A Tale of Two Rivers. Part One – the Zambezi

/ stidyatkusane / 12 Comments
My soul river at Mana Pools.

Every now and again in my life I have found myself in a place that for some mysterious reason exerts a deep, personal pull on me. Such places insinuate their way in to one’s being; my need for them seems to come from the deepest recesses of my unconscious mind. The Nyanga farm, where I grew up, was one. The Zambezi Valley is another…

The first time I went to “The River” was as a very small child, way back in the 1950s. I flew up with my father, an airline pilot, in an old Viking, at a time when the future Kariba Dam was still under construction.

I don’t remember much about that trip other than the fact that the unfinished wall looked like a rash of scabby cement skyscrapers of uneven height sprouting out of the river bed. I also vaguely recall that we travelled downstream to the junction of the Kafue and Zambezi rivers but how we got there I have forgotten.

  • The building of the Kariba Dam wall…two very blurry photos from a blurry period of my life.
  • Pictures taken from the air by my father, Reg Stidolph, an airline pilot. Note coffer dam.

My next visit was with my brother, Peter, his best friend, Douglas Anderson and Doug’s then girlfriend whose name now escapes me. It was towards the end of the sixties when I was still at university and Pete had just started working as a CONEX officer in Karoi.

My memory of that trip is similarly hazy. I do remember we consumed quite a few beers along the way which might explain that.

I recall driving past the remains of the abandoned sugar mills near Chirundu but am not sure where we actually ended up. I also remember there was only the one shelter which Doug and his girlfriend slept in. Because we considered ourselves rugged, outdoor types, Pete and I just dossed down on a sandbank alongside the river.

Apart from the mosquitoes – tiny, winged, devils in paradise – we slept well enough although we were a little taken alarmed to discover, when we woke up the next morning, that a hippo had walked between our two prostrate forms.

I still have an old black and white photograph of the two of us, taken back then. It is a picture I treasure because it reminds me of more carefree times and captures better than any other our contrasting personalities: Pete – practical, solid, no nonsense, his feet firmly planted in the soil. Me, the future cartoonist, slightly aloof and cynical, a bit of a poser with my sunglasses and ridiculous sideburns.

Pete and I at the Zambezi, circa 1969.

Standing on that sandbank with my brother, I do remember feeling that there was something that made this place special. I also knew I would return, one day, although, when I finally did so, it was not under the conditions or in the circumstances I desired.

I had left university at the end of 1971 and knew what lay ahead of me – 12 months of National Service. For a whole year I had been possessed by a growing sense of dread and the misery of anticipating the unavoidable.

My fears duly were duly realised. On the 3rd of January, 1973, I found myself conscripted in to the army as a member of Intake 129, “C” Company, the Rhodesia Regiment, based at Kariba.

It was now that I really began to get to know the river.

Our barracks, which had once provided a home for the Italian workers involved in the construction of the dam wall, were situated on top of a high hill – commonly referred to as the ‘Kariba Heights’ – with a panoramic view over the town, harbour and lake below. From here each platoon took it in turns patrolling the gomos ( army slang – from the Shona word for ‘mountains’), the flatlands and the town itself where our duties included guarding the dam wall which linked Rhodesia to Zambia

The gomos are what we called the rugged, inhospitable stretch of country that lie directly below the dam wall where the valley sides close in tightly, squeezing the river into a series of narrow, fast flowing rapids. At the end of the gorge the Zambezi slows down and widens as the land opens up with surprising abruptness into an enormous flood plain (hence army slang: flatlands) while the mountains re-arrange themselves along the horizon, growing further and further apart until finally petering out into nothingness.

For the most part we operated in small, six-man sticks, patrolling up and down the river as far as Chirundu by day and then returning to our base camps – old hunting camps – at night. It was a place of huge heat, a vast sky above and the sound and shimmer of the river below as it snaked its way along the county’s northern border.

Zambezi Master Chef class. Me on left, taking no part but writing a letter home like a good son did in those days…

At this early stage of the war this section of the Zambezi was still relatively quiet; most of the guerilla incursions were occurring further to the east, across the Mozambique rather than Zambian side of the border. If anything we had more to fear from the abundant wildlife.

At night we could often see and hear hyena lurking around and rooting amongst the rubbish left behind by countless intakes of soldiers before us. Under the cover of darkness hippo would emerge from the river to graze
on the grass that grew along the banks of the river.

Elephant, too, were frequent visitors although usually you could hear their stomachs rumbling long before they got anywhere near you. At other times I used to marvel at what silent creatures they could be and how an entire herd could materialise out of nowhere, as if by magic.

Black Rhino – surely the most cranky, foul–tempered, creatures on this planet (aside from man that is)? – were still relatively common. The sadistic South African helicopter pilots who flew us around used to take cruel delight in making us jump out near them. Because they held rank we couldn’t argue…

As a result, I spent more time retreating from their frontal assaults than I did dodging the other sides’ bullets (although that did change as the war intensified and I got despatched to the “Sharp End”).

Patrolling at night also had its own peculiar risks. There was always the chance of stumbling into herds of silent-standing buffalo concealed in the shadows, their presence usually given away by a sudden swish of a tail or an angry snort. Several large prides of lion also hunted in the area.

Elephant drinking in the Zambezi

Then there were the less visible dangers – tsetse fly, carriers of sleeping-sickness whose bite left a large welt on your skin, ticks, malaria-bearing mosquito and crocodile that lurked below the deceptively placid surface of the river.

At night we each took it in turn to do a stint on guard while the others slept. Strangely enough I learnt to savour such moments. I have never been much good at being one of the crowd, nor did I ever slot comfortably into the highly structured military hierarchy. Guard duty provided me with a brief, merciful respite; the time and silence to be alone with my thoughts, without being interrupted or pestered or ordered about.

Although I was always an extremely reluctant soldier, the army was not all bad. Indeed there were moments of unalloyed magic when it was possible, if only for a while, to forget we were fighting a war.

I loved sitting in the pink afterglow of the sunset, having my final brew-up of the day and watching the river change colour as darkness descended. As the sun sank still further the river and sky became one, the tree line and distant escarpment hanging in suspension between them. It was difficult not to be bewitched by the landscape, the massive, flat valley, the rim of mountains and hills. Often we would be joined, on either side of our position, by large troops of baboon or herds of impala or elephant coming down for their final drink.

Sunset over the Zambezi.

Apart from a short period in my youth when I tried to re-imagine myself as a St Francis of Assisi-figure I have never been a particularly religious person but I felt a strong spiritual connection with the place.

Even now, living in a different place, space and time I am still haunted by the grandeur of the Valley.

Since then I have been back to the Valley many times, alternating between Lake Kariba, Mana Pools and Mongwe Fishing Camp, below Chirundu.

At the end of the Rhodesian Bush War, I took my English cousin, Rebecca, then just out of school and waiting to go to Oxford, on an epic road trip around Southern Africa. This included crossing Kariba by ferry and then driving through a mine field to get to Victoria Falls. I don’t think her parents would have so readily consented to the trip had they known about all the skull and crossbones signs and rusty barbed-wire demarcating where the mines were supposed to be.

We couldn’t have picked a better time to see the Falls. Not only was the river flowing at full strength – which meant they were at their magnificent best – but because it was so close to the end of the Rhodesian Bush War the tourist hordes had not yet started returning in their thousands. Prices were cheap, accommodation easy to find (we stayed in the National Park chalets above the Falls) and there were none of the regulations and restrictions controlling movement in and around the main view points that you have now.

Seeing the Falls after a gap of several years, I was once again overwhelmed by their sheer size and scale. No matter how many pictures you see of them or documentaries you watch, nothing can quite prepare you for the sheer magnitude of this spectacle. It takes your breath away every time.

The one glorious evening Rebecca and I wandered down through the rain forest right up to the edge of the dizzying abyss. Standing there in the drenching spray, watching the never-ending torrent of water hurling down in to the cauldron below – while a orange- yellow full moon rose in to the night sky above it, gilding the water in a luminous glow as it did so – I felt like some would-be mystic. There was something incredibly transcendental about the scene.

What brought the whole experience even closer to the Romantic Age notion of the Sublime (beauty and terror combined) was that we had one of the world’s most awe-inspiring natural spectacles all to ourselves. We were the only ones there.

I doubt if you could do that now.

  • Kariba Dam wall. Where I once kept the Red Menace at bay…
  • Lake Kariba.
  • Victoria Falls – the classic view.
  • My cousin, Rebecca, on the edge of the abyss, braving the spray from Victoria Falls.
  • Muso o Tunya -“The smoke that thunders”. I took this pic on the aptly named Flight of the Angels
  • Victoria Falls – view from near David Livingstone’s statue.

Another trip which sticks out in my mind is when my youngest sister, Nicky, got married. After the wedding, the reception for which was held in Cecil John Rhodes’ old house in Nyanga (now a hotel), we spent an idyllic few days on a houseboat on Kariba before driving on to Mongwe fishing camp. After all the other family members had headed back to Karoi, my companion, Mary-Ann, I and my nephew, James, elected to stay on for a few more days.

