We shared a meal in Vwaza Marsh National Park, Malawi. On the way there we delayed stocking up with food, thinking surely the next market will be better, but each town was the same: A big market square with lots of stalls, but only a few occupied, and those only offering a few oranges and sweet potatoes, arranged in neat little pyramids. Eventually we arrive in camp not having bought anything. We resolve to fast that night, and go back to Rumphi for some oranges and sweet potatoes before moving on to Nyika Plateau.
– shower on the boil and a plate of hot food – shower top right –
The Vwaza game guard comes over to hear if we want to shower and when we’ll be eating. He will light a fire for us. On hearing we won’t be eating, he brings his own sadsa/phuthu/maize porridge on a tin plate! We have a vacuum-sealed sausage of salami, so we add that and share the meal. Everybody wins! He heats the shower just right and carries it up the ladder and pours it into the bucket with a tap on it so we have a hot shower. Luxury! I spoilt that woman!
In the Comores we shared a meal We delivered a book on Bruce Lee martial arts to well-known Comoran beach guide “Bruce Lee” in the Comores Big island (a gift from a previous guest who heard we were going there). He was thrilled to bits, as he’s a huge Bruce Lee fan, and invited us for supper at his humble palm-frond thatched home in the nearby village where his wife cooked for us. A number of plates with porridge, various veges, and one plate with four tiny fishes – which they put on our plates. We say we must share them, but “No. You are our guests!” they insist. Ai!
– Comores Bruce Lee shares with us –
In Jozini, Zululand we shared a meal
Whenever I visit Tobias and Thulisiwe’s home on the Makhatini Flats, they treat me to a lovely meal. This time it was curried chicken and phuthu. As always, Thulisiwe gave me a bag of her home-grown roasted and salted peanuts to take home; plus, she gives us each a large leg of her home-grown chicken to nibble on the way. Padkos!
One day we’ll get roast goat, I hope. We go there when Tobias has accumulated enough stuff in Westville to rent a trailer and ship it home to his umuzi.
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.
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;
As a schoolboy I was keen on kayaking and was tickled by a cartoon depicting a kayak on dry land trailing a dust plume with the caption Kalahari Canoe Club! I kept that on my wall for years. Kayak’ing in the desert was just a joke, right!?
In January 2010 we got to the Kalahari to hear the Nhabe River was flowing strongly into Lake Ngami and Aitch’s twin sis Janet and boyfriend Duncan had organised us kayaks! Hey! Maybe you really could kayak the Kalahari!
A reconnaissance trip from Maun to the area with GPS found us a put-in place somewhere before Toteng we turned off on a dirt road, then turned off that into the veld. We got to the riverbank and found where we could launch. No easy task finding it, as this Kalahari “desert” was knee-deep and chest-deep in green grass after the good rains. The magical Green Kalahari!
We returned the next day with two vehicles, four yellow plastic expedition kayaks, hats and lunch. On the way a bird party was enjoying their lunch early. Breakfast really.
– on the way – bee-eaters, starlings, storks and wahlbergs eagles all after tasty emerging “flying ants” –
Following our tracks in the long grass, we got to the put-in and set off on the beautiful river, flowing nicely between overhanging trees. It was my idea of Paradise! Green green everywhere, with plants, flowers, grasses and birds all putting on a spectacular show.
Almost everything was green – even the insects.
Five Giant Eagle Owls weren’t green They peered down at us blinking their pink eyelids from one thorn tree – that was a special sighting! Fledged youngsters and parents probably.
Also special was a big green snake, I guessed over 2m long that came towards me on the bank as I drifted towards it. (At this point I skat we should remember that snake sizes never shrink in the telling). I was amazed it kept coming. Usually snakes will depart in haste when spying a human. I was no longer paddling but my momentum was still coasting me towards the bank. Even when my kayak’s prow beached, the snake still kept coming straight towards me up to about a metre away. Then it did a strange thing: it grabbed a small green shrub – just 10cm high – in its mouth and only then did it beat a hasty retreat.
