Twenty years on, we’re here again. Me and Jess. Thanks to her, we have actually booked ahead and are staying in a comfortable chalet at Kosi Bay Lodge. She loves it, there’s DSTV and good phone signal. Also a restaurant that makes great food. Really tasty grub. Oh, and some nature outside. You go, Dad.
It’s too windy for boat trips on the lakes, so I walk the grounds and drive around the area – Ezemvelo’s Kosi Bay camp. Utshwayelo Kosi Mouth Lodge – while Jess just chills. Good birding, including one I seldom see, an Eastern Nicator. My pictures were just shadowy blobs, so here’s one from a good camera:
Note: All the camps are quite far from the beaches, and as the only one that is actually on the lakeshore, Ezemvelo’s Kosi Bay Camp is, for my money, by far the best option.
~~oo0oo~~
Last we were here we camped at the Ezemvelo Camp, and Jess was young enough to enjoy the swing I rigged up using an umbrella pole and tie-down straps.
Out on the lakes in 2003 – Greg Bennett loaned us his rubber dinghy and Yamaha.
The fokkin yoomin race. Just watched a GP tannie woman hose down her SUV in camp for ages, using two million gallons of pure drinking water to get the dust off every crook and nanny. Some people . . !!
It was not a fine aluminium can bakkie like mine, it was a tin can SUV. One of those ForTuna, the new Toyota one, metallic grey. She sprayed and sprayed and sprayed WAY longer than needed. ‘Specially when you know she’s going straight back into the dust tomorrow! She used the camp’s hosepipe – tuinslang – in an area with a sign No Entry Staff Only.
I went over to her and said, My fok Marelize! and she immediately stopped and put all the water she’d wasted back into the hosepipe. Of course, my brave, principled intervention purely in my imagination.
I felt like a Peeping Tom! Just a few metres below me, in clear water, naked bodies frolic’d underwater. One gave a tiny fart and it bubbled up to the surface. They kept their heads down as long as they could, but every now and then they’d have to stick their noses out to breathe. Sometimes just their nostrils, sometimes eyes and nostrils. A mouth-breathing hippo would have a major problem.
Fish nibbled at their thick hides and a terrapin shuffled past them underwater, making sure not to get underfoot.
A hippo pod lurking in a pool. Up close! Often seen from afar in brown muddy water; only once before seen this close. This time was below a bridge across the Letaba river in the Kruger National Park. The other time was in even clearer water in Tsavo National Park, at Mzima Springs in Kenya.
Jess and I are snugly ensconced in the old Wakkerstroom Hotel, established for our comfort in 1869. We’re ‘camping’ and eating comfort food and (me) drinking Old Brown Sherry. Jess has stayed indoors in front of a cheerful fire all day. Well-ensconced, the lazy bum. I ventured out to the winter wetland for some interesting birding. Here are my usual amateur pics – some feathers were too fast for me as usual, but I did get these.
The first three all have ‘African’ in their name: Rail, Swamphen and Snipe. The little one is a Stonechat.
Here’s my clearest pic – another African Snipe. He froze and waited politely while I focused. Check the deep orange / russet on his tail.
Cherry on top as the light started fading over the wetland open water:
Three otters appeared and started baljaar‘ing in the smooth water, creating beautiful ripples and wakes in the sunset-coloured water.
baljaar – frolic
I forgot to include Jess and the hotel! Here they are, waiting for breakfast to be served. That’s the menu on the wall; they should add a chicken to represent the eggs.
Plaf Plaf Plaf Plaf Plaf (growing louder) *Huff Puff Huff* PlafPlafPlaf Plaf ( fading away) Ermigawd I’m back in the Kruger Park.
The Kruger’s most abundant dangerous mammal is jogging round n round, earphones on, carrying a bottle of ‘pure’ water trucked in from hundreds of miles away, belching diesel fumes.
And again. And again. Eight laps at least, three joggers, running separately. All seem to be wearing Adidas three sizes too big, judging by the hollowness of the Plaf. Then peace descends. They’re finished. Or, Deo Volente, been eaten by a lion.
We’re camping in Letaba camp. Now the evening sounds can begin. I’m waiting for a Pearl-spotted Owlet, but nope, first to call is the Barred, then later the Scops owls. Hyenas whoop; Hippos guffaw and snigger at their own dirty jokes; fart jokes, I bet. A Bushbaby cries, followed by a loud bellow. An Ele? No, more bovine. A Buffalo?
