A frog he would a-wooing go, Heigh ho! says Rowley, A frog he would a-wooing go, Whether his mother would let him or no. With a rowley, powley*, gammon, and spinach, Heigh ho! says Anthony Rowley.
Like all good nursery rhymes, they all came to a bloody end. Dead, the lot of them, by the end of the rhyme. And they’re for children, of course, so there’s mention of spinach! See all the words here.
Aitch and I enjoyed some lovely frogging outings in our courting days and pre-children days. Sometimes with Barry & Lyn Porter at their three main ‘patches,’ Hella Hella (Game Valley Estates), inland of Port Shepstone (the litchi farm) and Betty’s Bay (which Barry’s father donated to the nation for a nature reserve), but the two of us ‘frogged’ all over the place, filling in data for the frog atlas by ADU at UCT’s Fitztitute. We had a lot of fun doing that. We felt lucky, we had an early GPS given to me by friend Larry in Ohio.
– me and Barry frogging inland of Port Shepstone on ‘the litchi farm’ –
Top ‘feature’ pic: A red-banded Rubber Frog I caught in me underpants on Malachite Camp – a shortlived venture in Zululand by the Mala Mala crowd. Here’s the frog again, and the tuft he was calling in:
Sonderbroek frogging as sometimes the vlei was quite deep. Whistling catcalls would emanate from the Landrover. That woman!
Useful to top up your salt intake every so often by sticking your tongue in your nostril. Must practice that.
Mpila camp’s ‘safari tents’ are great. Comfy with all modcons, own kitchen and en-suite semi-outdoor bathroom. It’s walled in with reeds, like the kitchen wall you see here, but only to shoulder height – above that, it’s open to the outdoors under the big canvas roof. It’s a treat. A Purple-banded Sunbird sang to me as I showered. No pictures.
While photographing these ‘acacia’ flowers (must get the real name – maybe Senegalia?) this biggish weevil or snout beetle dropped into my hand. I’ll ask iNaturalist.org to identify both the plant and its weevil. Otherwise it would be like I saw no weevil.
– a Wahlberg’s Eagle and a Yellow-billed Kite share a perch –
A slender mongoose made a breakfast appearance at a waterhole. If anything was nesting in there, they were egg and toast, as she inspected every nook and cranny.
Driving along, an oft-heard sound and a not-often-seen sighting:
– a very obliging Black Cuckoo calls ‘I’m So Sick!’ –
At the hide (must add the name – Bhejane?) I saw the lovely Mocking Cliff Chat, Lesser Striped Swallows, Village Weavers building nests and a Hadeda Ibis pulling down their new nests around its nest! A Diederik Cuckoo was calling, probably waiting to get into those weaver nests. This hide looks out over a waterfall – dry today:
At another waterhole a bird flew past as my little Canon snapped a 3-shot burst:
I took a new route home, exiting the Cengeni gate in the south-west of the park and heading for Ulundi, Melmoth and Eshowe. Right outside the gate exiting the Umfolozi Big Five Game Reserve there’s this puzzling sign:
– or turn around and go back fifty metres! –
I asked the man at the gate, How far to Ulundi? 37km. I asked him, And how is the road? and he got all coy, hummed and hah’d a bit, then blurted, “but it is a tar road.” It wasn’t too bad. A fairly normal look-sharp neglected tar road as we’re used to.
If I still had Marguerite Poland’s book on the isiZulu descriptive names of Nguni cattle I’d tell you how this beast on the way to Ulundi would be described:
– something like ‘she lifts her black dress to cross the river, revealing her white petticoat’ –
I’ll go back to Mfolosi. Soon, though. Before it also loses all its grasslands to bush encroachment.
I enjoyed my stay in Hluhluwe. I stayed in Hilltop camp in the old rondawels that were built in the fifties or sixties. About sixty years ago.
– same view – 1966 and 2021 –
They’re very comfy now, with a ceiling fan, big cupboard, fridge, cutlery and crockery and cooking utensils, power points, lights, washbasin with hot water, kettle. And aircon. The bed linen was luxurious, fresh and clean and seemed brand new. The kitchen and ablution building is shared by all. The shower had hot water.
I spent both days there in the camp, no driving. The bushy hills where once there was grassland is not a good sight, so I elected to walk the camp forest – much of which was also once grassland!
Top right the Tassleberry tree has the most tassles I ever saw. Bottom right the Grewia shows why its called a crossberry. Click on them for a better look.
A beautiful old paperbark Commiphora had an interesting hole-in-the-bole, so I zoomed in: Bees, honeycombs and a butterfly that went back again and again despite the bees buzzing her.
Some flowers I lazily havent yet identified:
– crested francolin – beautiful feather patterns –– one European Roller on an interesting branch –
As I said, I enjoyed Hluhluwe, but I don’t think I’ll go back in a hurry. The disappearance of the grasslands ruins it for me. I wonder if there’s an eco management plan for Hluhluwe?