Was it a Kalahari Vegetarian Viper? A Nhabe Spinach Nibbler? I was thinking ‘What On Earth?’ till I heard a loud hiss and saw the big flap-necked chameleon he had caught (together with some leaves) in his mouth. Focused on the slang, I had missed seeing a chameleon in that tiny green shrub! Looking up in my snake book afterwards, I’d guess he was an Angolan Green Snake.
Another memorable sight was rounding a bend and seeing four cows drinking: One all-black, one all-brown, one all-white and one all-tan. All uniform, none with a splash of a different colour on their coats. They looked so striking against the lush new green backdrop that we remembered the camera too late – we had drifted past in the current and by the time we paddled back against the current three of them had dispersed. Here’s the white one:
Lunchtime we sat in light semi-shade on the bank, using our kayaks as seats. I remember hardboiled eggs and very tasty sarmies, thanks Janet!
The girls then turned back as the paddling would be much slower against the current while Duncan and I headed on, determined to get into Lake Ngami.
And we did. How spectacular! The trees fell back and the sky opened up and huge reed beds stretched in every direction. Fish eagles cried, ducks scattered before us and herons and cormorants and waders were all over the place. At first we were still in a channel, but after another kilometre or so we could branch into other channels and lagoons out of the main current. We felt like David Livingstone in 1849. Sort of. Just better. Even though we had fewer bearers and porters and guides n so on.
Way too soon we had to turn back to get back upstream to the girls and the vehicles. Big difference paddling against the current.
Guy Upfold got a shot of cattle wading in Lake Ngami as it was filling up after rains. I use this to show what it looked like when we got out of the river into the lake. He’s a bird photographer, so he called the shot ‘waders’ – I like that!
This is a trip crying out for a multi-day one-way slo-ow expedition with an overnight on the bank. Seconds – those precious people in any kayaker’s life – could collect you at a take-out point on the lakeshore. To do it though, you have to be free to leave at short notice on those rare occasions when the river is up. Or else you’ll be reviving the oldKalahari Canoe Club – with plumes of dust!
– aitch NOT on a cellphone – it just looks like that – on the return trip –
We flew in on our first trip to Malawi in 1990. Just me and Aitch. At Lilongwe airport we hired a car from the brochures on the desk, not from the kiosks in the airport. Well, the man on the phone said they didn’t have any presence at the airport to save money, but they were nearby, they’d be there in a jiffy. And they were cheap. I like that.
The airport emptied till it was just us, so we took our bags to the entrance and sat in the shade waiting. There was no-one there but a bored youth sitting in a dark blue Honda with sagging suspension, but we were chilled and the airport garden needed birding. Eventually I went back to the desk to phone the man. He was amazed: “My driver should have been there long ago!”
‘Twas him. ‘Twas our car: The dark blue Honda with sagging suspension. “No, no,” we laughed, “There must be a better car than this!” – thinking of the rough roads we’d be traversing. “Come back to the office and you can choose another car,” said the friendly man. So we did. The office was his house, and we inspected his fleet. Well, bless him, of course it was his best car, he’s good people; so off we headed to Kasungu National Park in a dark blue Honda Civic with Formula 1 ground clearance. We were on safari, and this was our jeep.
In the park we drove with one wheel on the middle bump and one on the left edge of the road. On the open road we drove slowly and avoided anything above deck.
While I was unpacking to occupy our bungalow I froze: a serval! Wonderful! We always love seeing the smaller wildlife. I tried to signal to Aitch as the long-legged cat walked out of the long grass into the clearing. I didn’t want to scare it, so I whistled low and urgent. Aitch came out, and we watched as it came closer and closer.
And closer. And closer till it rubbed itself against my leg! It was the camp pet, it had been raised by the rangers.
We headed further north – to Vwaza Marsh, and then up high to Nyika Plateau, 10 000ft above sea level; then south again to Nkhata Bay, beautiful Lake Malawi and warmer weather. The car went like a dream at twenty km/h and even sometimes at thirty km/h.
