Always remember what Jim Croce said:
.
You don’t piss into the wind
You don’t step on Superman’s cape
You don’t pull the tent off the ole Ford Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Slim
..
Author Archives: bewilderbeast
It's about life, marriage, friends, raising kids, paddling rivers, travel in Africa . . . thoughts written over decades - at random, I'm afraid. NOTE: NO PERMISSION TO SCRAPE MY CONTENT FOR LLM OR AI, you bastards! Dincha mothers teach you not to steal!?
Undercover Operation
The lost puppy escaped an orchidectomy, anyway not having any external ‘orchids’ to harvest. Tiggers, the rescued kitty cat is unlikely to escape the ordeal. He’s heading off to MAWS and I don’t think he’s read the details of the invitation, poor fella.
The two heartless ladies are taking him. I was invited, but no ways I’m risking the vets getting confused as to which male needs doctoring.
~~oo0oo~~
Tigger is back. The deed was done by the voluntary vet at MAWS, and he survived the ordeal. He’s not happy, he’s resting and recovering, subdued.
One day later, and he’s almost back to his old self, full of energy and mischief, pouncing on anything that moves, including Jess, who he has forgiven, gullible cat.
Foreign Knowledge
Locals know there’s no easy way to the main road from the river outside Janet’s place. Okes from Durban know better, so they venture off looking for a shortcut. Which ends up needing rescue, a towrope, mocking laughter, eye-rolling and getting to the tyre place an hour later than planned. Luckily, Janet’s old Mazda BT – a stablemate of my Ford Ranger and about the same vintage – is 4X4. All it needs is GPS, but despite the well-known Humphrey navigational challenges (Trish could get lost too), Janet did eventually find and rescue me. Easily. Damn. Ignominy.
At SupaQuik, Reggie and his men say they can fix me up with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their back. All we have to do is bugger off to the Dusty Donkey for coffee and cake, and come back with a credit card.
As we’re leaving the Donkey a roadside trader waves and makes a rolling motion while pointing at Janet’s left front wheel. Puncture. We hop out and deploy the jack and spanner and wooden base for the sand and start expertly changing the tyre like a Ferrari pitcrew. Good fortune makes my cap fall off as I bend down. The trader and his mate take one look at the whispy white hair surrounding the large pink bald spot and they gently nudge me aside and change the wheel for us. Ke a leboga borra!
Weg is ons back to Reggie where I exchange 3700 pula for two new tyres and we’re free to go, driving off feeling like I’m wearing brand new shoes.
~~oo0oo~~
Ke a leboga borra! – thank you gentlemen!
Weg is ons – beetle off
Feature pic – re-enactment of the humiliation. Jess forgot to take pics; she’s not cruel like her Ma
Gift’s Puppy
Janet has a lot of energy. A lot. Also, she knows her patch. So when she said in the pitch dark of way-too-early morning, ‘Please come and help me,’ you don’t argue. Shoes on, grab your torch and out into the chilly fullmoon morning. What us loafers would more accurately call the chilly fullmoon night.
‘There’s a puppy with its head stuck in the fence. Go there, I’m going round outside to behind it.’ You do as you’re told.
And so there was: A cute little blonde pup with its head poked through the bonnox wire; its head smaller than the hole, so it could easily have pulled back but was pushing forward, determined to get into the yard. Word must have got out that the lady at number 1414 is a softie who feeds and waters five cats, a mutt, ten thousand birds and sundry cattle, goats and donkeys.
Well, the pup was right. Once it got into the yard there was food and milk and four outraged and indignant cats. Mom! You’re not letting This Thing into paradise, are you? they sniffed at Janet.
Still way too early, we left on Janet’s power walk up and down the dry Thamalakane river with Muppet, the large hound with the small brain, most of the grey matter dedicated to enthusiasm, little to forethought. Raising dust as we strode towards, then away from, then back towards the sun, which had sensibly not risen yet. The full moon was still trying to set.
