I heard a cry on high as I parked on the roof at work. Glancing up I saw two crows cartwheeling, freewheeling, locking claws and spiralling like a propellor high above me. What a magnificent display of flying excellence!
Buzzing around above and below them was a drongo, divebombing and harrassing them, cheeky little blighter. They ignored him and carried on exuberantly showing off. Wow!
Isn’t that amazing!? I said to my 74yr old carguard Bridget as she shuffled up asking “And now?“.
I pointed out the birds. “Yes,” she says off-handedly, “Those two parents are teaching the young one to fly”.
I had a sick boy last night. Jess was away and it was just the two boys. I knew Tommy was sick when he only ate half his fried chicken.
“I’m shivering, Dad”, he said as he piled on a second duvet lying curled up in the armchair in front of the TV.
Let me feel you: You’re boiling, my man! Off with those duvets and all your clothes!
“But I’m cold Dad!”
Yes, you feel cold, but you’re hot as hades. I have to cool you down. I wet a cloth and sponged him down and gave him a dose of ponstan anti-fever muti. I had already given him an imodium after two runny tummy trips to the loo. Took him off to my bedroom and made him lie clad only in his underpants on the sheet and switched on the aircon.
“Dad,“ he says urgently, “I think I’ve got ebola, “ he says.
Uh huh? I ask. Why’s that?
“Well I read if you have a high temperature and a runny tummy and vomiting you’ve got ebola. Can ebola kill you Dad?”
Well, yes it can, but I don’t think you have ebola my boy.
“But I touched the mouse that Flaky (the snaky) threw up after I fed it to her,” he protests.
OK, we’ll monitor you fella, but remember bangbroek, you actually picked up the mouse with a plastic bag, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
“Will you take me to the doctor?”
Yes, if you’re still sick in the morning, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to cure this particular ebola.
“Mom would have taken my temperature, “ he says slyly, teasing me now that he’s feeling better.
You’re right, she would have. Silently, I wonder where her thermometer is.
“And she would have made me juice,” he grins, when I make him drink cold water.
Yeah, right! don’t push it! You might have tummy bugs and I’m not feeding them any sugar. I set the alarm for 1am to check if he needed more ponstan but when it rang I felt him and he was as cool as a cucumber.
“I’m fine Daddy. Thank you,” he mumbled and resumed his snoring.
Maybe he was practising for this outbreak four years ago, when he wore this apparently ebola-proof gear to a school dress-up day?
Jess and her two mates giggled away the weekend looking for big beasts. Elephants was what they were after, but they stayed in hiding. Eventually we were placing bets on seeing elephant poo! not even the whole animal! Still no luck. We saw lots of rhino and a a few buffalo instead. Plenty antelope and lots & lots of birds. Beautiful.
Evenings they watched movies while I read Bill Bryson’s Short History of Nearly Everything (again!) and listened to the nightjar.
Mkhuze is very dry, so all the animals from miles around crowd the waterhole. Mudhole, really – very little water. Amazing that just a few miles away at Nsumo Pan there is miles of shoreline and clear blue water, but we saw very few animals there. Just hippos. Wisely croc-shy, maybe?
Dunno if it was this visit or another, but in walking around the camp I saw the bluest bird I’d ever seen – and it was a Black Cuckooshrike! I would have confidently asserted to you that Black Cuckooshrikes are black. Well, usually, but have a good look in bright sunlight:
– ’twas just like this – – the blue of the Black Cuckooshrike – from ethiobirds.smugmug.com – thanks –
Tom back in civilization had a ball too. His weekend was very different to ours: beach, shopping mall, KFC, two movies, a home in Durban North with dogs and pet pythons. Plus he was given three shad his host had caught. He brought them home, scaled them, filleted them and fried them with fresh-cut potato chips. Delicious! Quite the chef, my Tom!
Tomaldinho! I was seeing dollars sign$ I was going to sign him up with Amazulu in Durban – No Dad!! PSG in Paris!! Oh. My bad. I need new boots, Dad! Lime green ones.
– Soccer Tom – ‘It was nothing chaps! I do this every day!’ – about to be mobbed after scoring –
But then suddenly it was rugby. RUGBY Dad! I need new boots. You can’t play rugby in soccer boots, Dad! I’m a rugger player now!
