. . woulda thunk this!? If you’d asked me, I would have rated the likelihood of this happening would be as remote as me falling preggers, but . . . life.
I’m working in a catholic monastery.
Allan Marais moved our St Mary’s optometric clinic into Marianhill Monastery when ‘the province’ said they no longer needed our free service. Anyone smell a rat? Can a juicy tender be somewhere in the mix?
‘Yes, we know you were free, but we no longer need you, even though you were doing a great job and the people loved the free service’ – right!
So here we are! Halleluja, Three Hail Marys, Bless you, and all that. Every two or three months I drive through those pearly gates you see in the above picture when I do my voluntary eyeball-checking stint!
We’re in the bottom left. Fannon building, I think
He is busy recording, cataloguing and preserving KwaZulu Natal history, bless him! Here he is, dressed and kitted out for action. KwaZulu Memories Man!
Did I mention he’s a Natal Cousin of mine?
~~~oo0oo~~~
Natal Cousin – distant relative claimed if said person is famous or doing well
I don’t do DIY. I was going to say except for our wedding, but on reflection, I also did that the way I do everything: Stand back and watch as others do it all, encouraging and applauding while trying to save money.
So Andre Hawarden did the invites:
What I did do was buy the booze and fill Mike Lello’s Isuzu Trooper and trailer with it and drive it out to Barry and Lyn’s farm Game Valley Estates at the foot of the well-known Hella Hella kop on the Friday. Lots of rain, muddy roads, the four wheel drive was needed. It had been a wet summer following the huge September 1987 flood.
Like most bachelors when they do fall, I headed off cheerfully to meet my fate, all my own advice forgotten, marching singing to the gallows!
I always sing ‘The robots change when I go thru, the clouds dissolve and the skies turn blue, and EVERYBODY loves me baby – – – what’s the matter with you!?‘
And the clouds did dissolve . . It got Sunny. Then Hot. Then Scorching, Humid and Sultry. It felt like all the rain of the big flood was trying to get back up into the clouds as steam.
And when I say ‘BUSH’ – Lyn and Barry’s beautiful game farm Game Valley Estates is truly in the bush that they have preserved, but their home has all the amenities one needs and they laid on even more for the occasion. So don’t think we roughed it; we had everything we needed as, with Aitch, they arranged everything – flowers, cake, tent, table n chairs, accommodation, food, spitbraai, animals to braai – the works!
Barry’s big old 4X4 Ford F150 gave people a tug up slippery Hella Hella Pass so they could get to their lodgings at the nearby Qunu Falls Lodge. The Brauers, the du Plessis, the Reeds, the Schoemans, the Stoutes, the Stewarts. The Hills live nearby. Family stayed in the concrete A-frame lodge on the farm.
The sauna was pitched on the lawn under the Hella Hella mountain.
The Porters were linked up to ESKOM but just because ESKOM has arrived does not mean that when you throw a switch with a flourish that anything will happen. And so it was on our wedding day that ESKOM wasfeeling a bit off that day and we were without krag, power, lights and fridges.
Enter David Hurle Hill !! He roared off to his farm Melrose a hundred km away in his bakkie and fetched a huge diesel generator on a trailer. David is a Drrrillerr and will drill you a borehole. In fact his company motto is ‘On The Hole Our Work Is Boring.’ He linked up and threw a switch with a flourish. And nothing happened.
She was not wekking, as David Hurle Hill would say.
Enter Enea Spaggiari !! All the way from Italy via Kenya and Petit outside Benoni. He climbed up onto and over and under the trailer and fiddled with wires and threw a switch with a flourish and Let There Be Light! Music! and Cold Beers! That’s Italian vernuf for ya! Or competenza, as they would say.
Iona coaches her daughter: Make all the big decisions, but make him think he made them . . . Aitch: Ha Ha I already do that . . .
– plotting –
Then the usual stuff, the ominous music from Jaws: Tun Tun Ta Da!;Tun Tun Ta Da! What? Oh, the wedding march. The father of the bride looks like he’s having having second thoughts; Guys are thinking hm hm hm who’d a thunk this day would arrive?; Ladies are smiling – they seem to enjoy weddings; Aitch saying – ‘Honour? OK; – Obey? Are you mad!?’ and so on. The usual kak.
Then the cake, made by Lyn’s talented friend with two beautiful frogs – probly a strongylopus and an arthtroleptis. In the heat they keeled over. We should have got a pic, but something like this, just green frogs in white dress and black tuxedo – and not from alcohol – from heat fatigue:
– frog cake –
Then The Lies! You just can’t trust some people. Ten years prior to this I had done a very good job being his best man and if he had paid attention he’d have learned something. Like, to stick to the flattering truth and not tell scurrilous alternative truths that nobody wants to hear. At least nobody called the object of your attentions wants to hear them . . .
That speech was followed by The Truth!plain and unvarnished. By me:
At last, we could change into shorts and relax and party. Some in the background (We saw you Jeff!) had cleverly not changed out of their shorts throughout.
Later came The Getaway:
Which took a while, handicapped as we were. We wore getaway kit appropriate for our intrepid honeymoon. We were headed for Deepest Darkest America.
~~~oo0oo~~~
On the Monday friend Allie Peter flew over Hella Hella in a helicopter and took pics of Rapid No.5&6 looking downstream and then back upstream:
– pinnacle rock is hiding –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Twenty Five Years Later – 28 Feb 2013 – I wrote to friends:
Crazy, innit! 25yrs ago today Aitch and I got hitched down in the Hella Hella valley in a fun DIY game farm wedding. She made it to 23yrs of married bliss (OK, she might have had something to say at this point . . ) and one month short of 26yrs together. We celebrated that 25yrs-together milestone in August 2010.
Thinking of all you good peeps that made our wedding so memorable – that’s the bachelor days before, the day itself, and the 25yrs since!