And at her heels was the new arrival, trotting along as if trained and long used to this. The walk was a good long one, up to Wilmot Island and down to Kagiso and back, but lil Puppy was relaxed and happy.
As we got back to Jan’s gate a young chap who told us his name was Gift met us and asked, ‘Have you seen a puppy? A female puppy?’ at which Puppy ran to him and rubbed against his ankles. Happy reunion and happy cats who muttered, ‘Damn Right, Be Off With You!’
Lucky for Puppy too, as while we thought she was a he, we had already planned his de-nackering.
Peace descended on the valley.
~~oo0oo~~
Raintree Camp
Raintree Camp is just short of Shorobe, north of Maun. Janet and I, gaily chatting our heads off, woke up when we got to the fork-off to Kazakiini Camp, a good 26km past the turnoff. We pretended we knew all along and were just reconoittring the area. Jess was unimpressed at our u-turn. We had actually both noticed the Shorobe Basket Weavers sign, but hadn’t figured out that meant we were passing through that village!
While backtracking, we went straight back to yakking and solving the world’s problems, including the fact that the bakkie was pulling to the left as a result of the road camber and the thick sand on the left compared to the harder calcrete in the middle.
Which was actually neither of those things. It was because of a left front puncture. Our prolonged diagnosis meant the tyre was shredded by the time we stopped.
Jess then took a near-plumber’s crack picture, which resulted in her forfeiting supper last night.
Some young guys stopped to help, only to be told we had everything under control. Noticing some slight huffing n puffing, they ignored me and kindly loosened the wheelnuts with ease. Other than that, of course, everything was under control.
~~oo0oo~~
A short drive north of Raintree there’s a lagoon in the Thamalakane with water from the last rains. Yellow-billed Storks, Spoonbills, Hamerkops, a lone Pelican, a Saddle-bill Stork, flocks of Sandgrouse, Blacksmith Lapwings, and a large pod of Hippo. A mokoro poler with two passengers gave the hippos a wide berth, hugging the reedbed on the western shore.
Along the dry shore, Magpie Shrikes, White-crowned Shrikes, Meves Starling.
We had a lovely campsite under a raintree – lots of those here! – near to Janet’s safari tent. The third night I moved the bakkie next to her tent as I had brilliantly left a light shining all night, so needed to charge the aux batteries by plugging in to Botswana Power Corporation.
To complete my puncture and battery faux pas trifecta, I then moved the car, snapping the charging cable. f&#-it! Luckily, we were fully charged already, and the fridge’s two compartments were back down to 5⁰ and 0⁰C.
Raintree Camp is a lovely place with lovely people, big trees, great ablution facilities, a bar and a pool. We enjoyed our three day stay. Some of the tents are close to the road, so noise can be an occasional factor. New chalets are planned on the water side of the property, away from the road, owner Neil Kendrick told us. So do check it out if you’re headed that way. As a transit camp on the way to or from Moremi, it’s ideally located.
~~oo0oo~~
Botswana Again!
Yay! Camping in Khama Rhino, good to be back in Botswana. Jessie’s first visit. She lost her passport and has only just got round to getting a new one.
Pumping up the tyres after reducing pressure for the sandy and twisty roads in the camp:
Palapye Red VW DubDub Club?
Back at Janet’s place at last! The Tamalakhane River on her doorstep dry and dusty:
Scottburgh Nature Reserve
T.C. Robertson Nature Reserve is situated on the right bank of the Mpambanyoni River close to its mouth into the sparkling Indian Ocean. Part of Scottburgh townlands, it is about 60ha in extent. Established in 1989 and named after should-be-more-famous South African author, ecologist and soil and grassland conservationist Dr. Thomas Chalmers Robertson.
TC Robertson (15 September 1907 – 11 January 1989) was an extraordinarily gifted man – accomplished journalist, gifted raconteur, ardent naturalist from boyhood, war correspondent, and Jan Smuts’s anti-Nazi propagandist during World War II. His most significant work lay in his lifelong mission to save southern Africa’s soil and grasses, and for this he sacrificed any ideas of personal ambition.