– smooth highway! –
South of Nkhata Bay we suddenly came on a stretch of smooth road! I crept the needle up to forty km/h. Then fifty and eventually sixty! Wheee! “Careful, Koos,” admonished my Aitch, clinging white-knuckled to the dashboard (kidding! sort of). Then we came up to the big yellow grader that had smoothed our path. It moved aside and we went past with a wave to the friendly driver. The road condition was now back to interesting, so I slowed down to forty. “Slow down, Koos,” admonished my Aitch. We’d been doing thirty, so this still felt fast to her and I knew she was right, but I had tasted speed . .
WHUMP! We hit a brick and I knew immediately Fuckit Mrs Tuckit that we’d be getting to know this remote stretch of Malawi. I parked on a low level bridge and leaned out to peer under the car: Oil pouring out of the sump. Do you have any soap? I asked Aitch. Here, she said shoving a bottle of liquid soap into my hand. Um, no, a bar of soap. Ever resourceful, she whipped out a fat green stick of Tabard mozzi repellent. Perfect, I said and shoved it in the hole. It went into the sump without touching sides! OK, we were going to be here for a while . .
– uh oh –
– now the Black-winged Red Bishop – Euplectes hordeaceus – thanks wikipedia –
To break the tension I took my binocs and went for a walk and straight away things got better. “Come look!” I called Aitch “A lifer!” A Fire-Crowned Bishop flitted around in the reeds of the stream we were parked above. ‘Um,’ she said, ‘Don’t tell me that’s why you stopped here?’ Grinning, she made us a snack on the bootlid and we waited. Before too long someone came by. On foot. Two schoolboys who said, Not to worry, we know a mechanic in a nearby village. He will fix it. Great! I said, Would you ask him to help us, please? thinking, Actually guys, there’s no sign of a ‘nearby village.’
An hour later, a car zoomed by without stopping. Unusual for Malawi. Another hour later and a Land Rover stopped, the driver got out and shook his head sadly. He couldn’t help us, he said, as he was in a government vehicle. As he drove off we saw his female passenger appearing to give him a thousand words. He stopped and walked back with a 5l oil can in his hand. “I can’t sell you this oil because it’s guvmint oil, but I am going to give you this oil,” he said. Great, we accepted it with alacrity. It was half full. It was a start.
Another hour or so and three figures approached us on foot, one with a greasy green overall and a red metal toolbox on his shoulder. It was our mechanic and our schoolboys. They had come through!
– my mechanic watches as I tap tap – check tool detail on left –
Soon he had the sump cover off and I started tapping the hole closed using a shifty and a spanner. As I tapped I asked if anyone – perchance – had a bar of soap. Nope. No-one. Holding up the cover to the sun I tapped that malleable metal until not even a glint of sun shone through. I had closed the hole. As we started to replace it, I muttered “I’d give twenty kwacha for some soap,” whereupon one of the guys whipped out a sliver of red Lifebuoy soap from his pocket.
– our rescuers –
Boy! Did the others turn on him! “How can you be so unkind to our guests?” was the accusation and they refused to let me pay him more than four kwacha for his soap, despite my assuring them that it was worth twenty to me. As we prepared to depart after pouring in the guvmint oil, we gave them each a cold can from our hebcooler, paid the mechanic his modest dues (he didn’t charge traveling costs) and gave the schoolboys and the mechanic each a cap. I had two spare caps and Aitch had one. A pink one.
1500km later we handed the car back and I told the man at the airport: “Please check the sump. Its leaking oil.” It wasn’t, but I wanted him to check it.