The Zambezi is a river which inspires all those who know it well with an infectious passion. James, who farms in Karoi and comes down regularly on fishing trips, is no exception…

James fishing in Zambezi.

As we sped up and down the river in his boat, past sandbars and reed covered islands on which groups of munching buffalo stood, he was full of lurid descriptions of its hazards as well as its attractions. Numerous types of fish swim in it of which the mighty tiger fish is undoubtedly the most famous (James has caught his fair share).

The bird life on the Zambezi is prolific. Its specials including African Skimmer, Lilian’s Lovebird, Livingstone’s Flycatcher, Western Banded Snake-Eagle, Dickinson’s Kestrel, Long-toed Lapwing, Grey-headed Parrot, Thick-billed Cuckoo, Racket-tailed Roller, Collared Palm-Thrush and many more besides.

In the middle of the river James found a shallow shelf where he cut the engine and we all leapt out in to the crystal-clear, cooling, water. Wanting to show I am capable of the odd romantic gesture I re-enacted the whole “Out of Africa” scene, washing Mary-Ann’s dust-coated hair while James, chuckling to himself, kept an eye-out for crocodiles.

The Zambezi from Mongwe Hill.

My last trip back to the Valley – which was also to attend a wedding (my nephew Alexander Stidolph) – was undoubtedly the most poignant and moving of them all because it happened at a particularly tumultuous and traumatic time in Zimbabwe’s history.

Driving up from Harare Airport the results of President Robert Mugabe’s recent chaotic and often violent land grab had been plain to see. For every surviving homestead, I passed at least a dozen whose occupants had been forced to up stakes and flee. Tobacco barns stood derelict, irrigation equipment and farm machinery lay strewn across the countryside. Uncontrolled bush fires blazed everywhere.

An entire industry, a whole way of life, appeared to be dissolving before my eyes.

Only the Zambezi Valley was as I remembered it.

Dropping down the other side of the escarpment I braked and pulled in to a familiar lay-bye – a favourite pit stop of mine. The air was thick with heat so I cracked open a cold beer and sat there while a pair of Bataleur – still relatively common in these parts – wheeled overhead; dwarfed by the immensity of it all.

For the first time since I started the journey I could feel my jangled city nerves starting to thaw. Sitting under an invincibly sunny sky, listening to the baboon arguing in the rock-faces above and the sound of the long-haulage trucks groaning up the steep incline, I felt I had found my spot in the universe. I was back in my true spiritual home.

I could have lingered there all day, lost in that hypnotic trance, but I had a wedding to get to and ahead of me stretched the long, dusty, rutted track to Mana Pools.

Crossing the Rukomeche on the road to Mana Pools. The Zambezi escarpment in far distance.

There was something comfortably familiar about the scene that greeted me at the river. Pick-up trucks were backed up in a line alongside the road and under a cluster of trees a makeshift wedding reception area had been cordoned off.

Beyond all the activity, on the river below, a small herd of elephant sloshed through the shallows completely unmoved by all the comings and goings around them.

Elephant – completely unmoved by wedding preparations.

The next morning I sat out under a huge Natal Mahogany tree and watched the passing parade as the sun rose up over the mighty river. Looking at the scenery and the animals and the myriad of bird-life, I felt I had been let loose among a prodigality of marvels, a feeling made even stronger by the illusion that I had it all to myself.

The wedding ceremony itself was held further upstream, under a large, spreading tree whose branches had conveniently arranged themselves in to the form of a natural altar, through which one could take in the broad sweep of the river and the mountains beyond.

The setting could hardly have been more perfect. Threading his way carefully through pods of dozing hippo, the bridegroom came paddling down the river in a canoe while the bride arrived in a cloud of dust in an old Model T Ford, especially trucked in for the occasion.

The bride arrives in a cloud of dust…
The bridal couple depart. Note raptor in tree. Picture courtesy of Craig Scott

Considering how severely depleted the ranks of the local farming community had become there was a surprisingly large turnout although among the guests were many who had lost their farms and livelihoods or joined the great diaspora. Try as I might I found it very difficult to escape the palpable air of sadness, the feeling I was witnessing a last hurrah.

This feeling of loss was made even more acute by the fact I had also come to pay my last respects to my adored brother, Pete, who had died of a brain tumour just days before his farm was seized (my brother, Paul, who farmed nearby also lost his) and whose ashes his wife, Tawny, had placed in an old sausage tree growing on the bank of his favourite section of the river.

My brother Pete’s final resting place (sausage tree on right). My sister, Nicky, in foreground.

As I and the other members of my family gathered around the tree, it occurred to me I was bidding farewell not only to my brother but also the country of my birth.

The memories churned up by this unspeakably beautiful river will, however, continue to flow through my soul until the day I die…

And Then The Lights Went Out – Cartoons for March and April, 2019

/ stidyatkusane / 2 Comments

SUMMARY OF EVENTS:

Other than the fact he fainted while delivering it, there was nothing especially memorable about KZN premier Willies Mchunu’s State of the Province Address so instead of going with that as my cartoon topic I decided to kick off March, 2019, by tackling a subject that has really got the long suffering residents of Pietermaritzburg blowing their fuses – the city’s chaotic electricity billing system.

They had good reason for concern. Shortly after the latest fiasco the Auditor General issued a damning report warning that the city was on the brink of collapse.

As if this was not bad enough the situation was then made worse when workers in the crucial Finance Department, who administer the billing system, suddenly downed tools and embarked on a strike. According to sources within the ANC itself the pro-Zuma faction – who else? – had encouraged these labour ructions as part of a grand plan to make the city’s management look incompetent.

Meanwhile, at the national level, a bombshell report recommended that the self-same Jacob Zuma and others be prosecuted or disciplined after finding that he oversaw the creation of parallel structures within the intelligence services to serve his personal and factional ANC interests.

If there is one thing the former Number One has proved singularly adept at doing it is avoiding going to jail so don’t be surprised if he does so again…

South Africans then found themselves back in the dark with Eskom power supply becoming increasingly erratic, and blackouts often inexplicable. The sudden wave of Stage Four outages brutally brought home the true severity of the mess South Africa has been dumped in by the kleptocrats.

The gloom continued with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s anti-corruption campaign getting tainted by the revelation that his son, Andile, was paid R2Million by Bosasa/African Global Operations. Andile’s exploitation of his connections drew immediate comparisons with the dodgy dealings of Zuma and his family during the previous presidency.

We were not the only ones sinking deeper in to the mire. With her Brexit deal having been rejected three times by the House of Commons, embattled British PM, Theresa May, decided to reach out to the Leader of the Labour opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, in an effort to resolve the impasse. It was hard not to take the cynical view that she had only done so because she realised she had run out of road.

Having insisted, through her spokesperson, that she had no plans to place the Msunduzi Municipality under administration because of the awful mess it had got itself in to the MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, then went ahead and did just that. Whether this belated “intervention”, as Dube-Ncube called it, will save the sinking ship is open to debate but the fact the beleaguered municipality has been placed under administration before – in 2010 – is not exactly an encouraging omen…

A tough task got made even more difficult for Sibusiso Sithole, the newly appointed administrator, when a group of ANC rebels then threatened to close down Msunduzi and other municipalities if their demands are not met before the election of May 8.

Since this occurred in the same week as Durban and the KZN coastline experienced some of the worst flooding in decades, I made the inevitable connection between the two events…

  • More billing woes
  • Heading for the cliff.
  • More revelations about Zuma.
  • More load-shedding.
  • More state capture revelations.
  • Going nowhere slowly…
  • Musunduzi finally placed under administration.
  • More ANC infighting.

“Walkies” With Whisky and Minki – a Homage

/ stidyatkusane / 16 Comments

Minki was the first of us to come and live on the farm.

William, the owner, was busy supervising the construction of the new house so she joined him because she didn’t want him to be lonely all up there on his own. Sharing a solitary, bunker-like, room known, appropriately, as “The Bunker”, they became good chums.

Once the house was completed, though, it was decided Minki really ought to have a companion of her own kind and so her cousin, Whisky, was imported from the same Free State farm where Minki had been born.

At first, Minki was a little put out about this new arrangement but – being Minki – she didn’t kick up too much of a fuss. Whisky, for her part, was absolutely thrilled with not only her new home but her new auntie as well.

  • Whisky in window. Minki looking on anxiously.
  • New best friend. Whisky, in foreground, with Minki.

I turned up shortly after that and right away we all seemed to hit it off. They liked me even better when I started using the “walkies” word.

For me they became the most companionable of companions – easy-going, sweet-natured and loyal. We formed our own little pack, a democracy of three, although I pulled rank and declared myself the leader, deciding in which direction we would walk and when we would turn back

Being uncritical and accommodating by nature, they seemed happy to go along with that…

Over the following years the three of us built up an empathy and a camaraderie and a trust. All I had to do was turn up the doorstep with my binoculars and bird book and say the magic word and they would immediately start writhing and leaping in frenzies of delight.

  • My favourite picture of Minki (on left) and Whisky.

Whisky and Minki were mostly well-behaved on our outings in to the countryside. They quickly learnt that they were not allowed to chase the buck – as tempting as it always was – or bother the family of dassie that had one day decided to take up residence in the pile of rocks alongside Rubble Row.

