What a lovely braai we had at Umvoti Villa today. I was so chuffed Jess came along – with friend Jordi. Linda and Dawie hosted us and Sarah and Rob joined. Mom and Dad were there, and sister Barbara.
Umvoti Villa
Plus flocks of kids: Emma, Matthew, Mary-Kate and Dawie. What a great bunch, they had a really good day, much laughter and scampering, feeding horses, riding on a quad bike, driving Sheila’s car, playing golf and eating.
We had a delicious meal and lots of catch-up.
Matt, Katie, then Emm
Dawie and Klein Dawie; Blaze also
Jess and Jordi loved being with the little ones – and I didn’t get any pics of them – nor of any of the other adults! Oh, well, here’s one of Jess before we left:
I know it may seem boring and Tom definitely voices that opinion strongly but we went to Hluhluwe again – and he came along, a rare event nowadays. What swung him was the restaurant food. We debated as a family and decided to stay in the cheaper rondawels, but to eat at the buffet. Tom also slept in both mornings as we went on our 6am game drives, so all-in-all he quite enjoyed the chilled vibe and the grub.
Leaving home was interesting. We left at 5am . .

Westville dawn
. . and then again at 8am with a changed tyre plus a repaired spare. It’s a tedious story.
In Hluhluwe we saw the usual stuff – plus these:

Acontias plumbeus
As I spotted the first one crossing the road I thought Bibron’s Blind Snake! Not for any good reason, but it was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve always wanted to see a Blind Snake. Then I thought beaked snake, snouted snake, some underground snake! What were they? I’ve asked Nick Evans, maybe he’ll enlighten me. Length: About from my wrist to my elbow. Say 300-350mm.
Back at the camp the buffet was a big hit. The only gripe Tom had was, “Dad, they’re playing Tobias’ music in the dining room!” Yeah, Tom, I’m relieved they’re not playing gangsta rap! After breakfast one morning we went outside where a huge round auntie and a huger rounder uncle filled a couple of deckchairs. As we gazed over the hills we heard them: She: Are you hungry? He: Not really; maybe peckish; She: Yeah, let’s get breakfast; and they heaved their huge bodies out of the deckchairs and waddled in. Hey, the breakfast was good! Full cooked brekker chased with muffins, scones, jam, toast and loads of good coffee.
~~oo0oo~~
Nick has replied at last: They’re not snakes at all! They are Giant Legless Skinks, Acontias plumbeus – family Scincidae. So we had a SkinkyDay, not a snaky day. Up to 450mm long, they eat worms, crickets and sometimes frogs. They bear live young and can have up to fourteen at a time. Skinks, of course are completely harmless to humans. The lighter one looks like it did the lizard trick of dropping its tail and regrowing a new one.
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Big creatures we saw elephant, buffalo, five white rhino, one croc, one lion, and kept looking for more as the kids were keen. Suited me, as there are always birds to see.
We also saw about eight slender mongoose, one little band of banded mongoose, two leguaans (water monitor lizards), a number of mice at the sides of the road (after grass seed?), samango and vervet monkeys, red duiker, bushbuck, nyala, impala, kudu, zebra, including one that had lots of brown who would have been wanted by the Quagga Project.


My best bird sighting was a falcon skimming low in front of us heading towards a line of trees along a stream, then shooting up and over some bushes to ambush a dove. It pursued it helter-skelter but then another falcon seemed to interfere and the dove managed to get away. Just then Jess piped up: “Gee! You certainly get excited about birds!” I hadn’t realised I’d been shouting. Hmph! I said, That was better than any attempted lion kill!
~~oo0oo~~
Here’s Nick Evans‘ pic of a Bibron’s Blind Snake – quite different:

2013/12/27 Meals: We usually have a vegetarian meal a week. If I have my way its phutu, mfino and speckled beans. Wonderful stuff. The kids love it, but feel obliged to rev me throughout “WHAT!? No meat!? Are we too poor, Dad? This is dodge, Dad! Kinda homeless, Dad!”