Greg Seibert was an exchange student to Harrismith back in 1972. He mailed me in 2014 to say his brother Jeff was coming to SA for work in Port Elizabeth. He’s with General Motors. I said get him up to KZN and we can go to a game reserve. Short notice, so I booked Hluhluwe.
– eles in the mist –
Greg thought he may join us but it didn’t happen. Very sadly.
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
I wrote to friends after: Hared off at short notice to Hluhluwe-Mfolosi park. Harrismith’s 1972 Rotary exchange student Greg Seibert contacted me to say his brother was in SA. He works for General Motors and I spose he was checking to see if they still sell Chevs in this neck of the woods. He’s from just outside Detroit, Michigan.
Mfolosi was dry and Hluhluwe was burnt, the logs still smouldering from a fire that burnt about half the park. Lots to see in the line of big grey animals plus antelope and painted dogs. Lots of birds, too.
Jessie’s grade 10 class had Dr Chris Barnard and Heart Transplants as a subject last week.
When she told me I asked, ‘Did you tell them your Mama worked with him?’ Actually, no she hadn’t. She vaguely knew Mom had done it, but wasn’t confident enough to step forward. My shy Jess.
So out with Aitch’s old albums of her working next to the old sleazy charmer, still quite young back before 1983 (when he retired). She says he tried his luck to get her to go out with him one night, as he apparently did with all the nubiles on the team.
And there in the pics was Aitch in theatre greens and mask: The cardio-vascular perfusionist operating the heart-lung machine – ‘the oxygenator’ – that kept the patient alive once the blood circulation had been diverted away from their own heart and lungs. And there was the famous cad watching. And there was a heart in a jar.
– The Prof and The Mom –
Off to school went the album the next day and Jess was the focus of much attention and oohing and aahing. Which she loved.
Geoffrey Caruth is a doer. He gets going. He has run an indigenous nursery in an industrial area for decades, he ran an Olde Heritage Shoppe for years, he built a pond in a park – as a donation to the people of Westville; he has a lovely young (much younger!) wife and two ugly old dogs. He lives on the bank of the Palmiet river, on the boundary of the Palmiet Nature Reserve. Sure, he thinks that to be an Englishman is to have won the lottery in life, but hey, even he’s not perfect.
Recently he decided to re-introduce bushbuck into the 100ha Palmiet Nature Reserve in Westville, KwaZulu Natal and – typically – got off his butt. I would have talked about it, he rallied the troops. The bushbuck or imbabala (Tragelaphus sylvaticus) should be eminently suited to our valley and we hope they’ll thrive here.
So this week, 18 months after he decided to launch “Operation Nkonka”, we were in the Palmiet watching five beautiful bushbuck, three females and two males, jump out of the back of the truck and explore their new home.
Geoff and Warren Friedman watch with pride and angst:
A = Release site
B = Where I last saw a bushbuck
C = Our home
Later four more were released. Soon we’ll be fawning over their offspring, we hope!
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
nkonka is isiZulu for male bushbuck;
bushbuck in general are imbabala; the Cape bushbuck is our species; the other is the Harnessed bushbuck or kéwel, a different species in west and central Africa. Convergent evolution has them looking very similar but ours is closely related to the Bongo and the Sitatunga while the Harnessed is closer to the Nyala. The Nyala has the wonderful Latin name Tragelaphus angasi – you can imagine how that came about! (angazi in isiZulu can mean ‘I don’t know’).
*** publishing now, but a story I wrote six years ago after our annual winter trip to Lesotho – just ‘parking it’ for the archives! ***
The resort has taken another leap forward this year under PIN management since they got 51% share and with that, management control. Most noticeable was the parking, the roads and the walkways are neater and better paved. This makes getting around easier and safer. In an earlier year, Aitch once slipped on ice and got a big fright. The whole complex is tidy, too, where before material and equipment would be left lying around.