TC was widely known during his lifetime as South Africa’s doyen of soil conservation and was regarded by many, including some of the best brains in the world, as a genius. Yet many South Africans today know little or nothing about him. This is partly because he was little concerned with self-promotion and put off writing his autobiography despite many requests to do so. He wrote insatiably, but not about himself. His passion was the land. He was driven by three things: his mission to save the soil, his insatiable quest for knowledge, and his equally insatiable hedonism.
He was of the intrepid, cavaliering stuff of which romantic heroes are made, a born musketeer, and a man with an enormous capacity for friendship. Outspoken, witty and able to hold an audience in the palm of his hand, he was immensely private when it came to his deepest feelings, sorrows, fears and any inadequacies he might have felt; his passion, his total commitment, was for his mission: saving the soil, conserving the land.
No public monument of bronze or stone commemorates his achievements. His epitaph is written in the soil of southern Africa, whispered by the grasses and leaves, murmured by the streams, and engraved indelibly on the hearts of all who knew him; plus in a small evergreen sanctuary on the banks of a subtropical river estuary on the south coast of KwaZulu Natal. Among the great men our country has produced, he was truly one of the greatest.
- Paraphrased from author Shirley Bell – who wrote his biography, The Happy Warrior: The Story of TC Robertson 2005 ISBN 978-0-620-33255-2
Birds seen on a short visit today 08:30 to 10:30 – Sunbirds, Amethyst, Collared, Olive; Weavers, Eastern Golden, Spectacled, Dark-backed; Mannikins, Bronze, Red-backed; Square-tailed Drongo; Flycatchers, Black, Dusky; Grey Waxbill; Lesser Honeyguide; Barbets, White-eared, Black-collared; Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird; Yellow-bellied Greenbul; Dark-capped Bulbul; Yellow-eyed Canary; Cape White-Eye; Hadeda; Geese, Egyptian, Spur-wing; Blacksmith Lapwing; Hamerkop; Little Egret; Black Sawwing; Black-bellied Starling; Red-capped Robin-Chat; Purple-crested Turaco; Grey-headed Sparrow; Doves, Red-eyed, Tambourine; Speckled Mousebird; Darter; Cape Wagtail; Heard: African Firefinch; Fish Eagle; Natal Spurfowl.
Hadn’t seen a Barringtonia racemosa in a while. They were blooming beautifully.
We ‘all want to preserve nature,’ right? I was the only person there those two hours on a perfect Sunday morning! Even Jess declined, ‘There’s TV to watch, Dad!’ Damn!
One bakkie did drive in and out. The manager, who stopped for a chat. He seems enthusiastic about changes he has brought in the five months he has run the show. Low attendance is a challenge. Next Sunday there’s a flea market, 37 stalls booked.
~~oo0oo~~
Election Prediction 2024
Look for a slight decline in the EFF’s results in the polls.
Driving south on the N2 a coupla days ago, I had a red bakkie right on my tail. Its nostrils were probly touching my exhaust pipe. Soon as I could, I moved over and it roared past, big hurry.
It was an EFF election bakkie, only two weeks left, lots to do.
A couple of k’s later, hundreds of posters lined the roadside. About a mile of red n yellow EFF election posters won’t be adorning poles on the KZN South Coast this week. They’re Scatterlings of Africa.
I think youthful exuberance got the best of the two young guys in the bakkie. Let’s See How Fast This Thing Can Go! Move Over You Old Goat! WHEEE!!
I’m imagining them getting to Izingolweni and the main Mama of the EFF branch yelling, ‘Wadda you mean you don’t know where our posters are!?’
~~oo0oo~~
And today I’m in the queue to vote . .
Jess the Sparky
Tony the electrician (ancient: must be my age if he’s a day) arrives to check the cottage electricity for the wicked landlord. A ‘certificate of compliance’ is needed.