Ja Ja! Eat up, I say.
Little shits.
This xmas I picked Tobias’ cabbage and spinach fresh from the garden, boiled it with onions, then drained and added olive oil and simmered with garlic, salt and barbecue spices. Big knobs of butter when served.
They gobbled it up after the usual wrinkle-nosed high-pitched HMMMM!? Tom reserves for anything “dodge”. Sometimes I’ll add potato for a sort-of bubble n squeak.
I have to add the occasional green just in case Aitch does peek down from the clouds. Wouldn’t want to get into trouble . . .
~~oo0oo~~
puthu – dry mealie meal (maize or corn) porridge;
mfino – isiZulu for spinach or other dark green leaves; in the Free State growing up we called it meroho, seSotho for ‘vegetable’;
I’ve left the kids alone at home, so when the ladies at work say, “He says it’s urgent!” I take it.
It’s Tom.
Dad! We need to get a lamb roast and rosemary and garlic and small-cut vegetables to roast. It’s a slow roast and we don’t have any rice or lamb stock in the pantry!
OK Tom, we’ll go straight to the shops when I get home.
My 12yr-old has been watching a cooking show on the box.
~~oo0oo~~
Terry wrote:
Oh that is super funny!! Alone as in NO adults at all?
Me:
None. Cecelia on leave. Tobias is only Mon Wed Thurs.
So far they have been boringly safe and haven’t set anything on fire. It’ll come . . .
Under a previous regime I’d have been in trouble . .
As I would have been for Tom losing lots of skin and getting a huge heat rash when he fished topless all day the first day at Happy Wanderers. Aitch put more sunblock on them in a week than I have in 2,5 years.
Terry:
Hey its not cool to be too black, I hear!! Loads of sunscreen or she will haunt you!!
Me:
We’re all so aware of that, but remembering to do it . . .
Tito Mboweni’s son got picked up by the cops for being too black! I imagine that happens all the time. We’re very aware of that, too!
Kids are watching old Bill Cosby DVD’s (over & over until they know all the words OBH!)
Quite striking how they have chosen all the actors in it to be light-skinned – some to the point of whiteness! Bill himself is by far the darkest of the “Huxtable family”!
The funny thing is I “met” Bill Cosby in 1969 when an exchange student from upstate New York came to Harrismith. He brought a vinyl LP with him:
Here I am 45yrs later listening to my kids listening to Cosby.
Terry:
And my kids and I always said Bill Cosby was just a dark Pete Swanepoel 😀
~~oo0oo~~
2018:
This was 2014. Now all our Cosby stuff has been destroyed before discarding it. Sad, but he’s history in our books
We stopped in at the Hluhluwe Spar to buy provisions on our way further north to camp in Mkhuze. Busy, crowded, more bulk items than city Spars. We gather our stuff and pay at the till.
As we cross the road to the bakkie, Tom looks up at me, lugging his Spar plastic bags: “You realise you were the only peach in there, Dad?” he asks. “People were thinking ‘What’s that umLungu doing in here?’ he says.
Actually, I think they were wondering why that umLungu takes so much cheek from that umfana.
~~~oo0oo~~~
umLungu – dignified older person
umfana – precocious, insolent, shorter, younger person
Here’s that stunning hawk moth on my coffee flask again: StopPress! I now know its a Sundowner Moth, likely Sphingomorpha chlorea, thanks to Christeen Grant’s lovely blog.
Saw twelve animal species (specials were banded mongooses and painted dogs) and 65 birds, but very few pics of those as I had scarecrows with me! Instead we have a TomTom selfie! – or rather ‘ussie’ . .