Cheers!
Lotsa love – Pete – and now Jessica & Tommy!
BTW, Lyn and Barry Porter of Hella Hella also died in 2011: Lyn in January – also breast cancer; Barry in April – hospital infection; And then Aitch in July.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Dave Hill: I remember it well – I ‘nipped’ home to fetch my generator when the power went off.
Pete Stoute:Remember the week-end like yesterday! Struggling up the other side of Hella Hella to the Qunu Falls hotel in the mud and rain – Dave Hill saving the day with a BIG generator.Will have an extra glass of vino this evening – great mates and good times.
Sheila Swanepoel:Those pics are great. What a wonderful record of a very special day. I remember the incredible heat and how you, Pierre and Pete sneaked off and changed into shorts straight after the ceremony. And how the phone kept ringing in the middle of the ceremony in the house. Linda was flower girl, Robbie was so proud of his brand new red “tight”
. . and Jeff kept putting off going to change, saying that he was charge of the antelope on the spit – he dithered for so long that there was no time to change and that pleased him no end. Bess & I sneaked down to the pool for a kaalgat swim and found Iona had beaten us to it!
Steve Reed: Will always remember the weekend; a great occasion. I think it was thanks to Mike and Yvonne in the 4×4 that we traveled safely back through the mud to our lodgings. Fond memories – raising a glass tonight to all of you!
I remember Brauer chasing a tight deadline speech writing – wise.
Pete Brauer:Damn. Been holding my breath during this stroll thru memory lane hoping that no-one noticed at the time or that no-one would still remember that poor last-minute effort.
Terry Brauer: Steve nothing has changed! PB has his own website called lastminute.com
Steve Reed:Speech was excellent. Not many can compose a wedding speech while putting on a tie with the other hand. Besides, Swannie probably tasked Brauer with the job as he was getting dressed himself.
Terry Brauer:Yip Brauer remains an orator of note and Swanepoel continues to notify me he is coming to stay usually on the day when he lands in Pretoria – 😀 Those old dogs ain’t gonna learn new tricks but love them both! T
Pete Swanie:I had prepared well in advance.
Brauer procrastinated and ignored my two rules: Keep it short; and NO LIES.
Pete Brauer:If I stuck to the latter rule the first would have fallen into place quite easily.
Tanza Crouch: Thinking of you, Aitch, Tommy and Jessy at this time. My spider days at Hella Hella are very special to me and Aitch, Barry and Lyn were very special people.
~~~oo0oo~~~
The old paper album has been scrapped, but here it is in pixels:
It’s bullshit. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t finished. He wasn’t even close to wrapping up all the things he still planned to do – even after doing so much.
Damn! Too soon.
– Ernie & John Oliver could run events! – Ernie causing mayhem at Bernie Garcin’s wedding – Ernie at my 40th at KCC, chaperoned by The Rhino, his good friend Joan –
– Ernie at his pulpit – ‘what’s the question?’ (when you asked for a Hansa) –
A very special human being.
Ernie’s wake will be held in Ernie’s Pub in Kingfisher Canoe Club on the banks of the Umgeni River in Durban. You KNOW you have led a really wonderful life when you’re going to be saluted in a pub named after you while you were still in your prime by your mates!
Ernest Alder – 17/08/1942 – 21/01/2018
~~~oo0oo~~~
Also, that I know of:
He was involved in the Caister old age home while his Mom was there;
He owned a holiday home on a game farm up north, adjoining Mkhuze.
It is with a heavy heart that I write of the passing of Ernie Alder! There are very few truly selfless individuals, those that give of their time beyond what could ever be expected without seeking reward or adulation! Ernie you will, for me, always be synonymous with KCC and there will never be a time, driving in to the car park, that I do not look for your vehicle, your welcoming smile or your loudhailer! Rest in peace my friend, you did so much to assist me in my time as chairman and for the numerous chairs before and those that came after. Your legacy will forever be intertwined with the history of KCC and you will be sorely missed at the club and along the many riverbanks and boat pounds across the country!
A gentleman, a gentle man! We will miss you – Elvis Kingfisher
~~~oo0oo~~~
– I managed to see him in hospital before he waai’d –
Tom is in Gamalakhe inland of Shelly Beach visiting his big mate Lungelo. Lungelo has just been with us for a few days. They get fetched by Lungelo’s parents and today they’re going to church.
They leave at 08h30, church starts at 09h00 and on his way Tom messages me: “No airtime, please send”. I say Sing Those Hymns Sweetly My Boy.
At 13h17 he uses his new airtime “I’m still here! Haven’t eaten a thing! Desperate!”
At 14h12 he says “I am never going to another day of church in my life again!”
They got home at 16h15!! That’s torture! That’s cruel and unusual punishment! A mate of mine said his posh private boarding school cured him of church forever. I think this church has done it for Tom!
=========ooo000ooo=========
I fetched him in Shelly Beach on Thursday and got another heartfelt tale on the way home. The adults had seats, they had to stand! The preacher shouted over the tannoy for most of the six hours! The speakers would go WOOOH! and then SQUEEEE! every so often. The theme of this six-hour sermon was “scapegoats” or “escapegoats”, and these words were said about a million times, only surpassed by the number of times he said AMEN!
The collection drums came round four times. One round had the injunction to cough R50. He was asked why he hadn’t given, so he gave R2. He was also asked at one time why he was sitting on the floor, not standing. Some adults arrived late, some left early. The preacher would take a five minute break every so often while the people sang. “I’m sure he went out for a snack and something to drink” said an envious Tom.
In the last hour he made a resolution: For every hour he was trapped in this church he would avoid church for a full year! He reckons his next run-in with any church will be in 2024 – maybe.
Straight after posting this I got a gotcha! email from Janet in Maun: Ha! Now I’ve got you! Stop procrastinating and VISIT!