I introduce him to Jess. After a while he needs help checking all the plug outlets while he stands at the DB board and runs the show. He needs a reliable hand. He looks at me then says, ‘Jess can you operate my checking instruments for me please?’
She loved doing it!
Later she became a plumber! Walking back from closing our high security (not) gate, Jess said, ‘Dad, there’s the sound of water running underground!’
I switched off the supply on the pavement and called Dominique, lady plumber with a pink plumber bakkie.
The wicked landlord implied, ‘Heavy truck drove over supply,’ to which I quite correctly replied indignantly, ‘Mine tiptoes like a butterfly with sore feet.’ To prove my bakkie’s innocence, I sent proof:
~~oo0oo~~
Stringbean
Mother Mary got onto the topic of obesity a while ago. She’s probly about 40kg soaking wet, and one of those is the steel in her thighbone.
After discussing various people at the home’s ‘weight problems,’ she blurts out, ‘Koos, you’re not fat, are you?’ She’s using her earnest Woe is Me Mary voice.
Mom! I’m positively sylph-like! People call me slender; a bean pole. She laughs but with suspicion. I’m just right, Mom, I reassure her.
Dunno why she has this thing about weight! I mean, I’m a 69yr-old Dutchman it’s not like I’d get a boep or anything.
~~oo0oo~~
boep – status symbol; paunch
War and Warsaw
Tonight Mom told me she’d watched a movie. Her central vision is shot so she can’t see detail, but she says it was something about history from Henry VIII to when Churchill took over from Chamberlain when Germany invaded Poland. She was eleven back then.
Warsaw, she says. ‘I used to play the Warsaw Concerto, I loved it, it was very clever. The music had the sirens sounding for the bombing, and sounding the all clear after it was over. All just on the piano,’ says Ma. ‘You know the King and Queen stayed in Buckingham Palace during the bombing (we’re in England now) and they say that’s what helped England win the war. They could have gone to the country, but they stayed.’ My Mom Mary Monarchist, who hatched a very anti-monarchy son.
She saw the King n Queen once. When she was nineteen. Where did she first see the King n Queen? Why, in Benoni.
Read that and you’ll see why I’m anti the ponces.
~~oo0oo~~
Panic in ve dorpie
04/29 – Sarie: Please can everyone who is on Vodacom report the bad signal. (I spose the theory is like prayer? If you can get lots of people to pray, there’s a better chance things will happen?)
Marie: Where can we report? I am on Cell C and we work on the same tower. Don’t know where to report
Fanie: No signal at all. Been going on since Friday
Jannie: Peet told me on Saturday they had stolen the batteries at the tower and using the generator now. Maybe the diesel has run out.
..
I arse you, Vodacom! How ve hel are the mense going to be able to swipe up to tjek the poppies pole vaulting and hoogspringing in vey leotards if you don’t give us signal!?
…
update
05/17 – Three weeks later, the dorp whatsapp is buzzing again:
This time it’s no MTN signal . .
Caribbean Visitor
I’m murdering these as I find them, but they’re interesting while they’re still alive. Take a look.
Mimosa pudica
Native to the Caribbean and South and Central America, but now a pantropical weed. Found in the Southern United States, South and East Asia, Micronesia, Australia, South and West Africa. Not shade-tolerant, it is primarily found on soils with low nutrient concentrations. Like in the lawn of this Mtwalume beach cottage.
One of few plants that can ‘move fast.’ Not as fast as insect-eating plants like the Venus Flytrap, but pretty quick. For a plant.
~~oo0oo~~
And – hopefully – some local blossompies:
Phaulopsis imbricata is a shrub native to Southern Africa. A good fodder, the young leaves are eaten as a vegetable and the plant-ash in oil is used for rheumatism in Tanganyika. The flowers have an unpleasant smell. It is filed as near-threatened by the IUCN. It is one of the larval host plants of the butterflies great eggfly, tiny grass blue, brown pansy, soldier pansy and marbled elf.