Much of the accommodation has been upgraded – notably the two big units which have been completely re-done and their outside staircases enclosed in glass (red arrows);
– two original triple-story accom units – the ‘PIN’ lodges –
Two completely new staff quarters have been built below the dams which frees up more accommodation next to the restaurant. I think its up to 240 beds. Up to 800 day visitors can arrive on a busy weekend day in school holidays!
The restaurant is terrific now. They have expanded to upstairs and down, take two sittings and were fully booked Sunday night. Professional chef, lovely grub.
– pisten bully –
Weather was two perfect days – midday saw ladies skiing in skimpy tops! One day was too windy for the skilift to run, so the slope people used the Pisten Bully to take people to the top instead. And three average days. With us was the Naude family Michelle and Craig and their three boys, and Tom’s mate Lungelo.
Not moving forward this year was the kids enthusiasm! Jess didn’t ski / snowboard at all – sore knee & wrist. Tom spent about half his snowboarding time doing other things, including sleeping! Three of the five boys who went with us were out on the slope early until they got kicked off when it closed – keen as mouseturd, like Jess & Tom used to be – so it was fun seeing their newby enthusiasm. Times change!
So come next January my two will have to convince me we should go – or we’ll hire out our week for the first time after eight years! Ons sal sien . . !
On 2014/06/23 Crispin Hemson – Pigeon Valley Patriarch and Monarch – wrote: Conditions in Pigeon Valley are very dry, giving great visibility into the undergrowth. We are suddenly seeing Buff-spotted Flufftails on the main track, or just next to it. Yesterday I saw two adults and a sub-adult. These are very unobtrusive birds, so do not expect rustling. I suspect that while in summer the undergrowth is dim and the main track bright, the Flufftails stay under cover. In winter the undergrowth is as bright as the area just outside it, so the pressure to stay there is less. Spotted Ground-Thrushes are also very visible, often just on the edge of the main track, digging into leaf litter that accumulates there. There are more than I originally thought – I saw them in four places up the track yesterday.
I wrote:
I have heard a thousand bufftails – particularly at Hella Hella where we weekend-ed monthly for ten to fifteen years, and on the Mkombaan river in Westville where we lived for fifteen years; and although I searched and stalked and lay in wait, and saw two dead ones – next-door-cat-got-it in River Drive, and flew-into-plate-glass at Hella Hella – a sighting has evaded me till now. One would hoot right outside my bedroom window, metres away, but I never caught a glimpse.
– I forget whose pic this is! –
Thanks to Pigeon Valley’s tireless champion, Crispin Hemson reporting on his birding regularly, I went on Sunday to Pigeon Valley and saw a spotted thrush at the entrance, and then that flufftail up at the fence line along King George V avenue. At last! Two seconds after forty years!
A male bird, who ducked into low dense thicket just outside the fence.
– another of Crispin’s pics –
This was a big bogey bird as far as a sighting goes! Must be close to forty years of thinking “soon I’ll see one”.
Can a pitta in my garden be far behind?
~~~oo0oo~~~
Here’s a Sheryl Halstead Spotted Ground Thrush pic
In Tsavo East we walked down a long underground tunnel from Elephant Hills Lodge on the hilltop in the first pic below, to the waterhole below the hill, where the tunnel ends in an iron-barred underground hide looking out at elephant feet and buffalo legs as they drink within pebble-tossing distance. Almost.
– bottom left is where the tunnel emerges –
In Tsavo West we climbed down into an old metal tank with glass portholes looking out into the crystal clear waters of Mzima Spring, where fish swim past and hippos can be seen looking like graceful ballerinas who have ‘let themselves go’ as they move daintily by, holding their breath. We watched and waited and held our breath, but not one of them farted while we were there.
down into the tankunderwater view of fish & hippos!There’s the underwater observation tank opposite
The spring bubbles out of the hillside volcanic rock, crystal clear and forming a sizeable stream.
– bubbling out of the volcanic rock: The start of a river –hippos in clear waterMzima springs– Mzima Springs –
1990 saw the completion of Inanda Dam on the Umgeni River. As always, a dam profoundly changes the river and the valley. Yet another river tamed to serve our insatiable thirst. Drown a valley to water lawns. It also changed the Dusi Canoe Marathon, inundating the Day Two sandbanks and creating a 10km flatwater haul to the new overnight stop at Msinsi Resort.