So I have booked to go to Botswana in March after years of procrastinating. That is, Janet’s friend Bronwyn arranged a great price and booked. The 14th of March.
YES! Can’t wait!
~~oo0oo~~
Later: And what a trip it was! See here and here and here.
Get the BEST 4X4 possible, modify it, take engine spares, take all your own food and water and fuel, fit a winch, fit a snorkel, take hi-lift jacks, a big toolkit, solar power, satellite phone, there must be more . . . be entirely self-sufficient.
OR
Sommer just take the car you have, buy food along the way. Meet the locals and depend on them.
There are different approaches. All are good, they’re just different:
Now meet a lady from Cape Town who realised her little Toyota Conquest ‘Tracy,’ with close to 400 000km on the clock was turning twenty – and she was turning eighty! So combined they were 100 years old with plenty high mileage! Julia Albu thought “Bliksem, it’s Time To Drive Up Through Africa” * Julia left Cape Town and she’s in Ethiopia now (update: She’s now in Sudan) and going strong. (update: She made it to England); (another update: she turned round and is headed back!) (last update: she finally called a halt when she fell ill); Go and read her blog for an adventure – and for wonderful creative spelling. I love it! She calls her blog My African Conquest. Lovely stuff, Julia’s all about BEING THERE and the people along the way.
* (Aw! Such a pity her blog is no more! Her writing has been sanitised – ruined – and her wonderful eccentric prose seems lost now).
– Julia, her Toyota Conquest and friends in Sudan –
Then there’s this approach: A five year preparation of a monster truck with everything including the kitchen sink. Gas, solar, batteries, diesel, water, fuel, EVERYTHING! This beast has a big buffalo boss above the windscreen and it’s called Nyati! Paul’s approach to his travels is different. He writes like . . stream-of-conscious and he’s more about getting home. He’s no spring chicken either, at 70, so hats off to him too! He eventually got the monster going and drove it to Namibia, Botswana and back to Durban; Mostly on-road situations.
Different strokes, different folks. For some it’s more the journey, for some it’s more the equipment. It does tickle me that the huge big Benz truck has seats with wind-down windows for two, while the tiny Toyota has seats with wind-down windows for four! And the Conquest took the dirt roads, while the Benz stayed mainly on the tar.
The bass in Inanda Dam had not been unduly troubled by Tom and Ryan’s kayak-based onslaught some time ago. In Albert Falls Dam they also needn’t have worried. This time Tom and Ryan attacked them from the shore. But the bass were safe again.
The old lake was called Peattie’s Lake. The dam wall was just above Albert Falls. Then they built a bigger dam which drowned the old dam wall and the falls. Pity.
Those falls are drowned somewhere under this:
The frying pan wasn’t needed. Luckily I had bought some meat to cook.
I was moaning how Cape Wagtail numbers seem to have diminished and wondering if lawn poison did it.
Well, to be fair we also have to mention the apparent increased influx of a new (ish) city and suburban bird: The Familiar Chat. Years ago I used to look for them around old cattle kraals and other rural places, and occasionally big suburban gardens on the edges of towns.
Lately I have seen them in my garden in Westville, in my ole man’s garden in Lincoln Mead, Pietermaritzburg – where they’re nesting under the eaves – and now also on the roof of my shopping centre in Montclair – where I was bemoaning the missing wagtails.
Welcome, chaps!
.
pic: wikipedia ( I see it was taken by Frenchman Bernard DuPont in Camdeboo national park – love the pinpoint focus – detail you would easily miss – thank you Bernie!)
I’m coming down to Durban to buy a parrot. Where’s Overport? asks the ole man. Parrots can live for eighty years, so what better to get as a pet when you’re ninety five in the shade yourself?
Then the ole lady phones, all worried – as ever. Can you tell us how to get to West Road in Overport, Koosie? I say I’ll try, I’ll look it up, I’ll phone you back. I need to hatch a plot. I phone back and say, Come to my place for lunch, I’ll leave work early and I’ll take you, it’s not easy to find. She sounds dubious but she’ll try that.
She phones back, amazed. He saw sense. We’re coming for lunch, she says, relieved. A rare visit to the son’s home! She can’t see, he can’t hear, so she was dreading looking for a small parrot in a strange haystack, driving by feel and touch, with a driver very disinclined to listen to anything she has to say, and quick to blame.
When I get home they’re on my stoep and Jess has given them tea and Tommy is busy cooking lunch for everybody – pasta carbonara. My children! Bless them! I had told them, I’d love it if you’d give them a polite hello, but you needn’t stay, just make your excuses and go. They decided to completely exceed all expectations and charm the old bullets, the granma that loves them and the old goat who denies them. Proud of ’em!
Off we go to meet Sumie who has three baby African Grey Parrots in a box. His grandfather breeds them in Utrecht. The old man had asked Sumie to choose his own from the three. He checks them out on the tailgate of my bakkie in West Road Overport, picks one and now I think, Here comes the bargaining.
R2500, says Sumie. No way, says the ole man and shuffles off to the front seat of my bakkie. He comes back slowly on the uneven pavement with the bird magazine in his hand, stabbing his finger at Sumie’s ad: R2300; He gives a pained moaning, Now I have wasted my time coming all the way from Pietermaritzburg. Sumie says to me, ‘I thought I wrote R2500!‘ To the customer he says, Fine, Uncle Pieter, R2300.
And the food for free, says the ole man. That cost me R100, Uncle Pieter, I’ve just fed them, so give me R80, says Sumie. It’s my birthday on Friday (true), counters the ole man, You should give it to me as a gift. How old you’ll be? asks Sumie. Ninety Five says the ole man. So they settle on R50.
Now they debate whose box is better. Sumie has a shoebox – it’s wider. Ole man has a box some electronics came in – it’s deeper. Ole man realises if he takes Sumie’s box he gets both, so he settles on Sumie’s shoebox.