Jess saw fairies in Jayne Janetsky’s Gauteng country garden way back around 2005. Jayne had little fairies and fairy lights among the fascinating boulders hidden in an indigenous forest copse. Also hanging from the branches and around the pond. Jess has always remembered them and still refers to them from time to time, years later. So it was a lovely surprise to get this email from Jayne – now living in Mocambique:
2017/05/26, Jayne Janetzky wrote: Thought Jess may like to look through a book I wrote for grandson Tyler – it’s about the faeries she remembers.
Talented daughter-in-law Ansobel did the illustrations!
Wonderful! I replied. And the best part of all – It’s ALL TRUE! I was there, I saw it! The great big rocks, the pond, the fairies themselves! The lights! Jess will love it.
I found an aerial view of Jayne’s cottage and its magical garden.
Here I arrowed the cottage with the (really, genuinely) magic adult veranda where liquid flowed and wondrous meals were served. The popping of champagne corks was an everyday sound here – now that is truly magical!
Also 1. The flat rocks which made such an interesting feature in the front garden; 2. The magical forest with a trail through it past high boulders and a pond, every nook and cranny with fairies and fairy lights and candles! Jaynee knows how to do theatre!
Adults who do things that kids never forget are magic adults.
This morning on my stoep there was a bewilderbeast migration across the plains. In miniature.
As time passed they grew in numbers. They trudged across the barren surface seeking water and new grazing. I decided to follow the migration.
Soon they found grazing and drink in the form of dog food and spilt cooldrink, Sambucca and my teenagers being their generous suppliers.
I flew low over the cooldrink waterhole.
In these waterholes lurk mini-crocodiles, ready to pounce and have them some mini-wildebeast beef. Probably. I’m guessing.
Maybe I should set up a webcam?
~~oo0oo~~
stoep – veranda; patio; porch
Sambucca – fierce guard-Labrador; part greyhound for a brief minute once a day when I get home; Here seen on her way to the gallows (or a hairbrush and de-ticking)
Yes, said TomTom, he’d join us! YAY! So we head back to Tembe Ele Park after nine years.
It rained and the sun shone and we had grey skies and then it rained hard. We ate well, drank a bit, got wet and had a lot of fun. Jess had a little wobbly when this tusker approached the vehicle, but he was chilled and just ambled past us.
There was no wifi, but Tom simply set up my phone as a hotspot and ate my data, his problem solved.
Between 28 and 30 September 1987, the central and southern part of Natal were ravaged by floods that were amongst the most devastating to have occurred in South Africa. The main cause was an intense “cut-off” low pressure system off-shore which co-incided with a Spring high tide. Destruction of property was catastrophic, nearly 400 people died and about 50 000 were left homeless. Damage to agriculture, communications, infrastructure and property amounted to R400 million (report: De Villiers et al, 1994).
The Mgeni and Mvoti rivers had flood duration periods of up to 24 hours and this caused dramatic erosion. In the Mgeni the island near the mouth was totally removed and scour of generally about 2m took place. In the Mvoti the river channel, normally 35m, widened to about 900m. Large quantities of sediment were deposited over the flood plain. Many bridges were washed away. The greatest disruption to humans was caused by the destruction of the Mdloti and Tugela river bridges on the N2 highway (report: Badenhorst et al. 1989).
Flying ants! An alate emergence as we toffs call it. Whattapleasure.
The birds and frogs went crazy. A golden mole must have got carried away too as we found him swimming in the pool this morning, poor fella. Jessie scooped him out and he was soon burrowing his way under the grass.
Hottentot golden moles eat worms, insect larvae, crickets, snails, slugs, and spiders. The moist environment and dew provide them with the amount of water that is needed. They’re cute, without the huge teeth of mole rats:
Top pic shows how a few of the new infrequent fliers found their way in to Jessie’s bath water!
So I’m watching Lungelo eat his pasta at Lupa restaurant. He’s battling and I’m debating whether I should help. He changes hands and wrestles with the knife and fork. Our waitron spots it and glides up discreetly and hands him a spoon, at which Tommy notices and roars with laughter, whips out his camera and videos Lungelo’s struggle while gleefully commenting that his mate is “having a nigger moment” battling to eat white man’s food.