For old times sake I wanted to go down that section before it got flooded, so I took all my boats and borrowed a few more and invited a few non-paddling friends – my partners and optometry friends – to accompany me. For me a nostalgic trip, for most of them a first look at a section of the Dusi course.
We launched all the craft at a low level bridge and started laughing: They didn’t float, they just plopped onto the sand under a millimetre of water. Talk about LOW water! We dragged the boats the length of the dam-to-be to take out about where Msinsi campsite is now, hardly getting our shoelaces wet. About 6km, Sheila said.
– why the hell did I ever buy that Ford Sierra? – kak car –
For me a lovely walk in the river bed, for them, I suspect, a bit of a pointless mission – and certainly not the ‘paddle’ I had enticed them into! I think they enjoyed it anyway. They did enjoy teasing me! Mike & Yvonne Lello, Pete Stoute, Geoff Kay, sister Sheila. And then some tag-along kids who lived in the valley.
An idea of ‘Before & After’: (better pics needed!)
Dams destroy biodiversity. You lose a lot to waterski.
(In the official Duzi records I’m down as having done seven Duzis, I don’t know why. I suspect I entered seven, but I know I have only done four. Plus two other interesting ones that I was ‘involved with!’)
1972: I was obsessed with the Dusi Canoe Marathon and had been training for it. A lonely pursuit when you’re in the Free State and there’s no canoe club and few have even heard of such malligheid. Planning was more advanced that I’d remembered. here are my notes on things to do – written on about 30 November 1971! I even knew I must phone Ernie Pearce and ask ‘How does a Vrystater enter your race?’ This info would have been given to me by my Dusi mentor Charlie Ryder.
Then my boat got stolen in December, so come January I hitch-hiked to PMB with schoolmate Jean Roux to watch the start. We then bummed a ride with some paddler’s second, sleeping in the open on the riverbank at Dusi Bridge and Dip Tank.
I had been following the van Riet brothers’ winning streak closely, but that year a fella named Graeme Pope-Ellis teamed up with Eric Clarke to win his first Dusi on a full river.
222 paddlers each paid R3,60 to enter the race.
In Durban we walked from the Blue Lagoon finish to South Beach, where we spent the night on the sand. The next night the cops kicked us off the beach and we spent a night on the red polish stoep of the Point Road police station. Noisy! Rough!
– luxury camping at Blue Lagoon – Louis’ VW – my pup tent –
1976: Louis van Reenen up in Joburg asked me ‘What’s that?’ when I had my Limfy in JHB. He said ‘I wanna do that!’ and bought a boat from Neville Truran in Kensington. He later drove down from JHB with his red Hai on his blue VW’s roofrack. We tossed a coin, he won, I left my white Limfy in Harrismith, and I drove his car in the mud, while he paddled his brand-new red Hai closed-cockpit white water boat, and often swam next to it! First time he’d ever been on a river and the Dusi welcomed him at its highest level ever for a race! Emmerentia Dam had been his only training ground. He swam miles and drank gallons of the river in the flood-level Dusi and Umgeni! But he was one tough character and he finished! Graeme Pope-Ellis and Peter Peacock won – their second win as a team, Pope’s fifth, equaling Gordie Rowe and Harry Fisher’s five wins..
1983:
I finally get into a new Limfy and do the race. I’m one of 1020 paddlers – the first time that the entry had broken through the 1000 barrier. I’m in a black Kingfisher Canoe Club T-shirt paddling a red and white Limfy from Gordie Rowe and Rick Whitton. Gordie made my boat “light but strong” – in-joke! On the water at the start I spot Louis – he’s back for more! His second Dusi, my first. A very low river. Louis swam his first; he was about to run his second. Sister Sheila and the ole man took me to the start.
— Mainstay cane spirits took over as the title sponsor. Pope-Ellis and Cornish beat the Biggs brothers to give “The Pope” his tenth win –— Is the Pope a Canoeist?!
– my rapid skills on display –
1984:
This time Greg Bennett’s brother Roland seconds us and we live in the lap of luxury the first night: Cold beer and hot food at Dusi Bridge. Then he loses focus. Then we look after ourselves.