She was so so special. Cheeky, irreverent, bright as a button, she’d done her bachelor degree in psychology and had just heard she’d passed her honours. Next year she was going to do her Masters, on her way to becoming the clinical psychologist she would have been so good at. Many people would have benefited from consulting with this special lady. She could tease me like few others, and she was wonderful with my kids when they helped out in the practice.
Yandiswa worked for us whenever she could between her studies and raising her little three year old daughter Thia. Whattapleasure to have known her. She was a huge asset to the practice and to us all personally. Astute as well as irreverent she would grin, cock her head to one side and say something that put her finger exactly on what was bothering you, distracting you or amusing you.
And now she’s gone, just twenty five years old. We met her lovely parents for the fist time and could share some of our sorrow and our admiration for their daughter with them. We miss her keenly, as do they. We still haven’t come to grips with her loss.
~~oo0oo~~
In the picture, Yandiswa is in a beautiful traditional Xhosa outfit, daughter Jessica is in red and I’m in my element – at Raksha’s wedding. Prenisha took the photo. Happier days
Lovely three nights solo in Mantuma Camp at Mkhuze game reserve in Zululand. Nothing much happened, animals were not plentiful, the grasslands are still sadly bush-encroached, but the birds, insects and plants more than made up for that.
Driving in, I see Malibali hide is CLOSED!! Aaargh! One of the MAIN reasons I came to Mkhuze! Grrr!
So as not to moan about Homo sapiens urbanensis polluting the lovely Masinga hide with farting, phone calls, smoking and loud shutter clicks of cameras with more computing power than their owners, I have politely refrained from commenting, and instead played some games with the pictures I took with my phone and my lovely pocket Canon SX620hs. Enjoy!
I dunno what he saw in there, but he was making an awful racket for a long time – snake maybe?
In camp I went looking for cicadas. A big old Albizia tree was humming with the critters, must be hundreds, I thought. I bekruip’d and approached and searched. Suddenly the nearest one stut-tut-tuttered to a halt. And there was silence! All that eardrum-vibrating noise was ONE cicada! Amazing. I tried another tree, same thing. Could that be? I searched every trunk branch and twig around where he was calling. Couldn’t spot him.
For sundowner, off to Nsumo pan, a glass of chilled white wine on the banks. Lovely Woodland Kingfisher giving his loud kip-terrr. Heard a black-bellied bustard in the grass close by – aark like a frog, then or-wip! – but couldn’t spot him.
this tiny little spider on my rearview mirror elongated himself to look like a mini octopus when I got too close – iNaturalist id’d him as a Humped Tree Crab Spider Tmarus cameliformis
At last an ele in Mkhuze! I was beginning in the last few years to think there weren’t any left. There must be very few, anyway. He’s in the camp area, so one of the staff sent him running. I don’t think there’s a good story of Mkhuze and eles, somehow.
– now he has spotted me, he’s shtum –
At Kumahlala hide, after an hour of being alone and quiet, the Foam Nest Frogs Chiromantis xerampelina started up a chorus, probly thinking “the coast is clear, boys!” It took a while, but I found one up on a twig just outside the hide and got a pic of him. I wish I had thought to tape their call – a lovely loud chorus – I’d guess about four of them doing a fine barbershop quartet! I was so busy searching and then clicking, I didn’t think of recording them! Here’s a shy soloist:
A family came in with a young kid carrying the big fancy camera. I was able to show him the frog. He took 45 pics with loud clicks and showed me his results. None of them as good as my pic with my little Canon!
After they had left, I heard a new sound, Hey! That’s new. What’s that?
I found a new frog! I went through my frog calls: A Rhythmic Caco – Cacosternum rythmum. I must look for a picture of one. I would not be able to see him in the flooded grass in the waterhole, confined as I am to the hide; also, he’s little over a centimetre long. Another name for Cacos is Dainty Frogs. I think we miss a lot by being noisy and impatient. If I’d left the hide after 45mins – way longer than we usually can sit still – I’d have missed these fine choristers.
Sunset at Masinga Waterhole: The sun sets behind the big old Boerbean tree that was probably already there when I first visited ‘Mkuzi’ in 1965. The hide wasn’t here then. The famous Bube hide was the ‘in place’ then, just a few hundred metres away (north, I think).
– very little water – full of green algae –
Driving out of the park to go home, a savannah scene in one of the few remaining open areas: Stripes and horns and a few egrets hanging around, hoping for some disturbance to happen. I ‘shopped’ the lily (Crinum stuhlmanii?) into the foreground, as it was lonely in its own picture with nothing around it. And it was nearby . .