Being retrievers, they were both keen sniffers, their noses constantly close to the ground as they searched for clues and vital signs and tell-tale scents. Their attention span could be short however – a leaping grasshopper or a meandering butterfly would be enough distract them from the serious task at hand.

On the trail…

Of the two, Minki was the more energetic and adventurous, covering an enormous amount of ground as she dashed hither and thither. The only problen with this was that I never got to see many birds up close but that didn’t really matter. She was happy and that made me happy.

While this was going on, Whisky, was content just to trot along behind. She saw her role more as the observer, the eyes to Minki’s nose.

Minki in motion…

She loved nothing more than to just park off.

Nowhere was this more obvious than relaxing at our favourite resting spot – Lizard Rock. While Minki would scuttle over the exposed sheet of dolerite doing her best to catch the blue and orange little skinks as they darted between the rocks (to my knowledge she has never succeeded), Whisky preferred to just sit and take in the view.

  • Minki, looking for lizzies.
  • Minki still looking for lizzies
  • Whisky parking off on top of a hill.
  • Whisky parking off amongst the spring flowers.
  • Whisky parking off at Lizard Rock.

Conversely, Whisky was the more likely to bark at something. Our neighbour’s cows were a particular favourite. I noticed, however, that she always made sure there was a fence or some other form of barrier between her and them before launching in to her tirades of abuse.

A very ferocious Whisky showing the neighbour’s cow who is boss. The cow kept on grazing…

She could be easily fooled – often mistaking, for example, a plastic bag fluttering in the wind for some sort of looming threat. And barking at it.

She was not a very brave dog as I have already intimated. The following sequence of photographs, which show her coming face to face with a man on a bicycle, provide a good demonstration of that:

They were good days – in fact, some of the happiest of my life – the three of us ranging across the countryside with never a bad word or heated exchange between us.

Our favourite walk was the one down to the river although it was always exhausting climbing back. Minki, in particular, loved flowing water and would immediately plunge in to the river once we got there, often emerging with a half-sunken log clamped triumphantly between her teeth.

  • Minki grabs the Log-ness Monster.
  • Minki triumphant.

That, would be quickly be forgotten once I sat down and pulled my Thermos of hot coffee and packet of rusks out my backpack because, like all Labrador dogs, they have a highly evolved food gene. They also had a way of reminding me, without actually saying anything but by simply giving me “the look”, that we were a team. I always ended up sharing my food with them.

Sometimes we crossed the river and followed the road that ran along its forested margin. I named this road Porcupine Ridge because I have never been on it without finding quills scattered along its course.

At the point where our farm ends, the road – still following the line of the river – takes a sharp curve up a steep hill. About halfway up this we discovered a waterfall although we had to hack our way through a fair amount of skin-shredding bramble to get there.

It was well worth the effort, we all agreed. For Minki there was a deep pool to swim in at the top of the falls (even better there were logs in it) while Whisky thought the cliff edge spot provided another brilliant parking- off spot where she could simply sit and muse about life.

  • View from the top of the waterfall.
  • Whisky musing at top of the waterfall.
  • Minki captures another Log-ness Monster in pool above waterfall.
  • Whisky decides to join in the fun by trying to wrestle Log-ness Monster away from Minki.

Above the falls the country opens up in to a grass-filled glade, mercifully free of those prickly brambles, while the river slides its way over a series of smooth rock fissures, with more pools in between. Along their margins tree ferns grow while the water itself is wonderfully clear.

Selecting a comfortable position on some rounded rocks, I would sit dangling my toes in the cool water while the girls lay spread-eagled in the grass, tongues lolling. It was all very peaceful, almost domestic, with the view down the valley providing a lovely, quieting effect.

As a rule, this series of pool was my turning point although there is a beautiful dam just a little bit further up I would loved to have carried on to but I was worried the owner might not want dogs trespassing on his property, even ones as friendly and as well brought up as Whisky and Minki.

So we returned home, the way we had come, crossing the Kusane River and climbing the steep hillside back to the house. I always got back from these excursions feeling tired but well satisfied and at peace with the world.

The road down to the river. The whole Kusane Gang including Mara and Harriet (not in picture), the two sheep. Plus Evan from Cape Town (in white hat), an honorary member of the pack..

Sadly, those days of exploration with Whisky and Minki have now become a thing of the past. Old age has caught up with them both. Minki has become so arthritic she battles to make it from one side of the room to the other. She is still unfailingly cheerful and although she doesn’t always get up to greet me when I come to visit she still manages to convey her pleasure at seeing me with a prolonged thumping of the tail on the floor.

For her part, Whisky has grown more matronly and home-comfort loving. When the guests arrive, she is still the model host doing the rounds of the cottages to make sure they have all settled in nicely (while, at the same time, casting a surreptitious glance in to what goodies they have inside their cool box).

She also still wanders down to visit me in The Barn, especially when her owner is away because she knows the end of my balcony provides a good look-out over the farm gate through which Karen – she who Whisky adores above all others – will come driving.

Two devoted girls, waiting for Mum to return home, at the end of my balcony. Whisky, as usual, using auntie as a pillow.

Where it counts they are still the same two dogs that I have watched grow up from puppies. They are not aggressive types but rather humble; they don’t demand affection but are grateful for it. Both still have warm, affectionate natures. Although they will obviously do their duty and bark at the sight of an unknown car coming up the driveway, I do not remember them ever showing ill-temper towards a human being.

Guarding the guineafowl.

For me, life goes on. While I still try to walk on a regular basis, I have found that without the two girls to egg me on my enthusiasm levels aren’t what they once were and I don’t cover quite the same distance I used to. I hardly ever go down to the river any more although I suppose I ought to.

I still wander up to Lizard Rock but I miss having Whisky plonk herself down next to me and then lean up against my side, all friendly-like. I also miss watching Minki’s huge excitement when some lizard, with a death wish, decides to break cover.

It was a very special relationship. Through fair weather and foul, they proved the very best and most loyal of friends. I will always value and cherish and remember those times we had together, exploring Kusane Farm and the world just beyond…

  • Going “walkies” among the flowers.
  • Waiting to be let in.
  • Still waiting to be let in.
  • Swimming in the LeVoy’s dam. Minki, the braver of the two, is the one far out.
  • Whisky plays King of the Castle.
  • Queen Minki surveys her domain. Kusane River below, Karkloof Hills in background.
  • Whisky gives a Rastafarian, known as Craig, a few tips on how to “chill-out” and “park-off”.
  • Whisky’s food gene kicks in…

Tiny Owls, Big Crocodile – a Short Trip to Shimuwini

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The Letaba river at Shimuwini, Kruger

For me, there is always something spiritually cleansing about heading off in to the bush. You leave behind the worries, the strains, the irritations of day to day life, to embrace a sense of wonder and a buried instinct that reminds you that you are still one with nature.

That was certainly very much how I felt when I recently found myself, once again, driving through the gates at Punda Maria in northern Kruger.

I have come back to this spot numerous times and the enchantment never wanes, not only because of its beautiful bushveld setting but because of the promise it holds. There is always something new to discover.

Normally when I go to the bush I am focused on one main thing. It is all about looking for lifers and ticking as many birds off my list as possible.

This time it was slightly different. I was travelling with my sisters, Sally, an artist, and Penny, a social anthropologist, and we had a broader goal. We were hoping to not only to recharge our spiritual batteries but also find inspiration – in my case for a series of paintings I had planned.

Travelling companions, my sisters Sally and Penny’

Any birds I saw would be an added bonus.

Our journey also differed from my normal ones in that we were doing it in much more style and luxury than I am accustomed to. Instead of having to sleep on the hard ground in my tiny tent, Penny had, as a special birthday treat for me, booked us in to hutted accommodation.

We spent our first two nights at Punda Maria with a day trip to Pafuri in between. I have described this area in a previous blog post so won’t repeat myself here.

Leaving Punda Maria, early on the second morning, we headed south towards Shingwedzi. As we drove the clouds came rolling ponderously towards us in never ending procession across an inimitable sky, although the sun never seemed to stop shining through them

About fifteen kilometres into our journey we came across a pride of lion, lying in a gully alongside the road. Languid and completely unconcerned by our presence, they exuded an air of arrogant authority.

Lion, between Punda Maria and Shingwedzi, Kruger. Picture courtesy of Sally Scott.

Looking at them, dozing in the shade, made me glad I am, not a buck or a zebra. With predators like them around there is no way you can ever exactly nod off. When a lion roars you can imagine shadowy herds freezing in the darkness.

Leaving the snoozing lions to their day-dreams we continued on our way.

Reaching a crossroads, we branched off the tar and on to the Phongolo Loop. It turned out to be a good move because the loop is, to my mind, one of the most rewarding drives in the whole of Kruger.

There was game – and birds – a plenty.

The tree-lined river, which the road follows, was mostly dry but every now and again there would be an isolated, mud-brown, pool.

Buffalo, Phongolo Loop

We stopped directly above one such pool. It had a steep-sided red-coloured cliff behind it. Down at the water’s edge lay a huge crocodile. With its hard, ugly, carbuncular skin and protruding eyes, it really did look like something from the early stages of creation.