Must remember the rule though: For any mystery noise in a game reserve, always suspect Homo sapiens, so I can’t rule out a happy camper’s bowels being the source.
Then a Spotted Eagle Owl; Then – quieter and much nearer – another hyena? I roll onto my back to free both ears so I can listen in stereo.
Nope, just Jess having a mild little argument in her sleep, half sleep-talking. Sleep-mumbling.
~~oo0oo~~
The next night the same sounds, plus a lion’s roar. When it gets light I go for a walk along the Letaba river boundary of the camp. Lazybones Jess grunts ‘No’ and rolls up tighter under her duvet, so she misses out on seeing a distant pride of lionesses and cubs on the flood plain.
Raintree Camp is just short of Shorobe, north of Maun. Janet and I, gaily chatting our heads off, woke up when we got to the fork-off to Kazakiini Camp, a good 26km past the turnoff. We pretended we knew all along and were just reconoittring the area. Jess was unimpressed at our u-turn. We had actually both noticed the Shorobe Basket Weavers sign, but hadn’t figured out that meant we were passing through that village!
While backtracking, we went straight back to yakking and solving the world’s problems, including the fact that the bakkie was pulling to the left as a result of the road camber and the thick sand on the left compared to the harder calcrete in the middle.
Which was actually neither of those things. It was because of a left front puncture. Our prolonged diagnosis meant the tyre was shredded by the time we stopped.
Jess then took a near-plumber’s crack picture, which resulted in her forfeiting supper last night.
Some young guys stopped to help, only to be told we had everything under control. Noticing some slight huffing n puffing, they ignored me and kindly loosened the wheelnuts with ease. Other than that, of course, everything was under control.
~~oo0oo~~
A short drive north of Raintree there’s a lagoon in the Thamalakane with water from the last rains. Yellow-billed Storks, Spoonbills, Hamerkops, a lone Pelican, a Saddle-bill Stork, flocks of Sandgrouse, Blacksmith Lapwings, and a large pod of Hippo. A mokoro poler with two passengers gave the hippos a wide berth, hugging the reedbed on the western shore.
Along the dry shore, Magpie Shrikes, White-crowned Shrikes, Meves Starling.
We had a lovely campsite under a raintree – lots of those here! – near to Janet’s safari tent. The third night I moved the bakkie next to her tent as I had brilliantly left a light shining all night, so needed to charge the aux batteries by plugging in to Botswana Power Corporation.
To complete my puncture and battery faux pas trifecta, I then moved the car, snapping the charging cable. f&#-it! Luckily, we were fully charged already, and the fridge’s two compartments were back down to 5⁰ and 0⁰C.
Raintree Camp is a lovely place with lovely people, big trees, great ablution facilities, a bar and a pool. We enjoyed our three day stay. Some of the tents are close to the road, so noise can be an occasional factor. New chalets are planned on the water side of the property, away from the road, owner Neil Kendrick told us. So do check it out if you’re headed that way. As a transit camp on the way to or from Moremi, it’s ideally located.
Yay! Camping in Khama Rhino, good to be back in Botswana. Jessie’s first visit. She lost her passport and has only just got round to getting a new one.
Pumping up the tyres after reducing pressure for the sandy and twisty roads in the camp:
Palapye Red VW DubDub Club?
Back at Janet’s place at last. Yay! The Tamalakhane River on her doorstep dry and dusty:
– Father’s Day – a big breakfast at Sitatunga Camp –
T.C. Robertson Nature Reserve is situated on the right bank of the Mpambanyoni River close to its mouth into the sparkling Indian Ocean. Part of Scottburgh townlands, it is about 60ha in extent. Established in 1989 and named after should-be-more-famous South African author, ecologist and soil and grassland conservationist Dr. Thomas Chalmers Robertson.
TC Robertson (15 September 1907 – 11 January 1989) was an extraordinarily gifted man – accomplished journalist, gifted raconteur, ardent naturalist from boyhood, war correspondent, and Jan Smuts’s anti-Nazi propagandist during World War II. His most significant work lay in his lifelong mission to save southern Africa’s soil and grasses, and for this he sacrificed any ideas of personal ambition.
TC was widely known during his lifetime as South Africa’s doyen of soil conservation and was regarded by many, including some of the best brains in the world, as a genius. Yet many South Africans today know little or nothing about him. This is partly because he was little concerned with self-promotion and put off writing his autobiography despite many requests to do so. He wrote insatiably, but not about himself. His passion was the land. He was driven by three things: his mission to save the soil, his insatiable quest for knowledge, and his equally insatiable hedonism.