For the first time paddlers were allowed to go home to their Mommies overnight. We thought that was a terrible development, so tried to drink for those who weren’t there. Apparently a new rule made paddling round Burma Road compulsory that year. A low river.
1985:
– Dusi start 1985 –
Sheila seconds me. In theory. I’m in a white Sabre, which reminds me how Arthur ‘Toekoe’ Egerton called his Sabre ‘Excalibur’ – “King Arthur,” see?
I pitch the tent after finding Sheila in the beer tent, I cook the food and I pack the car! If she was ‘seconding’ me, I spose I was ‘firsting’ her? As always with Sheila though, she made it lots of fun and I met more people than I would have!
Pope-Ellis was beaten by John Edmonds on a low river. Women were allowed to race in K1’s for the first time – as long as they were accompanied by a male paddler! Marlene Boshoff was the first woman to finish the race in a single, accompanied by Martin Lowenstein, beating her twin sister Jenny Bentel.
1987:
Hansa sponsored 1987, bringing bigger media exposure and the entry numbers picked up again. Pope-Ellis broke the K1 record by beating John Edmonds to claim his 13th title. In a monstrous injustice and swindle we are not met by bikini-clad Hansa girls as we finish – that perk only came later! I paddled a white Sella.
A thought: All four my Dusis were booze-sponsored! *hic*
The official records show me having completed seven Dusis but I have only done four, and nogschlepped on two. The three phantom ones I probably paid and entered, meaning to do them, but life got in the way. Probably 1986, 1988 (getting married probably interfered!), and 1989.
In my mind I imagine the NCC / Dusi heavies asking, ‘Did we lose Swanie under a rock?’ ‘Nah, he probably finished. Mark him down as finished, then we don’t have to go looking for him.’
NB – Very important update 2025 – before visiting any of these areas, check about the safety of the area and the availability of amenities beforehand.
Just back from a Five Days, Five Forests birding trip to Zululand: Nkandla, Entumeni, Dlinza and Ngoye Forests. These are mistbelt or scarp or afromontane forests; and the fifth forest was St Lucia coastal forest. (2013)
My highlight was Ngoye, about which I’ve heard so much over the years. Especially after Aitch went without me: “Have you been to Ngoye Koos? Oh, no, I remember, you haven’t. So you haven’t seen the Woodwards Barbet then? I HAVE!” Only about a hundred times, she rubbed it in!
COMFORT This trip was just me and a great guide. Sakhamuzi was lovely quiet company. Nights at the B&Bs and the Birders’ Cottage we cooked up a red meat storm, washed it all down with frosties and early to bed. On walks I took my binocs, telescope, rucksack and we each carried a deckchair. Mostly we simply found great spots like forest edges or a good tree and parked. Sakhamuzi said (well, he would, wouldn’t he?) that he enjoyed sitting still. He said mostly birders want to rush from one spot to the next, talking all the time! I said he should get deckchairs and specialise in khehlas and gogos. ‘Charge a premium, carry a hebcooler and you’ll make your fortune, young man,’ was my advice to him! Find a fruiting tree, and let the birds flutter to your doddery customers.
I took plenty snacks and drinks in my rucksack, so the waiting was comfy, luxurious and munchy. Next time I’ll take some poncho or dark sheet to break the human outline – see if that fools the voëls.
We stayed two nights in the Birders Cottage in Ngoye. Perfect for getting up before five every morning and getting straight into the forest at first light. Saw and heard lots of birds which I’d seen before but had written BVD next to them (“better view desired”) and one great lifer. Yes, Aitch-In-The-Clouds, I did the see the barbet, so I laid that bogey-bird to rest!
– thanks ebird.org –
The Green BarbetStactolaema olivacea used to be called Woodward’s Barbet – our sub-species is Stactolaema olivaceawoodwardi. This beautiful 1897 illustration of a pair of Woodward’s barbets, by J.G. Keulemans
Also a special in the forest is the oNgoye red squirrel, Paraxerus palliatus ornatus and I can’t remember if we saw him! I’ll have to go back! Illustration by Joseph Wolf, Zoological Society of London 1864.