~~oo0oo~~
More pictures of our journey from Aitch’s album:
– road near Rumphi –– up on Nyika plateau – 8000ft above sea level –– Nyika Plateau very special rolling grasslands –– sure, sometimes we did save money – I like that! –– and sometimes we splashed out –
~~~oo0oo~~~
The whole album, as I have now discarded the hard copy:
Aitch and I went to Mombasa in 1998 and checked in at a hotel on Diani beach. The next day I got a lift into town and walked the crowded streets of Mombasa looking for a cheap hired car. Mombasa is quite a place:
I did my sums. I’m meticulous. Not.
– car hire – lots of choice –
While I was on safari hunting hired cars, Aitch chilled on the uncrowded beach and pooldeck, no doubt quaffing ginless gin&tonics. She used to do that, you know! Tonic & bitters. Ginless! I know! You’re right; Search me; Where’s the medicinal value? The personality enhancing factor, PEF? Still, she loved it.
After careful stalking, keeping downwind of my prey and pinpoint aiming, my lone hunting expedition was successful; I found a lil Suzuki jeep. Marvelous. I could turn round from the drivers seat and touch the back window! Almost. I knew they were good cos my chairman Allister told me, and he knows things, him being a Suzuki driver himself. Also JonDinDin once drowned his in the Tugela estuary, pulled it out and it still worked. We had wheels!
Good Birding Advice: Back at the hotel I went for a walk, leather hat on my head, binoculars round my neck. An old man came cranking along slowly on a bicycle, swung his right leg high up over the saddle and dismounted next to me.
‘Ah!’ he said,‘I can see you are English.’ I didn’t contradict him. ‘You are looking for buds,’ he said, also in a way that made me not argue. ‘There are no buds here,’ he said emphatically. ‘If you want to see buds you must go to the west, to the Impenetrable Forest. There are many buds there.’ After I thanked him for this sage advice he put his left foot on the pedal, gave a push and, swinging his right leg high over the saddle, wobbled off. After a few yards he had a thought, slowed, swung off in the same elaborate dismount and came back to me: ‘But in this hotel over here you can see some peacocks in the garden,’ he informed me re-assuringly.
‘Ah, thank you sir. Thanks very much,’ I said, wishing him well and thinking of Kenya’s 1100 species of birds – eleven percent of the world’s total. The USA has about 900, and the UK about 600. He was a character a bit like this:
Good Traveling Advice: We also got pessimistic advice on the roads. We were on our way to Tsavo National Park the next day and we wanted to avoid the main road to Nairobi. We’d heard it was crowded with trucks and buses and we’d rather avoid that, if at all possible. On our Globetrotter map I found a little road south-west of the main road – an alternative route via Kwale, Kinango and Samburu.
‘No you can’t; No, not at all; There’s no way,’ says everyone. Even the barman! Even after I said, And Have One Yourself! he still said no. ‘The bridge has been washed away by cyclone Demoina,’ they all said. This was a bit weird, as Demoina had been in 1984, fourteen years earlier, and had mostly hit Madagascar, then Mocambique, then KwaZuluNatal, well south of Kenya.
Usually I can eventually find ONE person to say ‘Don’t listen to them, the road is FINE,’ but this time I was stymied. No-one would say ‘Yes!’ nor even ‘Maybe.’
SO: We headed off along the road toward Kwale anyway. ‘Tis easier to seek forgiveness than permission, we thought. Aitch, what a trooper, was right behind me in adventurousness and right beside me in Suzukiness. ‘We’ll see new places,’ was all she said. She knows me.
As we neared Kwale a minibus taxi approaching from the other direction did a strange thing: They actually flagged us down to tell us ‘Stop! You can’t go this way! The bridge is gone, Demoina washed it away!’ We nodded, acted surprised, looked grateful, agreed, and thanked them kindly; then we kept going.