We go back home to eat chef Tom’s delicious pasta lunch, followed by ice cream and coffee, and off they go back to Maritzburg. The ole man changes into second too soon up the steep hill, has to stop and start over. He would have hated it that I heard that.
~o0o~
And I didn’t take a single photo! The parrot pic is off the internet. Damn! Well, here they are with great-grandkids:
And I just thought: When last did I post a recent pic of my favourite children? Here they are willingly posing for me:
For years I would watch a large flock of Cape Wagtails settle down for the night on a low tin roof above the parking area on the roof of my shopping centre, Montclair Mall south of Durban. They would gather in a long line under a roll of security barbed wire. Its just visible, arrowed next to the little grey lift tower far right in picture. True, its a long shot, but I wanted the clouds to show.
The ugly wire gave them a safe place to roost. The most I counted was sixty six of the lil guys.
Then they disappeared. For the last six years or more I saw none of them. Not one. My guess is poison on people’s lawns have put paid to them. Poor buggers do such a good job cleaning up people’s lawns but we humans are impatient! We prefer mass murder to waiting for little feathered tuxedo-clad workmen to neatly pick off the offending insects and grubs one-by-one.
This week one lone waggie made a comeback on the roof! Let’s hope a recovery is starting!
Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique via Botswana. We only had a bit more than a month, so not as leisurely as we would have liked. Can hardly believe it was fourteen years ago – 2003! The kids are now 19 and 15!
Mostly we drove at a leisurely pace and didn’t do great distances. We did put in a long day of driving on four stretches, which allowed us to chill on other days: Lusaka to Chipata in Zambia; Blantyre in Malawi to Tete in Mocambique; Tete to Vilanculos in Mocambique, and lastly Zavora to Nelspruit back in South Africa were all long-hauls. On those days we left early with the kids strapped in and sleeping. We’d drive for hours before breakfast. Aitch always had food or entertainment for them.
– TomTom and Stripey enjoying lunch – life is good! –
For the rest our days were unhurried. Slowly with the windows down, as we didn’t use the aircon. Anyway, speeding and potholes are not a good combination. At places we liked we’d stay up to three nights. Each of our five three-night stays felt like a complete holiday on its own. The Bushman off-road trailer proved its worth at every stop, unfolding like a luxury Bedouin oasis, replete with shade, cold fridge, lounge chairs, books, binocs, groaning tables, food and drink. Next time, belly dancers.
Waterberg, South Africa
– the only time we needed the awning – Waterberg trees were see-through –
Zambia
On through Botswana and to the Zambian border at Kasane where a ferry carries you over the Zambesi. One of the ferries had dropped a big truck overboard and got damaged, so only one was in operation, which slowed things down. Took about four hours and we were safely across the Zambezi river in Zambia. Tommy took to the “fewwy” in a big way and called all boats fewwies for a while. The battered and half-drowned second ferry and truck and trailer were visible looking sad at the side of the riverbank. The border post was pleasant enough. They charged us more for our “minibus” and tut-tutted sympathetically at my exaggerated protests that this was not a fee-earning taxi, but just our vehicle! Laughingly insisted “Well, sir, it’s the rules.” Had a good chuckle and they wished us well in their country.
In Livingstone we camped on the grounds of the Maramba River Lodge. It was full, so we squeezed in near the gate – not the best site, but quite OK. Lovely pool again. Drove to the falls at daybreak where a vervet monkey snatched Jess’ breakfast apple out of her hand. Our first sight of the falls from the Zambian side. Spectacular and different, showing the interesting rock face with the very low flow.
We drove to Taita Lodge on the very lip of the Batoka Gorge downstream of the falls overlooking where we had rafted years before. A warm welcome and a great lunch on the deck hanging over the river. Ice-cold beer, great sarmies. Looked for Taita Falcons, saw Verreaux’s (Black) eagles soaring below. Tom & Jess banging on the dinner drum and xylophone was un-musical, but no other guests around, so no one minded – in fact the staff loved the brats and spoilt them with attention. I thought I’d better step up and perform, as Aitch had been doing all the lessons and homework, so I taught them Cheers! Salut! and Prost! Life skills.
Whoa!
On the way out of Livingstone we hit the best section of road we saw on the whole trip – brand new wide black tar with centre white stripe and side yellow lines! Amazing!
The road was in fact so smooth that the ole kombi fainted. And died. Stat. Not a shudder or a hiccup first. Just suddenly nothing. That much-dreaded “CAR TROUBLE” silence thing! Well, after 197 000km I spose it’s OK. All my mechanical skills, like turning the key repeatedly while muttering fierce incantations, didn’t work. So I hopped out and unpacked the back where I had heard kombis hide their engines. Lifted the lid to stare at that thing. That’s my other mechanical trick: I stare at and swear at engines. I’ve sworn at sumps too, in my time.
Some school kids walked up and said Don’t worry, they know a mechanic at the nearby village, and the toothy one on the battered bicycle offered to go and call him. Sure, I said, not hopefully. “JP” from Gauteng, on his way to service some big crane, stopped his rented car and kindly offered his assistance. Soon he was joined (I was amazed) by Carl the mechanic, who had indeed been summoned by those schoolkids. He had a metal toolbox on his shoulder, and between the two of them they peered, prodded, unscrewed, fiddled – and broke the distributor cap! Using mostly my tools and swallowing the ice-cold drinks I passed them, they eventually gave up. ‘Must be something computerised in one of these little black boxes’ was their verdict. Right!
‘There’s a VW agent in Lusaka’ says Carl cheerfully. Right! 200km away. As they’re about to leave, Carl spots a loose wire under near the sump. Kombis have sumps, ja? Finds another loose end of a wire and joins the two. Vrooom! I mean, VROOOM! Apparently the wire was from a cutout switch to a heat sensor in the block. The kombi roared to life to tremendous applause! Well, four of us cheered. JP said ‘My pleasure’, Carl said ‘R200’, I said ‘Bargain’, Trish and the kids said ‘Thank you!’ and we were on the road again!