~~oo0oo~~
Domestic notes:
As a family we usually took one of the lovely big chalets in Mantuma main camp, but I don’t need that this time, so I choose a small squaredawel Number 1. About R540 a night pensioner price. The two ladies in reception are very friendly, helpful and welcoming.
For supper I braai a picanha, potato and garlic bread. Delish. A lovely sunset and an electric storm that moved north as I braai’d. Thunderbolt and lightning, Not at all frightening, Mama Mia. A few drops of rain for a few minutes.
(Back at home, Tommy got vaccinated YAY! and AT LAST!)
Breakfast picanha and garlic bread and coffee.
Windy, so I stayed in camp in pm. Lots of Violet-backed starlings all over. One performing at a hole in a tree trunk.
Supper the leftover picanha with bubble n squeak.
Back in camp breakfast of fried egg, bacon, bread and coffee.
Last night: Too lazy to go to the communal kitchen to cook, so tonic water and fresh lemon juice, potato salad and a dark choc KitKat.
~~oo0oo~~
Seen at Masinga hide: Rhino, giraffe, zebra, wildebeast, kudu, impala, nyala, warthog, terrapins. and lots of birds too. A namaqua dove female was good; melba finch, firefinch redbilled and African; Egyptian geese with 4 babies; lots and LOTS of doves (Emerald spot, Cape, Red-eyed, Laughing), was hoping for a raptor swoop. Heard 6 cuckoos, only saw the red-chested (also Jacobin, Klaas, Diderik, Emerald, Black). Heard 3 Bush Shrike, saw none (Grey-headed, Gorgeous, Orange-breasted). Peckers, one wood, lots of ox. Wahlberg’s eagle. Purple Turaco, Three-banded Plover, Paradise Flycatcher, and Whydah (longtailed), pintailed Whydah too. Quelea, and a Lark-like Bunting.
Birds at Kumahlala hide: White-browed Scrub robin, Crowned eagle, Crowned hornbill, Trumpeter Hornbill, one knob-billed duck male flying.
Or I thought I was. Packed the hebcooler, the book box, the camera bag – now huge with two tripods and a new spotting scope (the main toy to be tested out at Mkhuze’s hides!). Food. Ice bricks from the freezer, the lot. Having been a critic when Jess forgot things, I went through my mental checklist. Nah, I’m sure I have it all.
Oh, clothes and toiletries. OK. Coffee. Right. Charcoal. First aid kit.
Loaded the whole lot in the car then remembered I had undertaken to get my will signed, witnessed and courier’d today. Did that, then had to arrange a locum optometrist to work for us – quick! before he changes his mind! Did that, then remembered I’d arranged to meet the lady who sold all my furniture for final payment. Did that. Then Gugu texted me: Can the girls come for a swim this afternoon in my newly cleaned sparkling blue pool? That did it.
I unpacked, back in the deep freeze and fridge. I’ll leave tomorrow. Early start. The three young ‘uns had a noisy, fun swim, chips and red cooldrink. And I had a perfect, productive day ending in Joy to the World.
The big old album is hitting the recycling bin. I have recorded all the pictures.
Home after our lo-ong honeymoon and some surprise welcomes:
Also in 1988 we had a big optometry conference in Durban. As part of the hosting committee I produced a daily newsletter. Then I became president of the optometric association at the end of the conference.
Friends at the conference – and an induction (Brauer says they induced me):
I dragged some non-canoeing friends out to the Umgeni Valley. I wanted to see the valley for a last time before Inanda Dam drowned it forever. The river was rather shallow – um, VERY shallow! We dragged for miles!
We visited the folks in Harrismith, clambered the slopes of Platberg and sang around the piano:
Bernie & Karen Garcin got married in Empangeni – George Stainton and I were his best men.
In between all the scurrying we lived in our lovely Whittington Court one-bedroom apartment in Marriott Road, and I think I occasionally did a bit of work. Sheila reminded me that she lived there for two years after we bought our house in Westville.
Another of our frequest visits to Hella Hella. And a visit to the Hills on Melrose farm, Mid Illovo.
Just had a criminal come into the practice and scoop up six Oakley sunglasses and run for it. Dropped one on the way out. Seventy year old Genevieve let him have her shrillest STOP THIEF! and did a ten metre dash after him. Yours truly emerged from the testing room and did . . NOTHING. Well, maybe I did a half-hearted five metres in the general direction well after the incident, but hadn’t a clue what to do.
A lady out in the car park did though. She saw him hot footing and took his number plate when he drove off. At least someone was ‘speronsible’ as Zunckel would put it. Problem is, the cops have got their hands quite full out that way, what with a couple of shootings, murders etc. What IS this place coming to?
pete swanepoel wrote: Hey! Some action. Jolly good! (Another Pat Bean-ism).
I think what you did was EXACTLY the right thing. Delay, go slow, emerge cautiously, look concerned, ask after the staff’s well-being, call the security ous.