And they were right: The bridge over the river between Kwale and Kinango had indeed washed away. But there were recent tyre tracks down to the river which we followed. Below and just upstream of the iron wreckage of the bridge we stuck the Suzuki in 4X4 and crossed the low river. Then we stopped for a break, parking our mini-4X4 under a beautiful shady tree on the river bank:
– –
And we were right: Besides being devoid of traffic, the road surface was mostly good, sometimes great:
But the road was fine – in a Suzuki– smooth highway –
Then the honeymoon ended: We ran out of detour and got back onto the main, ‘tarred’ Mombasa-Nairobi road at Samburu: Aargh! Every so often a blob of tar would threaten to cause damage. Huge holes had the traffic all weaving from side to side so trucks seem to be coming straight at you, but it’s actually quite safe, despite Aitch occasionally putting her feet up against the windscreen and yelling at me that there was an oncoming truck. Like I couldn’t see it. Its rather like slow-motion ballet. Most cars and all trucks went slowly, the only vehicles ‘speeding’ – probably up to 60km/h – were big passenger buses with their much better – softer, longer travel – suspension.
Years later, we can find the place where the bridge had washed away on online maps. Here’s the new bridge and new road on the right, with the old road just left of it, and just left of that, the drift we crossed (just left of the yellow arrow) and that beautiful tree in the top picture (red arrow) that we rested under. All the long red mud scar is new road- wasn’t there back then. The old road shows as a thinner, lighter line.
– thanks Tracks4Africa –
Then we got to Tsavo! I’d wanted to visit Tsavo since I was ten years old, and read books by Bernhard Grzimek. Armand Denis and others! Well, here I was, thirty years later! Yavuyavu! Fahari!
~~oo0oo~~
Yavuyavu! Fahari! – Joy, happiness, yes!
Michael J Allard, the witty, talented painter of the wonderful old man on his bicycle, lived in Zim on a farm, and in Ireland. He died in 2021.
Its a sudden decision: Let’s go to a game reserve Dad! – that’s Jess on Friday night.
OK! (I’m chuffed!). I’m working tomorrow, so you guys buy food and gather the camping stuff. Be ready when I get home at 2:30pm and we’ll go to Mkhuze. Remember the tent, mattresses, pillows, your swimming cozzies.
Cecelia helps them. Minenhle & Andile join us. As we head north to Zululand I realise we’ll be cutting it fine. The gates close at 7pm and it’s 3:30pm already, so there’s a change of plan: We’ll go to Hluhluwe/Mfolosi instead. Means no camping and no swimming.
At the gate the usual story: A pessimistic Ooh, you haven’t booked? Mpila is full. The bushcamps are full.
Keep trying, I say cheerfully. Oh! OK, I’ll try Hilltop camp. Just then the kids walk into the office and he gets interested in me and the kids, asking all sorts of adoption questions and Where’s my wife? and Is she a Zulu lady? and so tries harder when there’s no reply on the radio. Will you phone them on your cellphone? he asks me. Sure. We get thru, there’s a chalet available, we book and head off on what turns into a free night drive!
Tom spots an elephant running towards the road ahead of us, ears flapping. I slow down and it turns onto the tar road and walks determinedly towards us, causing great panic on the back seat. We reverse and wait, reverse and wait, giving him plenty of space, till he eventually finds a mud wallow, drinks and heads off into the bush, allowing us to proceed. It’s dark now and later on two more eles loiter on the road and we just wait patiently, watching them in our headlights. All the kids have watched the videos of the elephant flipping the car, so they’re nervous and don’t want to go anywhere near eles. A look at the video will show how many warnings the people in the car ignored.
– stupid human video –
At Hilltop they’re waiting for us, they give us our key and bring us an extra set of bedding and towels for the fifth body. Bleeding luxury for us were-going-to-be campers.
– girls in their element – NOT camping –
AND the big breakfast buffet in the restaurant is included.
The dawn chorus the next morning was fantastic. In that magic spell between pre-dawn and the screaming banshees waking up I made a cup of coffee and sat out on the deck listening in the half light. As the kids started waking two trumpeter hornbills landed in full view and the kids got a good look at them through my telescope. I issued a decree banning all post-5000BCE music and they just nodded, acquiescent (!). So birdsong was it.