Time and science may have removed much of our fear of the natural world but I still experience a slight tremor in my gut whenever I see these evil-looking reptiles…

As we sat, in the safety of our car, watching this one, a small group of waterbuck came loping down the steep side of the gully. They drew up short when the lead male spotted the crocodile lying in the shallows. Strangely, the waterbuck seemed more curious than afraid, tentatively moving down to the water’s edge to examine the beast.

I kept waiting for the inevitable but it never happened. The crocodile continued to lie motionless and eventually the waterbuck lost interest and moved off.

Waterbuck meet crocodile, Phongolo Loop.

I was told afterwards – I have no idea how true this is – that waterbuck have a special gland, the odour from which repels crocodiles.

Back on the road we saw more elephant and several big herds of buffalo. We also came across a pair of Kori Bustard resting in the shade. The undoubted highlight was, however, a young leopard, walking down the dry, sandy river bed, swishing its tail as it went.

Getting to our nights accommodation at Bataleur Bushveld Camp proved to be no easy task. As we trekked up the dirt road bunches of elephant kept trundling across it, on the way to their watering holes. Often we had to brake and wait for them to pass.

It is a strange thing when you think you are doing the looking, to find yourself being observed. Especially when the one doing the observing towers above you and doesn’t look exactly pleased to have you around. We had a few gulp moments…

Getting up close and personal

Petra, a friend of Penny and Sally, who was due to join us later, had even worse luck and was forced to turn around because of the elephant and take a much longer route eventually arriving at Bataleur just as they were shutting the entrance gates.

Bataleur is situated in thick, dry, riverine bush that stood waiting, expectantly, to be transformed by the arrival of the rains, still probably some months off.

Bataleur Bush Camp

It, too, was alive with birds. There were some very tame hornbills (Red-billed, Yellow-billed and Grey), Crested Francolin, Go-Away Birds, Arrow-marked Babblers and African Mourning Doves. Also a very noisy party of screeching, acrobatic, Brown-headed Parrots feeding in a nearby wild-fruit tree

As the sun dipped behind the trees we were paid separate visits by South Africa’s two tiniest owls – first the Pearl-spotted Owlet and then the African Scops-Owl. Landing in a tree outside our chalet, the Scops immediately started signalling to all the other owls in the area with its soft, frog-like, “Prrrupp”.

Pearl-spotted Owlet. Picture courtesy of Sally Scott.

It was much hotter the following morning as we set off for our final destination, the Shimuwini Bush camp. Ahead of us lay miles and miles of more stunted mopani scrub, all bony trunks and sparse, spindly branches.

We stopped near a water point, where several elephant were siphoning water out of the top of a reservoir. There was also a solitary hyena, skulking around, like he was carrying some sort of guilty secret. When a nearby herd of zebra spotted it, they immediately charged, kicking up great clouds of dust behind them.

Hyena – about to be chased by zebra.

Caught unaware, the hyena did not need any prompting – it turned tail and fled with the zebra in hot haste behind.

Once they had sent the shame-faced animal scuttling off in to the surrounding bush the zebra halted, fanning out in to a half crescent-shaped phalanx, like a Zulu impi, to prevent it from returning. The hyena took the hint and did not return.

The hyena is seen off…

Shimuwini, when we got there, was a revelation. Situated on the banks of the Letaba, it seemed miles from anywhere. Across the river rolled plains seemingly endless, shimmering with heat, barren of landmarks save for the occasional baobab and small rocky outcrops. There seemed to be a presence here, a spirit, an atmosphere that had nothing to do with man. We were mere transitory callers, passing through.

Klipspringer and baobab – near Shimuwini.

At this time of the year the Letaba provides one of the few sources of water in an arid land so you didn’t really have to go anywhere to look for game – you just need to sit out on a chair under the spreading trees, drink in hand, and wait for it to come to you. Immediately in front of us, in a large pool, a pod of hippo kept rising up, snorting out columns of bubbles and steam and then disappearing again, leaving behind a mass of ever-widening ripples on the waters surface.

Several crocodiles lay silently in shallow inlets, only their nostrils showing. On the opposite bank a steady stream of animals kept coming down to drink.

There were lots of water birds, including Fish Eagle, Saddle-billed Stork, Openbill Stork, Yellow-billed Stork, Egyptian Geese, White-faced Fulvous Whistling Duck, African Jacana, Water Dikkop and Black Crake.

As we sat watching them, the dusk seemed to creep up from the ground like a stalking animal. The whole sight before us was one of almost religious beauty, stirring to both the spirit and the eye.

Sunset over the Letaba river.

I like to think that it is to some such place my soul might return at the end of life.

As bewitching as it all was I eventually had to pull myself away to fulfil my allotted role as braai-master. After a delicious fillet steak and several glasses of red wine, which we consumed sitting on the verandah under a star-spattered sky, we retired to bed.

And then it was dawn; the sky turned red and apricot and orange and smoke-grey beyond the river. Light came flooding back in to the world.

Penny surprised us all by being the first one up, followed by Sally who wandered down to the water’s edge, cup of tea in hand, to watch the sun rise. Once it had lifted itself above the horizon, she decided to make the most of the time we had left and set off on a walk around the perimeter fence of the camp, taking lots of photographs as she went. Near its outer edges she heard lion grunting in the distance.

Driving in, on the previous day, we had seen an eddy of vultures, black specks circling high in the sky over what was presumably a fresh kill, which gave us some idea of what they had been up to.

I was reluctant to leave Shimuwini but we had only booked in for one night and were due to exit the park that day. As if picking up on my mood a small family of Dwarf Mongoose came scampering on to the lawn in front of us, stopping every now and again to sit upright on their haunches as if to say farewell. A pair of Red-headed Weavers landed in a nearby mopani tree and immediately started chasing each other all over it.

Dwarf Mongoose, Shimuwini.

After breakfast we set off once more over the flat and now familiar country. Having driven what seemed like a fair distance we came around a corner and there was the Letaba again, flowing sedately east between low banks and a flutter of reeds.

Stopping in the middle of the low-level bridge we were rewarded with a scene as unexpected as it was arresting – a magnificent Martial Eagle, one of the largest of all the African eagles (there numbers now, sadly, dwindling) standing, on one leg, in the middle of the river. It seemed quite happy to pose for photos and it was still there, still standing on one leg, when we finally drove off.

Martial Eagle. Picture courtesy Sally Scott.

This was still perfect elephant country and we kept passing little groups of them especially where there was water. As we drove on, small maelstroms of dust and grass and dead leaves kept twirling up in to the hot sky around us. It was dust devil season.

Elephant and Kori Bustard. Picture courtesy Sally Scott.

Some faraway hills broke the flatness. We had been told there was an ancient smelting site at one of them so we decided to follow a short-cut 4X4 track that led directly towards it.

We had only travelled a short way down the rough road when another large elephant stepped out from behind some trees and started ambling down the road behind us, like it had been especially tasked to make sure we quit the park.

Getting escorted out of the park by an elephant.

We took the hint. After a quick stop off at the Masorini Archaeological Site, which dates back to the Iron Age, we headed out the gate, through the ugly sprawl of Phalaborwa, with its smoke stacks, enormous dumps and tacky tourist shops.

The air felt oppressively hot. It was hard to believe that in a few days time I would be back in the green, cold, mist and drizzle of Curry’s Post.

FOOTNOTE: Besides seeing lots of birds and animals the expedition suceeded in its other major objective which was to provide me with artistic inspiration. I have now completed four more baobab paintings with a couple more lined up.

Here, also, are just a few of the birds we saw on the trip:

  • Red-crested Korhaan
  • Kori Bustard.
  • Brown-headed Parrots
  • White-faced Duck.
  • African Openbill and Great Egret
  • Great Egret, Nile Crocodile.
  • Crested Guineafowl
  • Greater Blue-eared Starling
  • Yellow-billed Hornbill.
  • Go-away-bird.
  • Red-billed Hornbill.
  • African Mourning Dove
  • Crested Francolin.
  • Yellow-billed Hornbill.
  • Crested Barbet.
  • Red-headed Weaver

Between a Rock and a Badplaas

/ stidyatkusane / 5 Comments

A quest to find the birthplace of my paternal grandmother, Josephine (Josie) Nesbitt, found me rattling along the road between Badplaas and Barberton. I had been told there was a house, now included in the local Barberton Heritage Walk, that had belonged to someone who shared her maiden name.

Belhaven House, Barberton

As it turned out it could not have been her home because she had been born on the 8th of August, 1888 and left shortly afterwards in an ox wagon bound for Gazaland whereas the beautiful old building I found myself admiring had only been erected in 1902.

Belhaven was, nevertheless, a very fine house furnished, according to a brochure I picked up in its rooms, in the style of the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods and depicted “the lifestyle of a wealthy middle class family”. No longer inhabited it has been curated and turned into a museum; become a tourist attractive ‘objet’, a slice of authentic gold mining town Africana.