~~oo0oo~~
Another Visitor
A Red-lipped Herald snake visited this morning. It was enjoying the wet weather I suppose – we had a real downpour last night and this morning. So it was probly out hunting frogs. This was a little one, about 300mm long, I guess.
A couple days later an even smaller one made its way under the door. Played dead when he saw me. He also got shipped out to the garden.
Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia The story goes that its presence was first mentioned in the Eastern Cape Herald Newspaper, hence the name.
This poor fella fluttered in and died. A Forest Brown, maybe?
And an offshore visitor: A juvenile Brown Booby flying and floating just behind the backline. Seen from the deck off my upstairs bedroom three days in a row. A ‘lifer’ for me!
~~oo0oo~~
Visitors
What’s that bird!? I often wonder before realizing, Ah, It’s The Mongeese. And their mongoslings. The Banded Mongoose band, about 25 strong, that have this coastal cottage garden on their daily route.
A busy bunch of all ages, they twitter and squeak to keep in touch as they rustle and skoffel through the thick undergrowth. Big excitement when they find a snail. They carry it to a wall then hurl it backwards between their back legs to crack the shell against the wall. Usually it takes a few tries before they get a good throw. Sometimes the first sign of their presence is the skoffel, crack! of them hurling a snail against the wall near the door.
If I’m outside and I move, or a biggish bird flies overhead, the big ‘uns will give an alarm call and they’ll all scurry for cover at speed.
~~oo0oo~~
skoffel – like rustle; both are also first names for blokes, dunno why
Visitors? I’m the visitor. They’re residents! With the really cool scientific moniker Mungos mungo. So we’ll have to call one of them Jerry. They’re peaceful in their own colony, but fight fiercely with other gangs. Gang warfare! And how’s this? In the midst of a battle, females may have a quickie with rival males! Whoa! Females: Always multitasking. Fighting, yet still time to think of their genetic diversity! – wikipedia.org
Mapungubwe & Kaoxa
Planning ahead as always (not), we drove into Kaoxa Bush Camp hoping to find Virginia there to welcome us. She was nowhere to be found and her phone was on voicemail. So we booked into the SA Parks camp inside Mapungubwe, the first time I have stayed inside the park. Jess was pleased – the chalet had aircon! And it was hot. Even the eles sought shade:
I drove around Mapungubwe east, the more famous half of the park, and walked the boardwalk to overlook the Limpopo and into Botswana and Zimbabwe. Jess mainly stayed in the chalet. The day we left I drove the long way round to the gate, so she did see some of this interesting Eastern section of the park.
Then we moved on to Kaoxa. We drove down to Virginia’s home and found her. She asked us to bring cash, so we drove the 70km to Musina and drew cash as we needed to do some food shopping anyway. The tar road is in very good nick except for two patches near Mapungubwe with bad potholes. So 110km/h is easy, but when you see potholes, slow down drastically! Each patch is just a couple hundred metres, but bad.
Good ceiling fans and great showers, a cool shady pool and lots of shade under thatch. As we arrived there was a squirrel in the chalet. It jumped onto Jess and scratched her arm, then fled. We ate and swam and birded and stared at the view. For wifi we drove to Duncan’s homestead and sat on the back veranda. Good birding there, too. A very special place is Kaoxa Bush Camp. Do support it so it can stay wild forever! Best to book online.
~~oo0oo~~
Birds seen in the area:
Cinnamon-breasted Bunting
Black Eagle (Verreaux’s)
Familiar Chat
Jamesons Firefinch
Mocking Cliff Chat
Kori Bustard
Grey-headed Sparrow
Lanner Falcon
Woodland Kingfisher
Dusky Flycatcher
White-browed Sparrow-Weaver
Rufous-naped Lark
Arrow-marked Babbler
Violet-backed & Redwing Starlings
Wood Sandpiper
Acacia Pied Barbet
Black-collared Barbet