What!? Physically apprehend the culprit!? Not a bliksem. You think he sterilises his knife? Uh uh.
Standing instructions to my people: You hand over EVERYTHING. You let them have the lot. Everything. Don’t look them in the face. Tell the insurance.
~~oo0oo~~
Steve again: Agree the thinking thing to do is let the poor old shoplifters take the stuff. What are you actually going to DO wif dem if you do perform a perfectly executed ankle tap in the shopping centre or car park? Lie on top of em? BUT Genevieve! The Slovenian! She is different! She would have gone after him! We have good laughs however. She is teaching me about Slovenian cooking. In a previous life she was a commercial caterer. Brings me dubious bits of food to try and I have introduced her to Mrs Balls chutney with which she is most impressed.
~~oo0oo~~
‘Speronsible’ reminds me of Zunckel on the crossbar of my bicycle on the way to the golf club (while the school wished he was playing tennis and me rugby), singing “Let the spidnight m-ecial , line a hell of a lot of shite on me”
(I have captured the thick old album here and elsewhere, and discarded the paper version in my big cleanout as I prepare to leave home).
We joined Max and Paula Posniak at Giant’s Castle in the Drakensberg; Aitch joined the Porters on Barry’s Dad Harold Porter’s old farm, which he bequeathed to the nation.
We got engaged. I’d forgotten what a thing it was? I threw out tons of cards Aitch had put in this album. I kept these copies of the people pics here. Steve and Wendy Reed hosted a lekker party at their lovely home in Sterling Crescent in Durban North, kind (and brave) people.
We went to visit Aitch’s folks in Bloubergstrand.
October 1987 – Natal got hit by huge floods. Here’s the Umgeni at Blue Lagoon: Island gone! Lyn wrote to us while they were cut off by the floods at Hella Hella.
Sheila joined us on a mountain biking camping trip to Cobham.
Canoe polo was great fun for a while. A highlight was when the mighty Natal C team beat the fancied-themselves Natal A team! Yay!!
We visited a Zululand bush camp affiliated to Mala Mala – Malachite Camp, they called it. Unfortunately it didn’t last long. We enjoyed some fun frogging there!
Another of our many trips to Zululand reserves:
Fun slalom weekends, this one on the Umzimkulu river.
I was paddling less races, but still doing trips:
The 1987 Umko Marathon got me a job pulling human flotsam and fibreglass jetsam out below No.1 rapid as rescue boat for my club KCC. We stayed on at the farm after the field had departed downstream.
Bernie and I took some novice paddlers to the Umgeni (NB: Some Umko pics mixed up in here)
Frogging and frog atlassing was a fun interest – still is.
Wedding coming up in 1988. We had a small guest list, so we had a ‘pre-nuptial party’ at Kingfisher CC’s lovely clubhouse where we got dronk with chairman Allister Gordon-Peter’s permission. That’s him on the chair shouting ORDER! ORDER!!
I just sold my longest-lived-in home. We’ve been here sixteen years. After being given a long fixit list I decided bugger the schlep, I’ll sell it voetstoots – as is. It sold on the day it hit the market – for a song, if you ask me.
Here’s my sequence:
First home Whittington Court. I forget how long, but bought as a bachelor, then Trish moved in ca.1986. When we moved out in 1989, sister Sheila lived in it for about two years. It was a lovely old one-bedroom flat; big rooms, high ceilings.
1989 we bought our first suburban home at the bottom end of the cul de sac River Drive in Westville. A magic place right on the banks of the Mkombaan river. Mike and Yvonne Lello had lived in it fifteen years and when Mike said he’s selling, I said then I’m buying. We stayed there fifteen years.
– 7 River Drive –
Then we rented Ian Whitton’s lovely home in Windsor Avenue Westville for about two years.
– Windsor Avenue –
In 2005 we bought here, a magic home in a cul de sac above the Palmiet river – ‘to be near the schools.’ Now, there’s a story for ya!
– Elston Place – sold! after sixteen years –
This pic is the house as we bought it. We spent way too much on it as I planned to live there forevah!
I gave a talk in the Kruger Park once called The Art of the Game Drive. It was magnificent, complete with exciting sightings and livestreaming. Pity was, I had an unappreciative audience. Well, they were from behind the boerewors curtain, so . . you know how they are.
It almost sounded like they had a pet monkey with them, as they kept muttering Ari Aap as I drove them serenely in quiet splendour and exquisite comfort in my VW Kombi 2,1 in subtle camouflage blue and white. But you won’t believe this, when I stopped to examine old poo there was audible sighing. Philistines. The talks are still wildly popular, but I notice none of that particular batch were ever repeat guests. And I mainly have repeat guests. *
*Like Jessie. She has been a repeat guest dozens – scores – of times. She can appreciate the Art of the Game Drive. ‘Specially if she has her phone, her music and noise-cancelling earphones with her.