Built of corrugated iron with a wrap around verandah and elaborately ornamented rooms it hearkened back to an era when family life was much more rigidly formalised than it is today. There was a smoking room where only men were allowed to gather and another room reserved exclusively for the use of the womenfolk. Children, presumably, were not allowed to enter either.

In terms of social status and breeding it’s original occupants were clearly a cut above a lot of the riff raff who had come pouring into the Barberton area hoping to strike it rich it what was to become South Africa’s first major gold rush. Their legacy can still be seen today in the numerous old diggings, abandoned shafts, prospecting trenches and slime dumps that litter the surrounding countryside

Starting off as a forlorn grid of dirt streets, grubby tents and mouldering shacks, Barberton quickly evolved, in classic Wild West style, into a bustling frontier town full of hotels and bars frequented by thirsty miners and prostitutes, the most notorious of whom was undoubtedly “Cockney Liz”. At the height of its boom years it even boasted its own Stock Exchange.

Although long gone the departed fortune seekers still continue to haunt the landscape in one important way, mapping it with names, evoking both hope and despair, such as Revolver Creek, Joe’s Luck, Honeybird, Fever Creek and Eureka.

Still rummaging around in the detritus of other people’s lives I stumbled upon yet another family link. The first major gold strike had, in fact, been found on a farm in the De Kaap Valley that had been granted to another very distant ancestor of mine, George Pigot-Moodie, by the Boer Republic Government as a reward for his abortive efforts to promote the construction of a railway line between Pretoria and Lourenco Marques.

At the time he had made himself highly unpopular by first offering a reward and generous terms to anyone who discovered gold on his farm and then attempting to forcibly eject the hordes of prospectors who had gathered on his property when they did just that.

Any lingering ill feelings his somewhat high-handed actions may have generated do not appear to have permanently harmed his reputation. He continued to prosper and double-barreled his parents’ name when he became Member for the West in the Cape Town Legislative Council and purchased Westbrooke in Rondebosch – destined to be the future Cape Town residence of the Governor-Generals of the Union of South Africa.

The fact that the area filled in a few missing entries in my own family history is not, of course, its sole claim to fame. In geological terms it is, literally and figuratively, a veritable gold mine, so much so that it has now been declared a World Heritage Site.

The Barberton-Makhonjwa Geotrail. Barberton in background.

Not only does it contain some of the world’s oldest known rocks but because the world’s oldest fossils have also been found there, the area has become a Mecca for scientists interested in how the young earth worked 3 500 000 millennia ago, and in searching for clues to the origins of life. Just in case you thought this was not enough to justify its elevated status the area also contains the earliest evidence of meteorite impact on earth, as well as the world’s earliest known gold deposits.

Cashing in on this impressive CV the local tourist authority have created the Barberton-Makhonjwa Geotrail which runs up into the mountains behind the town and eventually ends in Pigg’s Peak in Swaziland.

I took a drive up this road skirting buttock-like clefts and exposed rock faces striped with alternating shades of colour like a layered birthday cake. There are eleven marked stopping points along the way where you can get out and survey the folded masses of rock in front of you, each one telling a different geological story.

In places abandoned mine workings pock the hillsides like rodents burrows; long tongues of grey debris descending from their small black mouths. There had obviously been rain for the whole mountainside was a study in greens while the sky itself became an even more brilliant blue the higher up we got.

The picnic site, Makhonjwa Geotrail.

We stopped for lunch at the picnic site on the crest of a ridge. The view was superb – a lush and verdant, rolling green landscape stretching away as far as the eye could see. Puffs of white, cotton wool- like cloud floated overhead, in places blocking out the sun, so that some valleys were all alight and some sunk in dark shadow.

Even the name Makhonjwa has a magical ring. As with many mountains in Africa, local belief has it that you must never point your finger at them.

It was here I found one last link to my past – an entire layer of geological strata named after the same relative on whose farm gold had first been found in payable quantities.

Info on the Moodies Group.

As I headed homewards, well pleased with all my discoveries, I wondered how many other people could say they had had a pile of very old rocks named after one of their kinsfolk?

FOOTNOTE: Possibly attracted by the discovery of gold on “Moodies Concession” my great-grandfather, John Warren “Jack” Nesbitt, moved up to the Barberton district in 1888. It was here his young wife , Sarah, who was distantly related to George Pigot-Moodie, gave birth to my grandmother, “Josie”.

After a bit more research I discovered that she had spent the first few years of her life on a farm called White Hills, just off the main Barberton to Badplaas road, at the foot of the Nelsberg Pass. The farm – now part of a much larger timber plantation – gets its name from the prominent quartz outcrop in the area (funnily enough, the farm we settled on in the then Rhodesia was called Witte Koppies for the same reason).

We took a drive out there to see what we could find. Although we had a good look around we could not find any trace of the old homestead or anything else to remind us of their brief soujourn there.

My sister, Penny, on the prominent quartz outcrop that gave a farm its name – White Hills.

Weathering the Seasons at Kusane – Part Two

/ stidyatkusane / 16 Comments

As regular readers of this Blog should now be well aware, I decided, several years ago, to act on my extended mid-to-late-life-crisis by turning my back on the city and moving out in to the country. In a life riddled with bad judgement calls it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

My new home was spacious, filled with light; outside the windows and from the balcony I had stunning views over the Karkloof valley and hills and its surrounds. Here is the odd thing though. For some perverse reason I kept believing that I didn’t really deserve to live in such a beautiful place.

The Barn – my home at Kusane. I live in the upstairs portion. Note Zimbabwean sculptures.

I felt – and still feel – incredibly lucky.

Maybe it was due to the fact that I have never had much money and therefore didn’t expect the sort of things some rich folk (and their offspring) take as their God-ordained due. Or maybe it was because I had spent the previous twenty-five years of my life living behind razor wire in a cottage a little bigger than a dog kennel – and about as well kept – in the middle of Maritzburg’s CBD, and had come to assume this was my lot forever.

With a bit of self-therapy (in a probably misplaced attempt to attain a state of higher consciousness I took up oil painting. To try and unlock those repressed memories I began this blog) and lots of long, bracing, walks, I have slowly started to overcome this irrational and, it would seem, deeply ingrained hang-up

The views have helped. What I love most about living up here is that I feel so close to the sky. It has given me some idea of what it must be like to be a soaring eagle or a migrating stork.

The other thing is the weather. With the possible exception of the Nyanga farm, where I grew up, I don’t think I have ever been made to feel quite so aware of it.

Every morning, I can’t wait to get out of bed to see what it is up to. It has become my raison d’etre (it must be my Scottish/Irish/English ancestry). In the Karkloof you get an awful lot of it too: no two days are ever the same. Twenty-four hours can spin itself in to a lifetime of weather, a kaleidoscope of scene changes.

It can start off sunny and end up in pouring rain. On some mornings there is no dew, but mist wreathes the clefts and ravines of the hills across the way. A cold front can arrive in the time it takes me to stroll down to the river and get back home.

Mist in the Karkloof hills.

I love it all. I become deeply involved in the drizzly solitudes, I am bedazzled by the constantly changing cloud formations, I never tire of the bonfire sunsets.

Indeed, if there is one thing I have learnt from this endless cycle of weather is that I am its creature and to submit to it – be it hot, cold, dry, wet, windy or misty.

Here, then, are a selection of pictures I have taken showing the changing seasons on and around Kusane Farm.

  • Storm over Karkloof
  • Winter scenes.
  • Hay-collecting time.
  • Cloud formations.
  • Spring flowers
  • Sunrise over the Karkloof.
  • Michael burning fire-breaks.
  • Mist in the Karkloof.
  • Misty mornings.
  • More cloud formations.
  • Whisky tries to avoid an approaching storm.
  • Rainbow over Karkloof valley.
  • Sunrise over the Karkloof.
  • Approaching cold front.
  • Sunset over Drakensberg
  • Developing storm

More Paintings of Baobabs

/ stidyatkusane / 14 Comments

In case you haven’t noticed I have a thing about baobabs.

Here are a few reasons why: I am awed by their size and the way they dominate the surrounding countryside and tower above all the other trees. I love the drama – all those tentacle-like branches spreading out laterally, as if they want to pluck passing birds from the sky.

I admire their tenacity, the fact that they thrive in the most harsh and arid of conditions. I am impressed by the huge age they can reach.

There is something very ancient and wise and holy about them. They seem to speak of the Old Way. They stir the spirit and the eye.

Baobabs are also very much part of my inheritance. Although some people might be surprised to hear this– the ones who associate Nyanga with mountains and bracing cool weather and therefore no baobabs – our old family farm, Nyangui, in Nyanga North, was littered with them.

Baobab with Nyangui mountain in backgound. Picture courtesy of Patrick Stidolph.

You passed by a whole grove when you drove through the farm gate. There were baobabs on the top of koppies and among the ancient ruins and there were baobabs growing in the middle of the old lands. My brother, Paul, sited his house next to one.

There was a baobab, across the river, which my brother, Pete, and I carved our initials in to when we were still schoolboys – hoping that, in centuries to come, some explorer would stumble upon them and wonder who we were? It was a wasted stab at immortality. When I went back to the old farm, many years later, the baobab had collapsed and died.