Next stop Lochinvar National Park at the south end of the Kafue National Park. We’d never heard of it but saw it on the map. Quite a bumpy road got us to the gate after dark. ‘Sorry, but you can’t go in’, said the soldier with a gun. ‘Sorry, but I have to’, said me. ‘You see, I can’t let these little kids sleep out here and nor can you, so hop onto your radio and explain that to your main man’. Back he came – ‘Sorry. The main man says the gate is closed’. ‘You just didn’t explain it to him nicely enough’ I said – ‘Please tell him I can’t, you can’t and he can’t leave a 22 month old baby sleeping in the sticks’. Off he went and back he came. ‘The main man will meet you at the camp inside’. ‘You’re a marvel, well done, thank you!’ we shouted and drove in on a 4km free night drive in Lochinvar. No animals, but some nightjars.
We slept in the kombi. Next day we sorted out our fairly primitive campsite, saw the ablutions were out of commission, so rigged up our own shower. Nice big trees to hang it from.
– that ablution hut not working –
Lochinvar – Scottish name, one sposes – has beautiful flood plain lakes on the Kafue river in the middle of dry surroundings.
In Lusaka we found that VW agency. They told us replacing the cracked distributor cap was no problem whatsoever, they could do it with one hand tied behind their back. In fact they’d have a new one ready for us in a mere two weeks when a spares delivery was due. We drove on.
South Luangwa National Park in Zambia was my main destination of the whole trip – I had read about it for decades. It was everything and more I imagined. What a river! Flatdogs Camp just outside the park was a blast, too. Big shady trees, a hearty meal available in their casual restaurant if you didn’t want to cook, we didn’t – pizzas or burgers – and a swimming pool with a home-made painted cement slide. Jess loved it so much she wore a big hole right through the bumular zone of her cozzie.
There we met an American Mom with three kids. She’d married a Zambian man in the USA and had shipped over a converted yellow school bus to tour around Zambia.
– the three ZambiYanks with Jess n Tom –
Then into the park – South Luangwa Park! – a long-awaited dream. It was terrific. Saw puku antelope for the first time.
– Thornicrofts giraffe looked huge, but zoom back and the sausage tree dwarfed him –
To get there we had to drive from Chipata town – that dreaded road we’d been warned against! Well, the grader had been a few days ahead of us and it turned out to be one of the smoothest stretches of gravel on our whole trip!
– travelling tinker –
On to Malawi
As you approach big water – the sea especially, but here it was a big lake – you encounter more and more sand. Deeper and deeper sand, which 2WD vehicles towing trailers sometimes have ever-so-slight problems negotiating. So it was that even before we first caught sight of Lake Malawi I got that uh oh! feeling, accelerated but no go, I was slightly stuck in sand in a park in a village. I hopped out to let down my six tyres, thinking A: Why were you lazy, you should have done so earlier; and B: Because I use a manual pump and it’s hard work getting back up to tar road pressure in hot weather. But just then I was saved ! Religion saved me!
A few young people from a nearby big group who were watching me ran up: “No, no. Don’t worry. Hop back in. We’ll push you out!” Turns out they were Bahá’í Faith folks having a picnic on a day of religious significance to them (maybe the Birth of the Báb in 1819?). They believe in World Peace. Me too, brothers! I firmly believe in three chief tenets: World Peace, Friendly Pushes and not having to Re-inflate Tyres – long-held convictions! Handshakes and good wishes all round when I stopped on firmer ground.
Our destination was Chembe village on the shores of Lake Malawi, Monkey Bay and the famous Cape Maclear, where we had snorkeled some ten years earlier. On the way I provided more entertainment to my appreciative family. A steep hill got the better of our 2.3 litre 4 cylinder petrol engine as I had been dawdling, birding and tree-spotting. The old kombi just couldn’t drag the Bushman any further. I had run out of steam, even in first gear. My bad. I pulled up the handbrake, hopped out, pulled up the trailer brake, unhitched and swung the trailer round manually using its handbrake, and faced it downhill. Now the kombi was a powerful beast without the brick on its butt, so I could drive it down, reverse up to the Bushman, re-hitch and retreat back down the hill. Then I found a place wide enough to turn my rig around and take a run at the hill – easy this time. Fine when you’re focused!
Aitch’s goal was the freshwater snorkelling off Mumbo island in Lake Malawi, cichlid fishes, and bats and swifts in a water cave.
– Stephens’ Ace Luxury Lakeside Lodge. Deluxe – or was it Emmanuel’s? –
Emmanuel’s had a vacancy so we booked in for a few days. Fair-minded people will agree with my assessment of it as ‘luxury’ but Aitch veto’d that and stuck it firmly under ‘basic with roof,’ even though the shower was almost en-suite. She insisted on ‘basic’ even when I reminded her that, unlike ten years ago, no cockroach had run up the outside of the mozzie net here. Some people are just hard to please . .
– true confessions, I airbrushed my boep out of this pic –
Outside the room, Aitch was in heaven. This was her main destination:
– thar she blows –
Mocambique
Leaving Malawi we crossed the wide Zambesi at Tete, where we stayed in a motel on the right bank as we wanted to head straight off the next morning. Probably Aitch’s least favourite lodgings of the trip – mozzies and an empty swimming pool. Leaving town two garages had no petrol. They said the word was that the town on the far bank had, so we crossed back over the Zambesi, filled up and crossed back again. The kombi liked that! What a bridge! What a river!
Then, after a long day’s drive, our biggest luxury – three nights at Vilanculos Beach Lodge. Sea, sand, a bar, lovely food, huge soft beds, friendly staff. Especially João, who spoiled the kids rotten. They thought he was a wizard, as he had this magic trick, writing up cooldrinks to our room number!