WHEELS Craig Naude’s magic silver and blue Mitsubishi Colt 4X4 V6 3000 was superb. That’s it above left in the grasslands above the forest – one of the few pictures I took! I needed first gear low ratio in places in the forest where the rutted tracks changed to slippery clay, and steep drops into stream beds meant equally steep climbs out of them, starting at snail’s pace. Boy heaven.
COASTAL FOREST At St Lucia we also got into the forest at dawn, then walked on to the mouth of the estuary by 6.30am at low tide. Waders and terns remain confusing to me, and the sooty tern Sakhamuzi hoped to spot had trekked back to Mozambique. Pity, as it’s one of the easier ones to ID. Oh, well, as the baby tern said to the mother tern: Can I have a baby brother? Certainly, said the mother tern: ‘One good tern deserves another.’
– St Lucia estuary with a grey heron in the surf – my poor pic! –
On the way back we spotted a dwarf chameleon, which I now know was probably the endangered Setaro’s Dwarf Chameleon. No picture! Then we sat in the forest in comfort again and a Green Malkoha (old green coucal) obligingly flew into a tree and leisurely displayed his banana beak in full sunlight. No picture! I’d seen one in Malawi this was a first for Southern Africa.
– thanks Johann vd Berg on stellenboschbirds.org – beaut pic!! –
Driving back to the B&B a Lemon Dove (old cinnamon dove) sat on a track at the side of the road for so long we eventually drove off! First time I’ve ever done that. Usually you just glimpse them flying off at speed. Another early night after red meat and beer was enjoyed.
What a great break – the first real birding since before Aitch and I became child-infested. I’d forgotten what early mornings without scarecrows was like! We spent 32 days on our trip up to Malawi when the kids were 5 and 1 and only saw one bird, and that was a Zambian nkuku whose cousin was deliciously on our plates at a shisanyama at the roadside in Livingstone. I exaggerate. Slightly.
~~oo0oo~~
Bruce Soutar wrote: Pete – eye think this is a compliment – from Rooooth Garland: Please tell Piet I LOVE his stories and want to see more . . . He makes me smile, even though he’s a drunkard and no good at flying. Does he have a blogspot I can sign up for? XxPS: Sakumuzi is a huge Twinstreams fan . . . Lovely man. Ruth Garland – Sydney Australia
Ruth’s Dad was the legendary Ian Garland, whose exploits at Twinstreams in Zululand did heaps to save, propagate and teach about indigenous plants. Ruth’s exploits at Mbona in a low-flying kombi were a different chapter, which also did heaps to save and teach, but not propagate. And she’s the drunkard.
~~oo0oo~~
khehlas and gogos – Old men and Old ladies
gugile – ancient, as in buggered; decrepit; you know; don’t pretend you don’t know
voëls – birds
nkuku – chicken
shisanyama – red meat on red hot coals restaurant; not teetotal joints; licenced to sell alcohol, ‘Which’ – as famous birder Ian Sinclair said with a grin – ‘I’m licenced to drink’
~~oo0oo~~
My Bird List in Nkandla Forest:Lemon Dove; Dusky Flycatcher; Blue-Mantled Flycatcher;Knysna Turaco; Red-eyed Dove; Redbilled Wood-Hoopoe; Greater Double-collared Sunbird; Grey Cuckoo Shrike; Rameron Pigeon; Black-headed Oriole; Cape Batis; Black Saw-wing; HEARD: Dark-backed Weaver; Emerald Cuckoo; Chinspot Batis;
My Bird List in Entumeni Forest:Narina Trogon; Cape Batis; Olive Sunbird; Terrestrial Brownbul
My Bird list St Lucia and in St Lucia coastal forest: Woodwards Batis; Rudd’s Apalis; Yellow-bellied Greenbul; Green Malkoha – LIFER in South Africa for me – full sunlight saturation view; Grey Sunbird; Livingstone’s Turaco; Burchell’s Coucal; Whimbrel; Osprey; Grey Heron; Fish Eagle; Spoonbill; Yellow Weaver; Green Pigeon; Speckled Mousebird; Swift Tern; Black-winged Stilt; Avocet; YB Stork; Pink-backed Pelican; Little Tern; Three-banded Plover; Blue-cheeked Bee-eater;Lemon Dove – saturation close-up; Crested Guineafowl; Pied Wagtail; Cape Wagtail; Goliath Heron; Great White Egret; Little Egret; Thickbilled Weaver; White-breasted Cormorant; Palm Swift; Brown-throated Martin; Black or Common Swift; Chorister Robin-chat; Crowned Hornbill;
My Bird list in Ngoye Forest:Green Barbet – LIFER for me (yes, I know, Aitch); Yellow-streaked Greenbul; Tambourine Dove; Delegorgue’s Pigeon; Crowned Hornbill; Olive Woodpecker; GT Woodpecker; Orange-breasted Bush Shrike; Mountain Wagtail; Red-eyed Dove; Hadeda Ibis; Narina Trogon; HEARD: Wood Owl; Diederik Cuckoo;
Other creatures on the trip: Samango monkey; Red Squirrel; Thick-tailed Bushbaby (heard at night); Rainbow Skink; Banded Forester Butterfly;
Tom’s headmaster committed suicide. At the school. He was found by a caretaker. It has rattled my two profoundly.