Talk about discreet! Not!
Lil bastid. No doubt he’ll share the video with all their social media mates.
Tom then showed Lungelo how to wrangle pasta, just as Rita his Italian mentor had taught him. Luckily Lungelo has broad shoulders, knows Tom well, and – – – was chosen for SA schools 7’s rugby! That’ll boost anyone’s self-confidence, so he knows he’s good.
It’s our annual Mom’s Birthday Night Out. Sixth of January. Six cream sodas, a huge main course and dessert later they’re groaning and the stories are dwindling.
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As usual they ordered too much, so needed doggy bags. Lots of posing as we walked home. Dad! Take a pic. Take another one! Wait, let’s do this. Let’s do that. Jeeeesh!
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This is terrible parenting. I took Jess and friend to the same restaurant the next night for Mom’s Bday night treat and because they behaved I didn’t get a single picture!!
Their big breakout was they decided they wouldn’t have cooldrink, thanks, they’re young ladies now. They’d have a cocktail. Ordered ‘chocolate martinis’ – !!?
Yuck.
They barely finished them. ‘The chocolate tasted funny’ – Hello-o!?
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.
~~oo0oo~~
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:
On the way back from Afriski one year (I think 2012) we drove through Harrismith instead of our usual route down Oliviershoek Pass. Stopping to refuel at the Engen Tom and his mate (Josh, I think) said “Dad. we’re really thirsty, can we have a cooldrink?” Sure, I said and gave the the only cash I had: A R200 note.
When they returned they hopped in and off we went. Later I remembered and asked Where’s my change, m’boy?
“Um, there’s no change Dad”. No change!? “No, in fact, we had to pay in”. Let me see the slip, I asked.
Here’s their “cooldrink”:
At least they willingly shared their loot with Jess and me!
Having decided “We’re Going” we wanted to keep things simple.
Over-preparation can cause delays, complications and second thoughts! I took long leave (I asked me, I said yes, I hired a locum optometrist, all good). Trish was between jobs – looking after kids was her current full-timer – so she was good to go. Mario serviced the kombi for us – so its 197 000km service -and gave me his usual lecture about looking after it. He told horrific stories about his trips up north in 4X4’s and how terrible the roads were. Especially the road between Chipata and Luangwa, ‘the worst road in Africa.’ I made a mental note.
And instead of buying all sorts of stuff I bought a . . .
– Bushman trailer annotated – Don’ worry, we loved it! –– the boesman’s main feature unfolded – the 3-table kitchen at the back –
R27 500 cash. Made in Nelspruit / Mbombela eight years earlier. It had a stove, a gas bottle, a tent, a mattress, a table, ground sheets, cutlery and crockery, a spice rack and a 45l water tank. What more could you possibly need?
In the kombi I removed the bench seat in the middle row and fitted the single seat for Tommy’s car seat next to the new National Luna 65l fridge (about R6500, if I recall correctly) so we could walk around both sides to the back bench, to which Jessie’s sturdy and comfy car seat was attached.
That back bench seat also folded down to become a double bed, so we could all sleep in the kombi if need be, as I also rigged a removable bed between the two front seats for Jess and for Tom we had a mattress on the floor. While checking the tyres Jacks Tyres showed me a second-hand kombi mag wheel just like mine, so I bought it. Now we had two spares, like rugged okes!
For each of the kids I had a rectangular six-sided mosquito net “cage” made that zipped closed over them once they were in bed and we then lifted up the four corner straps and hooked them to fittings I had affixed to the kombi ceiling, completely enclosing them each in a mozzie net “Four Poster Bed”.
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 each night.
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
~~~oo0oo~~~
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.
~~oo0oo~~
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.
~~~oo0oo~~~
(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)
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