Aitch knew an old doctor with a fading practice in PMB who “did up” Land Rovers on the side. That got me thinking . . .
To my amazement my partners Lello, Yoell & Stoute were NOT HUGELY ENTHUSIASTIC as I twisted their arms to go in as equal shareholders! Even when I told them that, besides the good doctor, it had only one previous owner.
But eventually they saw the light and agreed, good partners that they are, and we became the proud consortium owners of a handpainted, 1979, hole-in-the-floor, manual, 4X4, long wheelbase, get-out-and-manually-lock-the-diff, Series III station wagon, 5-door, Land Rover. White. Like whitewash white, which turned out to be appropriate.*
It was fitted with a new-eish Ford Essex V6 three litre engine on new birdshit-welded mountings and painted white with an old brush. The wheel rims were painted red with the same brush, from which its name Redfoot. Did I mention handpainted with an old brush? A matt white, so no glare. You could drive it without sunglasses as long as you weren’t driving east in the morning or west in the arvie.
Well, we ended up putting two more engines into ole Redfoot, and it went up Sani once.
It also went to Ladysmith once on the tar N3 carriageway; Used by Prem as 8-seater passenger transport wagon; Yoell used it once and never again; Soutar used it once or twice and pronounced it ‘very good’ – he owned an even older white Landie; We took the dogs to the beach in it. Some of these people were complainers who insisted on mentioning the big hole in the floor, seeing the road rushing beneath, and the loud roar. Fussy lot. I don’t think Lello and Stoute got any benefit, but they did share in the loss.
Once I grew weary of replacing engines, and worked out my consumption in miles-per-engine, I advertised it for sale and there was a huge and busy and clamorous non-rush. Then friend Andre vd Merwe from PE thought he’d buy it as he knows a bargain when he sees OK, hears about one, but unfortunately he brought his level-headed and intelligent wife Sue along to the test drive. Sue realised something wasn’t all that new Bentley-like – I don’t know HOW – and ordered the man to turn around NOW after only a few km’s and stated in no uncertain terms that he would buy it “Over Her Deceased Corpse!” Unfortunately Andre, not being an automotive engineer, didn’t have all Redfoot’s great advantages and features at the tip of his tongue, so he meekly made like a husband and my celebrations were rudely interrupted when they drove back down my River Drive driveway where I had just gleefully waved them goodbye not half an hour earlier.
Once a Canadian optometrist used Redfoot to get to a clinic where he did a volunteer stint in the Valley of 1000 Hills in KwaZulu Natal. He brought it back smoking. Being Canadian he didn’t really get the ‘stick shift’ thing, nor the ‘clutch’ thing. That was one of the new engines. Louis du Plessis the Kingfisher Canoe Club mechanic said, “He pushed the connecting rod and the big end right through the block.” I nodded gravely as though I knew wherof he spoke.
Spent a total of R25 000 on it in all and sold it for R5 000 hot cash – with relief! To another Sue’s boyfriend – not husband, see? – who was running contraband to lodges in Mocambique from a boat and needed a 4X4 to . . I didn’t ask. He didn’t come back. I didn’t ask.
Not a runaway success story was Redfoot, but I think my partners exaggerate when they say I promised them an ‘investment opportunity’!
~~oo0oo~~
*The whitewash: Turns out the ‘one previous owner’ was the KwaZulu bantustan homeland Police Force!
I never really learnt to be circumspect. I tend to blurt. So what would you like to do now your second chemo spell is over, Aitch? We’d gone snorkelling at Mabibi on the Zululand coast after the first. A six hour drive in a 4X4.
Where? The Great Barrier Reef? But that’s in Oz, m’dear! You do? Um, what I meant to ask was: What, reasonably-speaking, would you like to do?
So I scurried off to do my homework. Costs, flight times, travel time to the reefs, what we could afford. With trepidation I showed her two alternatives: The Great Barrier Reef in Oz vs Madagascar, where we would live aboard a yacht, plopping overboard to snorkel whenever we wanted to.