We took a boat to Bazaruto Island and then on to Two Mile reef offshore in the big Indian Ocean. Lake Malawi and Bazaruto were Aitch’s main snorkeling destinations and she LOVED them both! Two-Mile reef really is ‘like an over-stocked aquarium.’
Two Mile Reef, two miles east of Bazaruto Island off Vilanculos, Mocambique
Zavora Bay near Inharrime. Stunning lakes and a wi-ide bay; A reef at the point, so you can walk in and snorkel in sheltered water for a kilometre; Lovely cottages – houses, really, on top of the dunes overlooking the bay. Our best find in Mocambique. We hadn’t heard about it before and we fell in love with it. We agreed: “We MUST come back here one day!”
Ponta Zavora, Mocambique
One Child, One Beach
Here’s where the kids got sick. We tested them – high positive readings for malaria. Looking back, we suspected the one night we had let them stay up after sunset at a shebeen on the banks of the Zambezi in Zambia – parents drinking alcohol and enjoying the music and laughter, irresponsible louts. Luckily the Zavora lodge owner gave us Coartem pills which we fed them – Tom took some persuading, pursing his lips tightly at first. Early next morning we set off for South Africa. A stop at a pharmacy and clinic in Xai Xai and a stop at ‘the ex-pats clinic’ in Maputo only scored us some anti-inflammatories.
– Jess & Jabu, not happy –– Tom, not happy –
When we got to Nelspruit/Mbombela hospital they tested all clear! The Coartem had done its job perfectly. No parasites detected! Phew! We spent another night there just to be near the hospital. A day trip to Kruger was enjoyed by the kids who seemed to be saying, What’s The Fuss?
Our last overnight before getting home to Westville was a quick stop at Badplaas. Indoor hot water pools and garish plastic slides in red, green, blue and yellow. So fake after all the natural wonders we had seen, right? Jess said, Mom! This is the BEST place we’ve been! Oh boy, holidays are gonna be different going forward, I thought . .
Two Memory Highlights:
Firstly, the rivers – stunning! The Limpopo, Chobe, Zambezi, Kafue, Luangwa, Shire, the Zambezi again (at Tete it’s wi-i-ide and beautiful), the Save and the Limpopo again, were all magnificent and welcome and we stopped and stared. South Africa has some lovely rivers, but these seemed wider, swifter-flowing and often clearer. I love rivers.
Secondly, the friendly people. Everywhere we went we were helped and fussed over and we heard laughter and “No Problem!”, and quite often, as in SA: “Are these your children?” I love people.
Accommodation: We camped 14 nights; Basic shelter with roof 6 nights (better than it sounds, Aitch!); Comfy lodgings 7 nights (luxury!); Spoiled ourselves with super-luxury 5 nights; The last two involve food brought to you ready-cooked and dishes magically disappearing, never to be seen again. I say that’s lukshury with a Capital KSH!
Duration: Five 3-night stays; Three 2-night stays; Eleven 1-night stands;
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Cook’s Tour: Thomas Cook (1808 – 1892) was an English businessman best known for founding the organised travel industry. In 1855 he took two groups on a ‘grand circular tour’ of Belgium, Germany and France, ending in Paris for the Exhibition. The expression ‘A Cook’s Tour’ was humorously used for any rapid or cursory guided tour: Like, “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium.”
We flew east out of Oddballs from the nearby Delta Camp airstrip, leaving the green delta behind; then across the dry Kalahari to Savuti:
The flight was a bit bumpy in the hot clear air and Aitch started to go green about the gills, but we landed before she resorted to any lumpy laughter. I’m up in front, co-piloting.
At the Savuti strip we were met by pink-cheeked Emma the Pom in an open game drive vehicle. She was the camp chef – and the airstrip fetcher that day.
– fetched from the airstrip by pink-cheeked Pommy chef Emma who drives us right up an ele’s butt . . –
Just three of us in the vehicle. The last time I had been to Savuti was in 1985 when I’d arrived in a crowded old Land Rover full of two Aussies, a Kiwi, a Zim, a Pom and a Yank on a budget overlander. We pitched our tiny tents in the public camping area and the eles bust the water tank.
Sixteen years later, luxury! Emma took us on to camp and fed us overlooking the famed Savuti channel. After Oddball’s semi-roughing it: YUM!! Fresh food, cold beer!
– . . . and then feeds us at camp –
Jenny and Lionel Song hosted us. She was a honey and a gifted artist; he was lion-obsessed. And we had Texans with us, so we did a lot of lion-chasing. ‘Myomi’s pride’ (or Maomi) was the focus. Gotta see lions; Lions gotta have names.
So first thing in the morning we’d hare off to where the lions had last been seen and at last light we’d hare back to camp – Lloyd’s Camp game drives are in Chobe, a national park, so you can’t be out after dark. Once on the way we saw two ratels or honey badgers, ambling along busily, stopping occasionally to skoffel around. At least we did slow down to watch them awhile. A very special sighting for me – my first ratels in the wild.
In Lionel’s defence he was doing his job, the Americans – two guys and a lady – were frequent repeat guests who worked for Southwest Airlines based in Dallas – world’s biggest carrier at the time. They were delighted when he gunned the Cruiser after a lioness as she started sprinting at a giraffe. She and five others brought down the giraffe and that was it, we spent the rest of the day watching lion lunch.
The good thing is a vehicle is a great hide, so I could scan around for birds too. While doing so I saw two ears above the grass some 100m off. A cub watching and waiting. It stayed right there till the pride leader looked up and made a funny high-pitched bark and they – turned out there were three of them – came running straight onto the carcass and started making a nuisance of themselves. When we left they were all fat as ticks, but had hardly made a dent in the huge female giraffe.