He was of the intrepid, cavaliering stuff of which romantic heroes are made, a born musketeer, and a man with an enormous capacity for friendship. Outspoken, witty and able to hold an audience in the palm of his hand, he was immensely private when it came to his deepest feelings, sorrows, fears and any inadequacies he might have felt; his passion, his total commitment, was for his mission: saving the soil, conserving the land.
No public monument of bronze or stone commemorates his achievements. His epitaph is written in the soil of southern Africa, whispered by the grasses and leaves, murmured by the streams, and engraved indelibly on the hearts of all who knew him; plus in a small evergreen sanctuary on the banks of a subtropical river estuary on the south coast of KwaZulu Natal. Among the great men our country has produced, he was truly one of the greatest.
Paraphrased from author Shirley Bell – who wrote his biography, The Happy Warrior: The Story of TC Robertson 2005 ISBN978-0-620-33255-2
Birds seen on a short visit today 08:30 to 10:30 – Sunbirds, Amethyst, Collared, Olive; Weavers, Eastern Golden, Spectacled, Dark-backed; Mannikins, Bronze, Red-backed; Square-tailed Drongo; Flycatchers, Black, Dusky; Grey Waxbill; Lesser Honeyguide; Barbets, White-eared, Black-collared; Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird; Yellow-bellied Greenbul; Dark-capped Bulbul; Yellow-eyed Canary; Cape White-Eye; Hadeda; Geese, Egyptian, Spur-wing; Blacksmith Lapwing; Hamerkop; Little Egret; Black Sawwing; Black-bellied Starling; Red-capped Robin-Chat; Purple-crested Turaco; Grey-headed Sparrow; Doves, Red-eyed, Tambourine; Speckled Mousebird; Darter; Cape Wagtail; Heard: African Firefinch; Fish Eagle; Natal Spurfowl.
We ‘all want to preserve nature,’ right? I was the only person there those two hours on a perfect Sunday morning! Even Jess declined, ‘There’s TV to watch, Dad!’ Damn!
One bakkie did drive in and out. The manager, who stopped for a chat. He seems enthusiastic about changes he has brought in the five months he has run the show. Low attendance is a challenge. Next Sunday there’s a flea market, 37 stalls booked.
A Red-lipped Herald snake visited this morning. It was enjoying the wet weather I suppose – we had a real downpour last night and this morning. So it was probly out hunting frogs. This was a little one, about 300mm long, I guess.
A couple days later an even smaller one made its way under the door. Played dead when he saw me. He also got shipped out to the garden.
Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia The story goes that its presence was first mentioned in the Eastern Cape Herald Newspaper, hence the name.
– hawk moth ? –
This poor fella fluttered in and died. A Forest Brown, maybe?
And an offshore visitor: A juvenile Brown Booby flying and floating just behind the backline. Seen from the deck off my upstairs bedroom three days in a row. A ‘lifer’ for me!
What’s that bird!? I often wonder before realizing, Ah, It’s The Mongeese. And their mongoslings. The Banded Mongoose band, about 25 strong, that have this coastal cottage garden on their daily route.
A busy bunch of all ages, they twitter and squeak to keep in touch as they rustle and skoffel through the thick undergrowth. Big excitement when they find a snail. They carry it to a wall then hurl it backwards between their back legs to crack the shell against the wall. Usually it takes a few tries before they get a good throw. Sometimes the first sign of their presence is the skoffel, crack! of them hurling a snail against the wall near the door.
If I’m outside and I move, or a biggish bird flies overhead, the big ‘uns will give an alarm call and they’ll all scurry for cover at speed.
~~oo0oo~~
skoffel – like rustle; both are also first names for blokes, dunno why
Visitors? I’m the visitor. They’re residents! With the really cool scientific moniker Mungos mungo. So we’ll have to call one of them Jerry. They’re peaceful in their own colony, but fight fiercely with other gangs. Gang warfare! And how’s this? In the midst of a battle, females may have a quickie with rival males! Whoa! Females: Always multitasking. Fighting, yet still time to think of their genetic diversity! – wikipedia.org
Planning ahead as always (not), we drove into Kaoxa Bush Camp hoping to find Virginia there to welcome us. She was nowhere to be found and her phone was on voicemail. So we booked into the SA Parks camp inside Mapungubwe, the first time I have stayed inside the park. Jess was pleased – the chalet had aircon! And it was hot. Even the eles sought shade:
I drove around Mapungubwe east, the more famous half of the park, and walked the boardwalk to overlook the Limpopo and into Botswana and Zimbabwe. Jess mainly stayed in the chalet. The day we left I drove the long way round to the gate, so she did see some of this interesting Eastern section of the park.
