more treatment. The patient didn’t talk much but she says he was always very kind and smiley and always had his family with him.

 “I managed to teach them a transfer, to get him in and out of his wheelchair, so that he could at least roll around,” she says.

Although Ellie had many positive outcomes from her volunteer work, she says it was always a challenge seeing the difference in medical care compared to Australia.

As a physio student she says she is taught to constantly ask patients if it’s okay to touch them and if they are ever in any pain to let them know. Over in Tanzania she says treatment is different. She says it felt outdated, and she tried her best to incorporate her teachings from university into her volunteer work.

She recalls seeing claw marks on sides of chairs, from where people would be strapped in and screaming in pain. But this is something she says most people expect.

Despite the challenging nature of volunteer work like this, both Joe and Ellie agree that it is was worth it.

“You learn so much by doing it,” Ellie says.

“Just go in with an open and mind and ask as many questions as you can. It is a perfect place to ask people first-hand about their experiences and what they do culturally.”

Joe has a similar view on his volunteer work: “These opportunities and this time you get to do something like this, you possibly won’t have it in the future.”

Although he urges people interested in volunteer work to take part, he is candid about the reality of it: “It’s going to be a rough one, there’s going to be a lifestyle change.

“I was having late-night cold showers in the dark, and it was freezing, but then I’m looking at the stars and there’s no light pollution. Just appreciate those smaller luxuries.”