Aitch had befriended Eugene when his wife was also suffering from cancer, and then more so when she died, about two years before Aitch died. They were in a home bible study class with the Methodist dominee Ian Howarth.
Tom & Jess both asked me “What would happen if you died, Dad?” and Jess asked me “Dad, would you ever commit suicide?”
Shit! shitshitshit!
I have told them how much I love them and all about what I have arranged for the house and live-in care and so on, and also re-assured them no way I would do myself in. We had some good chats.
What a bliksem. Eugene was a more mature man than many of the teachers at Tom’s school, and a steadying hand. I fear Tom will catch more flak at school for a while.
While we’re packing for a camping trip to Mkhuze the vervet monkeys sneak into the kitchen and grab the fresh peanuts. The peanuts grown by Thulisiwe just north of Jozini on the Makathini Flats, which she then roasts over an open fire and salts herself. Tobias brings us some whenever he goes home.
Tom spots them on the roof, spilling the nuts as they chomp them, the spilt ones rolling down the tiles into the gutter. Hey! he shouts and remonstrates and fulminates! Tom and the monkeys don’t have a good relationship despite all my lectures (um, whaddaya mean because of?).
After a while I tell him, Relax m’boy, its OK for the monkeys to have the nuts. We left them in the open, their job is to glean and gather, so that’s that.
But he doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t like them. I think it’s because he’s a bit scared of them, so I ask him:
TomTom, how big do you think the monkeys are, fella? How much do they weigh?
About 90kg, he guesses. Guess again. First, how much do you weigh?
45kg And the monkeys?
15kg?
I tried. Well, I made a less-than-worthy attempt. My heart wasn’t in the training. I thought, if you live on the route, you gotta have a go. If you live in KwaZulu, you’ll always be asked, Have You Done It? But I could never quite see the glamour or ‘worthiness’ of shuffling furtively round the dark streets long before sunrise. Anyway I thought, Give It A Go. I even tried the flaming hot running shorts Phil Greenberg gave me in the hopes I’d speed up a bit.
Running broeks Phil Greenberg gave me in my crazy running daze
I joined a club – maybe that’s where I went wrong? I joined Westville with their red & white hoops ‘caterpillar’ outfit whereas historically I was more suited to be a black-&-white Savage with a Zulu shield, knobkierie and spear on my chest. Years before, I had been a Savage. Running Number 451, so maybe I should have stuck to that? Westville gave me number 159738b or something – I don’t think they valued me like Savages did. That probably put me off my stride a bit.
Anyway, I shuffled and I shuffled and I ran a lot of races. 10km, 15km, half marathons and two 42km marathons.
Here’s an example of a ‘short’ training run in windy, hilly Westville, starting at our home. We took turns hosting our short runs at our homes, with tea n cake served afterwards. This is the run I worked out for the training team:
Walk up River Drive
R into Elvira
R into Rockdale across highway bridge
R Severn – down
L Mersey
L Rockdale – UP for 500m !!