Next morning we drove straight back at first light and all that was left was a blood stain on the grass, a chewed head nearby and scattered bones! Two males had arrived and they were lying there the size of dirigibles. Eight round lions and three bloated cubs. They looked like the animals from Rollin’ Safari:
– find them on youtube – hilarious –– Lionel & Jenny Song –
In camp Lionel, teasing, said to a guest who asked about the Lloyd of Lloyd’s Camp: ‘You should meet him! Pity he’s not here. He’s 6ft 4in tall with long black hair tied back in a ponytail”. Yeah, right! Lloyd Wilmot’s a legend in deeds, but not in stature, and no longer in hair.
– Lloyd and his fellow safari guide sister Daphne –
It was 2001 and the Savute / Savuti channel was dry, so the only waterholes were supplied by boreholes. The Savute flows with water from the Linyanti river. It apparently flowed in Livingstone’s time, around 1845, then was dry in 1880 and remained dry for over 70 years. It flooded again in 1957, dried up again in 1982, flowed again in 2008 and the marsh flooded fully in 2010. This was documented by Dereck and Beverley Joubert in their films Stolen River and Journey to the Forgotten River.Mike Myers tells how the whole dynamic of the region changes depending on what’s happening with the water. I heard in Maun how Lloyd Wilmot had found a crocodile up under an overhang in the rocky hills above the marsh around 1982 after the channel ceased to flow.
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skoffel – rummage; being a badger; badgering?
Some history from Lee Ouzman’s Jacana Enterprises site: The Wilmot family first came to Botswana in the early 1900’s. Grandfather Cronje Wilmot’s son Bobby Wilmot was part of the group that were involved in the early exploration and opening up of the Okavango Delta at a time when it was virtually unknown and unexplored. Bobby’s son Lloyd, once a hunter, now a conservationist, is a veritable mine of information. You name it – he’s done it. Swimming with elephants, tracking lion, leopard or cheetah on foot, building hides to view game at remote waterholes, following the amazing African migrations and more. His famous Lloyd’s Camp in Savuti was a legendary place of wonder and excitement and not surprisingly probably more credited in wildlife documentaries than any other camp in Botswana. It was here that Lloyd developed his special affinity for lions. It is not surprising that one delighted guest wrote of Lloyd Wilmot: “While Lloyd is my shepherd I Wilmot fear…”
– Lloyd and June Wilmot – early days at Savuti –
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Lloyd has since retired and written his memoirs in a rollicking book of mischief, daring, fun and – yep, occasional recklessness! He identifies the South West Airlines people as Doug Reiser, Mike Costello and Linda Fuller. I’m going to search to see if any of them have written something about their hairy adventures with the naughtiest little boy (aged about 70 now) in the bush! ( . . . didn’t find anything, but look what happened 29 years later).
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(Here’s Trish’s 1993 photo album on our trip – I have copied, posted here and discarded the album. Downsizing – Selling our home)
Getting into Botswana’s Okavango Delta can be awfully expensive.
A cheaper way is to fly in to Oddballs Palm Island Luxury Lodge, get on a mokoro and disappear off into the wild with a guide who – unlike you – knows where he’s going and what he’s doing. In 1993 Aitch and I did just that, spending a night at Oddballs, where you are given a little dome tent to pitch on the hard-baked earth under the palm trees.
You get visitors:
Aitch watches our visitor rearrange the furniture – near our bedroom
The name is ironic, see (“contrary to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this” – I made a quick check; don’t want to get ‘ironic’ wrong). While in camp you stock up on the meagre supplies available in their shop, like potatoes and onions; a tent, a braai grid; add it to the 10kg you’re allowed to bring in on the high-wing Cessna 206’s and you’re away! 10kg doesn’t go far when you’re a books, binocs and spotting scope junkie!
The next morning we pushed off in our gentles S-shaped tree trunk mokoro to enjoy six nights out on the water in the care of a wonderful man named Thaba Kamanakao. He rigged up the seats so they were really comfy, the backrests enabling you to fall asleep at times!
Thaba said we could choose where we wanted to camp – anywhere. Soon after lunch we saw a magnificent Jackalberry tree on an island and said ‘there!’ – my guess is he knew that! We set up camp – our tent and two deckchairs and a ready-made campfire spot which he’d likely used many times before. The rest of the day was given to lurking, loafing, listening, lazing. Thaba set his gill nets, gathered firewood, pitched his smaller tent and set his chair at the fire. We were all quiet most of the time, listening and loving as night fell. After we’d eaten we sat talking and listening some more. Then Thaba played his mbira – his ‘thumb harp’ – and sang to us; I’ll never forget his introduction as we switched on our tape recorder: ‘My name is Thaba; Thaba Kamanakao; Kamanakao is surname;‘
– shady jackalberry camp – Thaba and Aitch organise –
We chose not to move camp each day, electing to sleep three nights under a Jackalberry and three nights under an African Mangosteen, both giving welcome shade and birdlife. We had little food, but Thaba provided us with the fish he caught in his gill net.
I ate the barbel and he and Aitch the bream. Lucky me, it was delicious! He also loved barbel, but his lifestyle advisor – a sangoma? a shaman? a nutritionist? – had told him he wasn’t allowed it! So a myth robbed a man of a tasty and useful source of protein. The first night we were joined by newly-qualified Pommy doctors Louise and Richard and their guide “BT.”
When we moved camp from the camp Aitch named Jackalberry Camp, to her new chosen Mangosteen or Squirrel Camp, we decided we needed a bath on the way, so Thaba took us to a stunning clear lagoon, carefully checked for big things that could bite and then stood guard on the mokoro while we swam and rinsed – no soap, please! Anyone going to this beautiful inland delta: Pack some small swimming goggles and an underwater camera if you can. The clarity of that water is awesome.