Since then, baobabs have continued to act as signposts in my life. One of my favourite stopping places in Zimbabwe is the lay-by you come to as you descend the Zambezi escarpment from Makuti to Chirundu (and Mana Pools). It has become a little ritual of mine – alas, not one I have done for years – to always pull over here and have a beer.

View over Zambezi Valley

From this perfect vantage point you have a magnificent view over the valley floor, stretching in to the blueness of distance with the hills of Zambia simmering in the heat haze on the horizon. In the mid-ground you can glimpse the glittering blue waters of the great river, snaking its way eastwards towards the Indian Ocean.

And no matter in which direction you gaze you will see baobabs poking up above the sunken contours of the far-reaching landscape.

As you continue driving down the escarpment, the heat comes up to meet you. You can smell it as well as feel it: a dry, punching, smell of dust and jessie bush and mopani leaves and elephant dung. And baobabs.

Makuti to Chirundu road with Zambezi escarpment in background.

Even now, thousands of kilometres away, sitting on top of my hill in the Karkloof, I still get misty-eyed when I recall that view.

Moving to South Africa I was able to renew my love affair with baobabs when I started going on my birding trips to the Limpopo valley.

North Kruger was where I first rekindled the romance. As you drive down from Punda Maria towards Pafuri, the terrain begins to break up in to a series of steep sided ridges which a have a tumbled, frenzied look, as if somebody had stirred them up in a giant pot and then left the contents to dry out under the baking sun. And dotted all over them are baobabs.

Undoubtedly, the most famous of these is the one that sits on top of Baobab Hill. This iconic tree served as a landmark on the early trade routes going through the area. Pioneer hunters used it as part of the famous “Ivory Trail” (some of them leaving their names carved on the tree). Between 1919 and 1927 it became the first overnight stopover for black workers recruited from Mozambique to work on the gold mines of the Witwatersrand.

Baobab Hill, Kruger National Park.

Mapungubwe, another preferred haunt of mine, has its fair share of baobabs too. Like old, petrified giants, they seems to anchor an immense sea of plain and bush and broken red koppies that falls away to the Limpopo river.

It is almost like a homecoming to be driving among them.

Mapungubwe.

My paintings, then, are my way of attempting to pay tribute to and glorify these most monumental of trees. I want them to be a celebration of the baobabs heroic scale.

Obviously I take certain artistic liberties. I often tweak them a bit, highlighting and simplifying features. Sometimes I move the baobabs position in the landscape, bringing them closer to, say, a hill I fancy to create a better sense of balance. I lob off odd branches so my canvas doesn’t look too cluttered or become mired in detail. I play around with light and colour in the hope of capturing a particular moment or mood.

I try and encapsulate the loneliness, the wildness and the spirit of the primeval world in which they have existed since time began, a world in which man is still very much the intruder.

In doing this, I know I can never pay full justice to these magnificent trees although I hope I do manage to convey something of my admiration and my awe.

Disdainful in their own majesty, serene in the mellow certainty that comes to the very old they are the very symbol and essence of a remote, half-mythical strangeness.

  • Mana Pools Road, Zimbabwe.
  • Baobabs, Mapungubwe.
  • Baobabs, Pafuri.
  • Baobab, Pafuri.
  • Baobabs, Pafuri.
  • Baobab, Pafuri.
  • Road to Crook’s Corner.
  • Baobab, Shimuwini.

Losing My Blues in the Blouberg

/ stidyatkusane / 10 Comments

Driving up to Zimbabwe, to visit my family, many years ago, I accidentally took a wrong turning at Pietersberg (now Polokwane) and found myself heading towards the Botswana border instead of my intended destination – Beit Bridge. Fortunately, it was a mistake I was able to easily rectify by turning right at the crossroads, at Vivo, and following the Soutspanberg to Louis Trichardt where I rejoined the NI Freeway.

While I was on this wrong road, though, I found my attention becoming distracted by the vista to my left where a big mountain had suddenly appeared in the far distance. There was something particularly dramatic about this compelling landmark, heaving itself up in a succession of steps out of the surrounding plain. As I watched it growing bigger and bigger, a determination to explore it began to take root. Then and there I decided I would come back one day.

It took me a long time to act on this impulse but act on it I eventually did. My good friend, Ken, had been planning a birding trip to the Limpopo and when he asked me if there was any particular spot I wanted included in our itinerary I suddenly remembered my mystery blue mountain. “Yes!” I said “The Blouberg!” (I had done my homework).

Getting out of Johannesburg was not as easy as I had hoped. First, Ken’s car broke down when we were barely out of his front gate and took two days to repair. Then, just as we had started to pack the vehicle, there was an almighty cloud-burst which appeared to be centred directly upon his house and which sent us scurrying back inside until it was all over.

With Ken our trips are seldom incident-free so I found myself wondering what he had done to provoke the furies this time.

Eventually the rain cleared up and, leaving the sprawling metropolis behind us, we headed up the Great North Road that leads through to Zimbabwe, Zambia and into the hot African interior. Because we had been a bit slow in getting away we decided to take the freeway rather than the more interesting alternate route.

It still felt great. Before us the road stretched out, flat and featureless, to the horizon. Made up mostly of thornveld savannah, this area marks the eastern most extension of the Kalahari and is a good place for finding your typical dry-land species.

We did not have time to stop and look for any of them. While we were driving, clouds had been arranging themselves in a disturbing array, flocculent and still at first, then fidgety with summer lightning. The electricity dancing about amongst these heaps of vapour turned them dark purple and mauve and deep grey. Thick splatters of rain kept spiralling down the windscreen although, amazingly, we managed to dodge the main storm.

On the Great North Road… rain ahead.

At Polokwane we branched off The Great North Road and headed up the R521 towards Alldays, leaving the rain-scoured landscape and the flocks of clouds that had been following us for most of the way in our wake. The traffic was noticeably lighter on this route although we still found ourselves being slowed down by the occasional long haul truck and overloaded bakkie.

The Blouberg lies due west of the Soutspanberg and although separate from it appears, for all intents and purposes, to be an extension of that range. It starts off as a smudge on the horizon and then slowly metamorphoses until it most closely resembles some ancient beast crouching in isolation in the middle of nowhere.

The closer you get to it, the more impressive it becomes.

Rising some 1200 metres above the surrounding veld, it has a certain weighty majesty, a leonine grandeur. The precipitously sheer wall of rock on its southern side is home to the world’s largest colony of Cape Vultures with more than 1000 breeding pairs. A lone Ruppell’s Vulture, a species otherwise little recorded in South Africa, has also bred here in the past.

At the entrance gate to the Blouberg Nature Reserve, the first bird we both saw was the White-browed Sparrow Weaver. Extrovert, sociable and noisy they are difficult to miss.

White-browed Sparrow Weaver.

The check-in formalities completed we headed for the nearby camp site. Situated under some shade trees it is fairly basic but has a tidy, cared-for look. It has no electricity but there are ablutions with toilets and two showers which get their hot water from a donkey boiler. There is also a washing up area around the front.

Although, for the sake of form, I bitch about it, I love the whole process of setting up camp. For me it is an integral part of the process of assimilating yourself back into the ways of the bush.

I have never really seen the point of travel where everything is organised for you and all you have to do is turn up. I need space, solitude and silence which is not something you are likely to get in some five star bush resort.

I want to go and look for my own birds and animals and not have them found for me, otherwise it is not travel, it is tourism; it is not exploration, it is sight-seeing.

With exploration very much in our minds, we set out early the next morning along the bumpy road that takes you along the northern flank of the mountain. As we jolted over the rough rocks we found ourselves objects of liveliest interest to a small family of giraffe. From their high vantage point they gazed down upon us, through long eye-lashes, with a mixture of idle curiosity and slight bemusement.

Giraffe.

At the bottom of a saddle the road splits left and right. We elected to turn left and follow the 4X4 track that takes you clear over the massif. If the road before had been bad, this one was infinitely worse and had us bouncing from rock to rock, dodging boulders and piles of scree as we went. As the track swerved over the edge of the ridge we had sensational views in both directions.

Safely emerging on the other side, we veered right along a dusty, red, road that ran along the fence line, towards the higher section of the mountain. We eventually stopped beneath some steep rocky cliffs and gullied slopes, stained with white droppings. It is here, on the dizzy-ling steep flanks of the mountain side that the vultures have made their home.

Blouberg – view from southern side.

Swirling around in the sky above the buttress we could make out what seemed like hundreds of these magnificent birds, their flight feathers fanning out and lifting at the tips. Watching them, floating in aloof companionship, brought a long moment of exaltation. Entranced, we sat on a fallen over log, admiring their languid circling.

Cape Vulture colony – Blouberg.

Back in camp that evening we plotted our next move. There were several options.

The reserve covers a wide variety of habitats and includes a small Sycamore forest – a remnant survivor, I assume, of some much larger aboriginal forest that may, at one time, have existed here – some patches of Tamboti woodland, baobabs and the Brak river floodplain. Veld types range from Kalahari sandveld in the north to sweet bushveld in the east and west.

Baobab and Thornveld, Blouberg Nature Reserve.