Phew! She chose Madagascar – and LOVED Madagascar. “My BEST holiday ever!” she enthused afterwards.
We shared the boat with a delightful English couple, Dickie and Claire, with their two blonde girls Sonja and Natasha. Easygoing and relaxed, it was a blissful getaway. They were chilled and accommodating, and so were we. The crew, too, were wonderful folk, friendly, capable, and good chefs! Skipper Bert, chef ___ and teenage deckhand ‘Mowgli,’ who fascinated our Jessie.
It was Aitch, so homework was still done, naps were still taken, routines were kept as far as possible:
Obertauern in Austria and I’m learning to ski. The paraat Austrian ski instructor is earnestly telling us to “snor-plau, snor-plau” but we’ve been “snor-plauing” for an hour and we only have two days to ski! This won’t do, so I head off for the ski-lift.
“Oy, where are you going?” shouts herr instructor. I point ‘up there.’ “But you can’t even snor-plau!” he exclaims, him being used to things being done as they should be done. He’s right, of course, but there’s the matter of the two days (less this hour we’ve already wasted).
I discover that when you hop off the ski-lift gravity does not take a short break to allow you to get your bearings, so my first descent is backwards standing up for twenty metres, then backwards lying down for a few hundred metres, then various undignified ways until I lose a ski which then gives a bit of traction, so I can dig one boot in the snow and stop.
So I can then retrieve the other ski and get back to the ski-lift and start again.
After a while I work out a good system: Down at full speed at an angle across the slope till I cannon into the deep drift on the side. Then back across the slope to the other side, till ditto. Zig-Zag I go, accumulating more snow with each crash so I look like a huge semi-human snowball. It’s abominable, but it is more fun than snor plau.
Too much snow accumulates on the corduroy trousers, so I decide to try another way: Straight down the slope to dodge the deep drifts.
Well . . .
Whistling along at terminal velocity I notice that there’s nothing to stop one at the bottom (which I haven’t reached till now, having been on my face long before the bottom). Below the ski-lift start, the slope simply ends against a building. Said building houses a below-ground restaurant where people can sit and eat while looking up the slope at eye-level.
Approaching the restaurant window at speed I close my eyes and lie back and hear a smack as my skis go through the grill under the window and protrude right into the restaurant above an occupied table where some sane guests (who can probably snor-plau) are eating. Some of our group, notably Volke – the CEO of Aitch’s company, our host on the trip, whose brother owns the restaurant, which is why we’re here – come up to me and pour gluwein down my throat and laugh at me, refusing to help me up or out of my skis. I’m soaked through my corduroys and cotton shirt under my anorak and my ankles are breaking, but do they care, as they laugh and take pictures?
I hang up my skis when I’m finally freed. Call it a day with limbs intact. One’s constitution can only stand so much fun.
– first-time skiing – corduroy pants, half a lesson, no brakes! –– Aitch bundled up –
~~~oo0oo~~~
snor-plau – snow plough, I suppose – I never did learn to do it. Even after skiing again in Lesotho: Still no brakes.
Showering one-year-old Tom in my arms in the ablutions at FlatDogs camp in Zambia I must have squeezed him a bit too hard, as he shot out of my arms like a slippery bar of soap and landed flat on his back on the tiled shower floor!
Waaah! he squawked when he got his breath back after a deadly-silent second! What’s wrong? call Aitch and Jessie from the ladies section next door (separated from us by a thin reed wall). YIKES!! I picked him up hurriedly and spent the next few hours watching him intently. He was fine, thank goodness! a sueto continua! (the holiday continues!)
Much safer to hang our own shower in a tree on a sandy floor! (also in Zambia).
One day sunny and windless outdoor fun, including wading in the Mooi River;
The next a howling gale and chilly rain coming in at an angle; Forced to snuggle in the chalets, kids in one chalet watching DVD’s and eating biltong, potato crisps and sweets; Adults in the other drinking red wine, eating red meat and dark chocolate;
Solved the world’s problems, and I would patent those thoughts if I could remember them.