David Doubilet pic
Beautiful underwater pic by David Doubilet – to show the clarity.
Squirrel Camp nights were again spent cooking and sitting around the fire; talking and listening to Thaba playing his mbira and singing;
Days were spent birding the camp, hiking the island and an daily foray in the mokoro. Once we we were ‘moved off’ by an impatient ele, Aitch getting mildly reprimanded for turning round to get a fuzzy picture as we retreated. Another time Thaba – scouting ahead – spooked a herd of buffalo, who thundered in a tight mass towards us. We climbed the nearby termite mound – Thaba had told us to stay next to or on it – and they thundered all around us;
– our ‘buffalo hide’ termite mound –
We would sally out daily on short mokoro trips,
– colourful dragonflies, lilies and reed frogs at eye level –
Back before the sun got too high so we could loaf in our shady camp, where the squirrels and birds kept us entertained for hours. Six lazy, wonderful, awesome days.
One night a herd of eles moved in and we lay listening to their tummy rumbles. We kept dead quiet and just peered at them in the moonlight through the tent flap, as they had a little baby with them and we didn’t want to upset mama.
– still life with Sausage Tree flowers & leaves – Aitch saw the beauty at her feet –
Then we headed back reluctantly for a last night at Oddballs. Warm showers under the open sky; cold beer & gin’n’tonics on the deck, ice tinkling in the glass; watching spotted-necked otters in the lagoon, lounging in comfy chairs. Topped off that evening by a big hearty hot meal prepared for us and plonked onto a table on the deck. We ate watching the sunset turn the water red.
palm tree showers – warm water– jackalberry tree pub –
And suddenly it dawned on us that, even though we did have to pitch our own tent again, Oddballs really IS a Luxury Lodge!
– chandeliers of sausage tree flowers hang over the lagoon –
mokoro – dugout canoe; one mokoro, two mekoro, three mekoro, FOUR
sangoma – shaman? traditional healer? medicine man? says he communes with the ancestors; gives advice
mbira – thumb piano or thumb harp musical instrument
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postscript 2018: This post was found by Thaba’s son, who informed me in the comments below that Thaba the legend had passed away. Damn!
R.I.P Thaba Kamanakao; You made our trip unforgettable.
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Read an account of another 1993 trip to the Okavango Delta – Delta Camp right next to Oddballs) by Bill Keller, a US journalist for the NY Times based in Joburg.
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(Here’s Trish’s 1993 photo album. I have copied, posted it here and discarded the album in my downsizing while selling our home in 2021)
Stayed at Oxbow Lodge one cold winter night. Can’t remember if we were childful yet or child-free. The whole lodge is tightly squeezed in a narrow space between the road and the river. Our little rondawel was icy: Concrete walls, thin iron windows with flimsy curtains, a slate floor. The bed looked and felt like an ice cream tub. We fired up the gas heater and went off to find supper.
The bar / dining room / lounge area was big and bleak but warmer than our room. Supper was delicious: a big hot filling stew. Maybe oxbone? With sherry.
Plus we had one more great reason to settle down and stay: Lovely jazz music was playing over the speakers perched on the cornices. After a while I went to enquire at the pub. The lovely lady at reception showed me the CD cover below. We have listened to it ever since. *Click Play* and hear it y’self:
Back in the rondawel it was still cold but Oxbow back then was an oasis in the frigid winter Lesotho highlands. There was nowhere else to go for miles. Anyway, we were young and soon heated up the bed knowhatimean.
The rocky, waterfall-strewn river right outside was frozen solid the next morning, miles of ice and beauty in bright sunshine. Still freezing though.
Hate it, but it’s true: Things fade. A month late on our annual tribute. Six years now. Don’t worry, you still do occasionally cause changes to the way we do things, and “But Mom said . . ” is still used to some effect!
Jess still regularly asks if there wasn’t more we could have done to save or cure Mom. When she hears of a new treatment for some or other disease she’ll ask “Why didn’t they do this for Mom?” I explain the difference between bacteria and viruses and cancer to her each time.
Here’s what she wrote to you this Mothers Day:
Yeah, I cried . . .
She was on her Bhejane field guide course up north of Hluhluwe and lonely as anything. Her selfie was taken in the little wooden Wendy hut she stayed in. I love the brave smile.
Jess and I spent two nights at Mkhuze. It’s looking very dry and animals were few and far between. Still, we saw lots of the usual dependables: giraffe, zebra, impala, hippo, nyala, wildebeest and – at last! – one elephant. A young bull right next to the road. Jess, who watches too much youtube of eles goring and flipping cars, and had a scare in Tembe Elephant Park ‘thanks’ to bad behaviour by a senior ranger, did not want to hang around, so we drove past him.
Also one band of Banded and two individual Slender Mongooses.
But lots of birds. I won’t give the boring – to me exciting – list (78 species) but I will tell this story. In Mantuma camp – here:
I went looking for pinkspots (pink-throated twinspots). Like this:
– oops! dont know where I got this image to credit – I see it’s all over the web now – whoever took it: beautiful and thank you –
I followed their high-pitched trilling cricket-like sound and found them and more! There they were, in a bird party in the grass! Blue waxbills, green-winged pytilias, grey-headed sparrows, yellow-throated petronias, yellow-fronted canaries, red-billed firefinches pecked alongside the pinkspots on the sandy soil. And in the tree directly above them a small flock of red-billed wood hoopoes, a dark-backed weaver and a golden-tailed woodpecker. Just that one bird party made the whole trip worthwhile. I stood twenty metres from them and watched through my Zeiss’ for ages. ‘Saturation Views’!
On my way back to the chalet I watched a black cuckoo-shrike give a full, relaxed display all round me. I didn’t know this jet-black bird could be so BLUE! In the sunlight his ‘black’ shone a beautiful cobalt blue. This picture I found on ethiobirds is the only one that captures it well. See the difference!