There is also a small wetland that has a resident flock of Crested Guineafowl. The latter came as a surprise to us as we would never normally have expected to encounter this forest-frequenting bird so far west and in such otherwise dry terrain.

Thanks to this varied topography the Blouberg has probably the largest selection of trees for any similar size reserve and with this selection of trees comes a prolific bird life with over 232 species recorded (we were convinced there must be more just waiting to be discovered).

Mixed woodland. Blouberg.

In the end we decided to head for the fig forest because getting to it would take us through an interesting mix of vegetation types ranging from broad-leafed woodland, to acacia savannah and dry scrub-land.

As we drove a pair of very purposeful Honey Badgers scuttled across the road and disappeared in to the bush on the other side. A bit further on we passed a family of warthog, the male in front, with his bushy side whiskers and ferocious looking tusks, followed by by the slightly smaller female and then by a string of piglets, their tails erect like they were hoping to pick up a wi-fi signal.

Various birds popped up and allowed themselves to be identified – Bearded Woodpecker, Southern White-crowned Shrike, Jacobin Cuckoo, Red-billed Helmet-Shrike, Marico Flycatcher, Martial Eagle.

Since it happened to be nearby, we did a quick detour to the vulture restaurant but the kitchen was closed and the birds had all gone home.

On the far side of the park, we came to a small open space, surrounded by a mass of twisted thorn trees, in which some derelict old buildings stood. Abandoned and neglected, they presumably dated back to the days when this was still farm-land rather than a nature reserve.

It proved to be a good spot to do some birding and we picked up several dry-country ‘specials,’ including Black-faced Waxbill and Scaly-feathered Finch.

The fig forest lay close to the base of the mountain and provided a completely different type of landscape to that we had been travelling through. A combination of fertile alluvial soil and the threads of water that come cascading down the slopes after rain had coaxed the trees higher and higher, creating a lush, green valley. Inside it, there was a soft, damp, swampy smell of wet grass and earth.

There is a certain captivating enchantment to penetrating a secret corner of the world and getting in to the Fig Forest, felt just like that. Its cool, shady interior made it feel like an oasis in the otherwise dry landscape. With their massive trunk and root systems buttressing the trunk above ground like a series of girders.

Sycamore figs, Blouberg.

A circular path runs through the forest. Although only a short walk, we managed to see quite a few forest species here, including Yellow-bellied Greenbul, White-throated Robin, Collared Sunbird, Lesser Honeyguide and Eastern-bearded Robin-Chat. Through a gap in the canopy we also had a wonderful sighting of an African Hawk-Eagle turning lazily above us against a deep blue sky.

We spent at least three hours in this leafy byre. Since we had bought the skottle with us we decided to use the shade provided by the forest as an excuse to cook breakfast.

During this time not another vehicle drove by. When we finally did encounter another visitor, as we were driving homewards later in the day, it seemed like an hallucination, a trick of the fading light. Indeed, this is one of the reasons I came to like Blouberg so much – because of how empty and uncrowded it is.

The problem here, of course, is that by telling people where wild places, such as this, are you risk encouraging visitation which, in turn, undermines what makes them attractive destinations in the first place. You are making them less wild.

On the other hand, I am sure the park would benefit from the cash these extra visitors bring.

It is a dilemma.

Despite – or perhaps because of – the scarcity of Homo sapiens the bush was alive with wild life and bird song. We stopped to admire the brilliant blue, black and chestnut of a Grey-headed Kingfisher, an elusive little individual who had led me on a merry dance over the years but who I had finally tracked down at Marakele Nature Reserve..

A bit further on, silhouetted against the sky, an immature Bateleur sat scanning the country side from his perch on top of a protruding dead branch. Closer to camp we got the bright feathered Crimson-breasted Bush-Shrike, to my mind one of the most striking and beautiful birds of this part of the world. It was a good way to end the days birding.

Immature Bataleur.

Since this visit I have returned to Blouberg several times and on each occasion I seem to fall deeper under its spell. Like some big and bold sort of castle, its walls gleaming, ghost-like in the sun, it has a slightly magical enchantment about it. It is a mountain to be looked at, contemplated and revered.

Blouberg. View from northern side of mountain.

Romancing the Stones – at Adam’s Calendar.

/ stidyatkusane / 10 Comments

An old wildebeest was standing next to the entrance gate when my sister, Penny, and I drove out of her property that day. It looked like it had something on its mind.

I hoped it was a good news but – as I have learnt from hard experience on my various bush trips with my birding partner, Ken – you can never tell with this portent business…

We were headed for Kaapsehoop, an old mining town, about an hour’s drive from Mbombela. On my previous visit the hills had been covered in a layer of thick mist so you couldn’t see anything but this time the sun was warm and welcoming as we made our way up the winding road that leads to the top of the Mpumalanga escarpment.

I am not from these parts. I’d come a long way because of a book called Adam’s Calendar. It was written by two amateur archaeologists, Johan Heine and Michael Tellinger, and in it they put forward the rather bold claim that there are a group of standing stones, on the top of the escarpment, that are the oldest man-made structure on earth. They claim they date back over 75 000 years.

They also believe the stones were deliberately put into position, with precise astronomical alignments, suggesting a knowledge and study of the stars.

It’s a theory which hasn’t gained much traction amongst the acdemic establishment who mostly dismiss it as conjecture and speculation, unproven by the facts.

For my part, I was determined to keep an open mind. Who is to say that professional archaeologists, with their overweening confidence in scientific methods, might not just occasionally be wrong? Also, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Kaapsehoop is a small place. It is one of those little dorps for which the word “quaint” could have been invented. A strange, wonky, jumble of shops, quirky houses and old corrugated-iron buildings, it is somewhere you might want to get to if you felt a need to contemplate the great truths and the eternal mysteries.

Kaapsehoop

It has that sort of setting. And gives off that sort of vibe. Back in old days, when it was a bit of a boom town, folk had, of course, been lured here by something far more venal – gold fever.

Which explained the old tin shacks.

The town’s inhabitants have obviously changed a lot since those rough-living, rumbustious, days. A lot of its present citizens are, I imagine, metropolitan types who dropped out of the rat race because they wanted to live rather than merely exist. As I wandered around, admiring their handsome homes and glancing in to their neat little gardens, I decided they could have chosen worse places in which to try and find the answer to Life.

Parking our car on the side of the road, just outside the village, we set off to find Adam’s Calendar, crunching along a dirt track that took us to the very edge of the cliffs. From here the path branched right across a gently undulating, tawny plain, mostly grass covered but with odd groupings of strangely weathered stones.

A gently undulating, tawny plain.

Despite the beautiful day there was no one around but us.

As we ambled along with Zeus, the dog, bounding excitedly out in front, we found ourselves caught between two contrasting worlds. On the one side was typical high country, mistbelt grassland. Beyond that lay a dense forest of fir trees which came right up to the edge of the tar road. On our other side, several hundred feet below, was steamy, hothouse bushveld country.

I knew this because we had just driven up from there.

As always, I was on the look-out for birds. I saw various drab, khaki-coloured pipits but didn’t manage to identify any of them. A Jackal Buzzard circled lazily above. Some crows sat around in one tree, now and then exploding in to mocking guffaws, liked badly behaved parliamentarians. Of which we have quite a few in South Africa.

This is Blue Swallow country, too, or so a sign informed us, but I didn’t see any of them (I had to wait until I got to Creighton in KwaZulu-Natal for that).

The day got hotter. A wind sprung up. Penny being Penny had had the good sense to have packed a thermos of tea and lots of tasty sandwiches so after we had walked a fair distance and worked up a healthy sweat we stopped for a break. From the edge of the escarpment, on which we perched, we could see clear over the spectacular Kaap valley to the Makhonjwa mountains and the town of Barberton with Swaziland beyond.

At the other end of the fertile plain lay the granite kopjes and mountains that surround Mbombela. In the far distance, we could just make out the great, protruding, castle-like knob of Legogote (or the “Sentinel of he Lowveld” as they call it in the tourist brochures) thrusting up in to the sky.

View towards Mbombela

Directly below us several rivers tumbled out and then wound their way across the valley floor, past bone-coloured rock outcrops. The knees of the mountains and valley sides were well wooded with both indigenous and exotic forest. In between that, was more grassy plain.

The serenity of it all was quite magical.

Several kilometres on, we came across two sites that fitted the descriptions in Heine and Tellinger’s book. The first was smaller and contained fewer stones. The second one, which was actually quite impressive, was undoubtedly their Adam’s Calendar.

While Zeus the dog, who seemed to be really getting in to the spirit of the outing, posed on a strategically-angled rock, I circled around the site taking pictures (many of which you will see here). Then I climbed up on to one of the monoliths myself and also tried to get a feel for the place.

Zeus – feeling the vibes.

With the curious rocks in the foreground, a sheer-faced precipice below and a horizon which seemed to stretch off forever there was certainly something quite odd about it all. Even if the idea of a 75 000-year-old megalithic astronomical observatory does seem a little fantastical it looked like someone had done something with all those old stones although maybe a geologist could come up with a perfectly logical explanation as to why they were positioned like they are.