Off we go to St Lucia estuary for a camping long weekend. Let’s take the minimum guys, we can buy food locally. Just clear out the fridge and bread bin and let’s go. We’ll buy charcoal and meat and etc from the local Spar. I won’t even take any wine! Rather we hit the road now, shop later.
Let’s take a tent for the three teenage girls, and the twelve year-old fella and I will sleep in the back of the pickup. The simple life.
Except I realise at the first tollgate that I have left my wallet in Westville. Complication. To turn back or not. In my rucksack I find Tom’s saving card, daily withdrawal limit R300. I had just changed his password, as we had not used the account for ages, so we were good to go. We just gotta be frugal, kids, we got R300 kuphela.
And that’s where they blew me away. All four of them said “Dad, we’ve got money! You can have our money, Dad”. They each had R200 pocket money for the weekend and offered it freely! What stars.
Thanks guys, I may need that, but I have enough to fill up with diesel and we’ll just go easy and discuss it before we spend anything, OK?
The next morning I managed to activate my eWallet and cellphone banking at an internet cafe so could now draw R1500 a day! Problem solved! I gave them each R100 to thank them for their generous offers. Their eyes looked like chocolates and ice creams!
Off we went to the game reserve (entrance fee R245) and to the water park (R120 for the four of them). We wuz rich! The girls bought swimming shorts with their own money.
St Lucia camping 2
The next day that amount I could draw had ‘kindly’ been reduced to R200 (“for my safety” – Thanks FNB!), so I had to make the speech again, and again they rallied around with their offer of chipping in, but with Tom’s R300 and my R200 we were fine. We ate boerie rolls both nights – cheap!
– St Lucia camping –
Here’s an isimangaliso* pan with buffalo, waterbuck and zebra (click on the pic). The Indian Ocean is just behind that high forested dune:
Tom got on with fishing . .
. . while the teenage girls did what teenage girls do . .
– Jess took a lovely picture of some grass – with a kudu as a backdrop –
~~oo0oo~~
*isimangaliso means ‘miracle, wonder, surprise’ in isiZulu
We only got stuck four times. Once near the beach at Lake Malawi and three times on or near beaches in Moçambique.
In Malawi I got out to let down my tyres but a group of people from nearby ran up: “No, no. Don’t. You drive, 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! World peace, a friendly push and not having to re-inflate my tyres is what I believe in! Handshakes and good wishes all round.
All three times in Mozambique or Moçambique (Portuguese) we didn’t have long to wait and a guy rolled up in a Land Rover or a Land Cruiser, stopping in front of us and shaking his head pityingly in his tight khaki shorts. “You really must have 4X4,” he’d say and I’d agree and ooh and aah about his rugged vehicle. Then he’d pull us out chop-chop, tell us where they had been, tell us where NOT to go (and make that route sound so exciting that we’d sometimes go exactly there!), and then drive away still shaking his head.
I reckon if we had gone in a 4X4 we would have missed out on some good advice** and on meeting some friendly people! We’d have been self-supporting. Insular. Who wants that?
That beautiful tricked-out-OTT Landrover in the main pic belongs to Sam Watson, who contacted me to tell me that, then didn’t answer my query on whether he wears tight khaki shorts. Check out his blog http://www.zerzura.me
Ndumo – Camping alone – Extract from my diary: Tonight I decide to cook rice, lentils, green beans, potatoes and chicken washed down with a fine claret in a silver goblet. Mug. OK, it’s actually stainless steel. YUM!!!
If you must know, the meal was actually a KOO tin (chicken biryani), but you can read the label, all those ingredients are there. But I added the green beans as an inspirational touch. From a separate KOO can. Delicious!
And the better news: There was two whole litres in that fine claret box.
– fine dining setting –
~~~oo0oo~~~
footnote: Soon after, KOO wins South Africa’s Best Brand Award. Coincidence? I think not.