Back all along Rockdale
R Tweed – Done 4km at this point
L Thames – down
R Conway – down
L Constance Cawston – UP & UP
L Somerset – UP & UP (becomes Frank)
L Cochrane (becomes Cleveland – UP) – 6,5km
L Rockdale
R Rockdale (that’s right, Rockdale again !)
R Broadway – UP
L Neville – 8,6km
L Westbrook – down, then UP
L Harrison – UP
L Springvale
R Lawrence
R River – 11,5km
Then eventually the big day arrived and I hadn’t arranged anything so I took myself off to Maritzburg to my folks. Early the next morning my Mom dropped me off at the start – long before sunrise. More dark streets – but now with crowds of lunatics milling around the red brick city hall.
Some guy crowed like a rooster and a gun went off in the dark and nothing happened. Minutes later still nothing had happened. The chatter of the would-be runners had changed to an excited murmur but nothing else had changed. Eventually we started shuffling at a slow walk, then a very slow pace, slower even than my training pace, and some long time later we crossed the START line. The START line! I was tired already! I think I was in Batch ZZZZ.
That’s when I started thinking fu-uck! and I’m afraid that thought didn’t really leave me all day. I knew my pace was slow by the people around me: None of the runners looked like young skinny blonde Wits students, nor like Russians – and if they did look African they looked larger and rounder than me. Also, the few spectators about weren’t saying ‘Well Done!’ or ‘Go! Guys!‘ NO, Instead they were saying Move Along! in a rather critical, nagging tone of voice, I thought, Why’s no-one saying, ‘You’re looking good!? Weird that.
This was confirmed when I passed under a banner that said ‘HALFWAY’ – Half way meant I only had 3km (Plus a Marathon) to go. Springbok rugby captain Wynand Claassen recklessly shot off a gun which left gunpowder residue on my scarlet Westville Running Club shorts. Well, if that wasn’t a pointed ‘Move Your Arse’ hint! Who the hell did he think he was? He had run the race but he’d never won the race, his father had.
En route I caught up with a few long-lost friends: Jacques-Herman du Plessis from Harrismith days; Rheinie Fritsch from army days. Also Aitch and 5yr-old Jessie and 1yr-old Tommy met me in Botha’s Hill for a family reunion. They were all a bit cool though, a bit offish, I thought: Because after a while of enjoying standing and chatting to them, they all said, ‘Haven’t you got something to do today?‘ and sent me on my way. Bugger off, Koos! they said.
So I shuffled and I shuffled and then my spirits rose at a sudden thought! I started to think maybe there had been a collective coming to their senses, as there were no other runners around nor any spectators. Maybe I had got the wrong day? Or maybe everyone had just gone home to a hot bath and a cold beer?
But no, the spectators returned in Westville. Trouble is, they were all packing up their deckchairs. And so the slow torture continued. Shuffle, shuffle. Suddenly a few cops jumped in front of me holding reflective tape as I shuffled under the N3 below 45th Cutting, just before the onramp (usually an offramp) onto the Berea Road section of the N3 into town.
Go Home, they said, We need this road for tomorrow’s traffic. You’ve had eleven hours, they said, and you’ve only done 82km. Where have you BEEN?
So I went home to a hot bath and a cold beer. Look, about this heading: Actually, you can call me Comrade, I’d love that, but only in a liberation sense, not in a shuffling sense. Who knew they only give you a medal for the last 7km? The first 82km are completely ignored!
Maybe next time, to speed me up I’ll shave my legs?
~~oo0oo~~
So now I’m also guilty of this: “How do you know if someone has run a marathon?”
“They’ll tell you.”
~~oo0oo~~
The guys in my pics are Dave Williams, Kingfisher and Savages mate; and Dave Lowe, Westville runner; Both have done OVER FORTY Comrades – 41 and 42 respectively to be precise. That is Seriously Certifiable! I told Dave ‘Jesus’ (when he had a beard) ‘John Cleese’ (when he shaved) Williams just the other night at Ernie’s wake “You know you can stop now, right?” and he said No, I failed to finish last year for the first time ever, so this year I have to repeat my 42nd Comrades. Bleedin’ ‘ell!