The so-called Adam’s Calendar

According to Heine and Tellinger there are other factors which suggest a human origin. The main standing stones/ monoliths, for example, are dolerite whereas the bedrock in which they are embedded is made up of black reef quartzite. They further claim that some of the stones show signs of possible carving although we did not find any sign of these.

Of course, you only have to think of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain to realise that there is something about strange circles of stones, in the middle of nowhere, that induces people to take leave of their senses. Theories and explanations about that admittedly much more famous, monument proliferate. It was made by giants in Ireland and then transported by the wizard Merlin. Or it had something to do with King Arthur. Or with Joseph of Arimathea, in whose tomb Christ was buried, and who came to Britain after the resurrection of the disciples (stopping off at Glastonbury along the way). Or it was built by Hebrew-speaking Phoenicians, worshippers of Hercules. Or it was the tomb of Queen Boadicea. Or a Roman temple. And so on.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel they were on to something. There was a powerful, dreaming, mystical quality around those stones. It drifted with the wind blowing through the grass, into those ancient indigenous forests and up those steep-sided, lichen-stained, cliffs. You could hear it in the fluting calls and flapping wings of the longclaws. You could sense it the wild horses – another legacy of the early gold-mining days – we saw grazing unconcernedly on the high moorland as we headed back to the car.

Standing stones, Adam’s Calendar.

I wanted it all to mean something. And why not? With these things imagination is sometimes just as important as scientific certainty.

Maybe that was the message the old wildebeest had been trying to impart…

Some more pics of first site:

More pics of Adam’s Calendar Site:

The Chicken Whisperer

/ stidyatkusane / 9 Comments

I grew up in an era in which children were still expected to make themselves useful. This was certainly the case on our farm where, because of the financial slough we had fallen it to, my father had been forced to go back to being a commercial pilot, based in the Sudan, leaving my mother behind to cope as best she could.

During the school holidays my brothers, Paul and Peter (the eldest, Patrick had already left for university), helped out, dipping and dosing the cattle, putting up fences and preparing the lands for the next seasons crops. Cut off from the world and heavily involved with the farm, we never got to do the things most teenagers take for granted – date girls, go to parties, hang out with the other kids.

Making ourselves useful – loading hay.

Because I was next to him in age I started tagging along with Pete, helping him out as best I could with his many duties (I drew the line at dissecting and examining the entrails of dead cows, many of which were maggoty and rotten, to see what they had expired of).

Even back then it was obvious to me that Pete was going to grow up in to one of those tough, shrewd, practical farmers who know how to make money.

Meticulous in his planning, he was nothing if not thorough. He also had a real feel for and a connection with the land – he loved it and respected it but, at the same time, he knew how to shape it and knead it and alter it to his own understanding.

I think my parents were a little worried that I might feel left out in all of this but, because I was the youngest and least practical of the brothers, they were stuck on what to do with me. In the end they found a solution. They put me in charge of the chickens.

Off to feed the chickens with Bonzo the dog.

As anyone who knows me well will tell you – I am nothing if not obsessive! I threw myself with gusto in to the job. I insisted the chickens be fed proper layers mash, not just mealies, so they would lay better. I expanded the flock. I even managed to make a bit of pocket money selling eggs to one of the teachers at the next door mission station.

I used the cash to buy myself some colourful shirts which meant I could finally dispense with the boring old school-issue khaki ones I had always worn because my ever-frugal mother did not want to waste money on unnecessary frivolities. I was on my way to becoming trendy.

Being in charge of the chickens was a lot of work and not without its problems. One morning, when I went up to feed them, I discovered a python had slithered in during the night, and gobbled up most of the chicks I had put, for their protection, in to a special run. The resident mongoose also had my flock firmly in its sights.

Once past my teenager years I gave up on my chickens. I went to university, I got a job, I ended up drawing cartoons for a living. I wasn’t really in a location that permitted having chickens either.

Fast forward a good many years. I found myself on a farm again.

Even then, living in the hills, it wasn’t really in my long-term plans to return to my youthful vocation. Fate decreed otherwise. One day, a lecturer friend of ours turned up unexpectedly with a box containing six female pullets which he had appropriated from the Agriculture faculty at the local University. Insisting I had the requisite set of skills, I immediately volunteered to look after them,

And so it was that my life came full circle. I was back where it all began. I was in my old habitat.

The chooks checking out their new home. Michael in background.

I was very pleased with my six little hens especially as they were Rhode Island Reds, just like the ones I had on the farm. What I did not realise, though, was that there was an impostor amongst them!

Little clues and tell-tale signs began to emerge. It was bigger and bulkier and more aggressive than the other hens. It had a larger, very red, comb. Its tail kept growing and growing, until it resembled a cascading waterfall.

All doubt was finally removed when I was woken up early one morning by what sounded like a badly-played trumpet striking up in the Hen House. I realised immediately that the strangulated gurglings I was hearing was meant to be a cock-a-doodle-doo.

There was no longer any doubt – She was a He!

Once he had mastered his crow, there was no stopping this rooster. From way before sun-up to sunrise there was a non-stop, raucous cacophony, like a machine-gun going off – only the war he was involved in did not seem to have an end.

This I did not remember from my early days as a chicken whisperer…

He was a magnificent specimen, however: big and bumptious and swanky and incredibly self-assured. We could not find it within ourselves to do the obvious thing – turn him in to coq au vin. Rowdy – as we named him – was here to stay.

Rowdy, in all his puffed-up, self-importance.

Rowdy, for all his puffed-up, self importance, was extremely protective of his little harem. I often found myself having to ward him off with a big stick when I went up to let them out in the morning. I think he mistook my intentions towards his wives.

Rowdy had a nice dramatic sense, too, strutting out ahead of his hens when I let them out in to the garden, the very essence of a Modern Major-General.

Rowdy, leading his flock.

Since we appeared to be stuck with Rowdy – and his incessant racket – we decided we might as well go the whole hog and make use of his services. Karen, on whose farm, Kusane, I live, bought a cheap Chinese incubator so we could start hatching our eggs. It did not work very well so we up-scaled and got an American-made model instead.

It was at this point, my life took another peculiar little twist.

When our neighbour, who was raising Dutch Quacker Ducks, heard we had an incubator he asked if we would mind trying to hatch an egg which one of his mother ducks had abandoned. So we put it in with all the chicken eggs and lo – it hatched!

From the outset the duckling, whom Karen named Plucky (because that is what he is) faced something of an identity crisis. Because he had been born amongst a whole batch of them he was firmly convinced he was a CHICKEN!

Plucky with his mates.

When our neighbour offered us his two adult ducks and their three ducklings because we had a big pond in which they could swim we saw our chance to convince Plucky he wasn’t, in fact, a CHICKEN! We would put him in the pond too.

This is where our plan to re-intergrate him with his own kind began to unravel…

On being let out of their box, the two parent ducks panicked and charged off up the hill immediately above the pond leaving their bewildered offspring behind them. A great hue and cry followed.

The abandoned ducklings, in turn, saw Plucky floating on the water, on the other side of the pond, and decided he would make a good substitute parent, so went splashing after him. Plucky was having none of this and with a violent clattering of the wings, took off in the opposite direction, plainly terrified out of his, admittedly small, mind at the sight of this flotilla advancing, full-steam, towards him.

Plucky during his brief soujourn on the Big Pond.

Hoping the ducks would soon resolve their differences, arrive at an amicable understanding and settle down to live happily ever after in their spacious new home I decided to leave them to their own devices. It didn’t pan out that way. I hadn’t taken into account Plucky’s resolve or his loyalty to the only real family he had ever known.

When I went back, later, to check up on how they were all doing I discovered that Plucky was gone. Michael, our farm manager, and I spent the rest of the day scouring the countryside looking for him but to no avail. Plucky had simply vanished in to the ether.

Next morning, I was yet again woken in the early hours by a huge commotion in the hen house. When I went out in the freezing cold with my torch to investigate, I discovered one of the hens had accidentally laid an egg in her sleep and then worked herself up into a state about it.

I also found a very cold and forlorn Plucky huddled up against the gate. He had somehow got through the duck-pond fence and found his way home in the dark.

We made one more attempt to convince him he was a duck with the same end result. That settled it for us. Plucky could stay with the hens and Rowdy whom he hero-worshipped.

Plucky with his hero – Rowdy the Rooster.

In the mean time, the flock had expanded to almost fifty chickens. We had begun to experience a few logistical problems. There were a couple of unexplained deaths. The hatching rates in the incubator were still abysmally low. What were we going to do with all the eggs the hens were laying? Was it all worth the effort?

And so we did what the Government does whenever it hits an obstacle it is not sure how to overcome – we appointed a Commission of Enquiry in to the State of Kusane’s Chickens with additional reference to the Curious Case of Plucky-the-Duck-who-thinks-he-is-a-Chicken. We even brought in a vet who is an expert on poultry as a consultatant.

Provided the results don’t get fudged, ANC-style, I hope to report on the outcome in due course…

Rowdy – keeping a beady eye out for anyone who might be interested in his hens…

Rowdy facing temptation
Plucky demontrating his skills as an aviator.