Then we moved on to Kaoxa. We drove down to Virginia’s home and found her. She asked us to bring cash, so we drove the 70km to Musina and drew cash as we needed to do some food shopping anyway. The tar road is in very good nick except for two patches near Mapungubwe with bad potholes. So 110km/h is easy, but when you see potholes, slow down drastically! Each patch is just a couple hundred metres, but bad.
Good ceiling fans and great showers, a cool shady pool and lots of shade under thatch. As we arrived there was a squirrel in the chalet. It jumped onto Jess and scratched her arm, then fled. We ate and swam and birded and stared at the view. For wifi we drove to Duncan’s homestead and sat on the back veranda. Good birding there, too. A very special place is Kaoxa Bush Camp. Do support it so it can stay wild forever! Best to book online.
– African Hawk Eagle – Gymnogene –
~~oo0oo~~
Birds seen in the area: Cinnamon-breasted Bunting Black Eagle (Verreaux’s) Familiar Chat Jamesons Firefinch Mocking Cliff Chat Kori Bustard Grey-headed Sparrow Lanner Falcon Woodland Kingfisher Dusky Flycatcher White-browed Sparrow-Weaver Rufous-naped Lark Arrow-marked Babbler Violet-backed & Redwing Starlings Wood Sandpiper Acacia Pied Barbet Black-collared Barbet
The Kruger National Park is easy, convenient, good roads; most camps have camping as well as chalets; also shops, so Jess is happy; she can bail out of camping and book a chalet when the weather gets rough – in this case, HOT! And she did, she certainly did. We camped less than a week, we chalet’d more.
Following a well-worn trail we trekked up to Harrismith and enjoyed a lovely night at Pierre and Erika’s home. Again. Then on to the splendid hospitality of the Brauers in Tshwane, home of the ancestral Tshwanepoels. Again. One doesn’t need to eat vegetables for months after a Terry dinner, as I have to eat Brauer’s veggies as well. He’s pure carnivore.
Then a four-year reunion of six colleagues who met as first year optometry students exactly – gulp! – fifty years ago.
– 1974’s eighteen year-olds –
On to Phalaborwa and into the park. But not before I’d gunned the old bus up Magoebaskloof pass, passing a much younger Toyota and Ranger and causing a high-pitched squeal from under the bonnet. It sounded like a fanbelt and it stopped when I switched off the aircon. This made me happier and Jess sadder, so we spent the next morning watching handsome young rooikop Pieter fixing the belt tensioning bolt, WTMB. Jess confessed later she’d been watching his pert blue-overalled bum as he leaned into the engine bay.
With our coolness restored and the 2008 Ford Ranger looking like a million dollars R600 later, we headed for Letaba camp, on the way spotting a ratel (honey badger) carrying its prey – a likkewaan (monitor lizard) about a third of its bulk. A special sighting! After staring at it in wonder through my Zeiss binocs, I remembered the camera just as it trotted off.
On the banks of the Letaba river, lots of hippos in and out of the water. About twenty floating while a dozen, including a small calf, grazed in full sun on a hot day!
Herds of eles. We drove into one herd as we rounded a corner. Got flapped at by go-away ears on our close left and right. I obliged. Jess needs lots of space between her and eles, and I’m happy to oblige. I don’t need to interfere with their lives, I just want to watch them.
In Letaba I had a problem with the stupidest primate in the whole Kruger National Park. Homo sapiens. Me. I left my car door open for “just a minute” as I went to our nearby safari tent and a vervet got my nuts. My luxury tree nuts from Checkers. That primate is a big problem. Hopefully he can evolve and improve his focus and short-term memory.
More Homo sapiens grumbles. I am not a hunter. But if I was I would maybe consider missing (shoo-ing, not shooting) three kinds of animals in the Kruger: – People on their phones talking to Venda or Cape Town at a volume appropriate to the distance. One was telling someone to drink eight glasses of water a day, and take rehidrate morning n evening. *sigh* Kak advice and I must listen to it. – Rugged camper okes using their fancy electric n mechanical camping aids, such as aircon running all night in they karavaan; Ryobi hammer nut-tighteners on their levelling jacks; and remote-controlled motorised jockey wheels! – Joggers plaf plaf plaffing round camp panting and thinking of Comrades or Waai-tality points, checking their odometers and their heartache, you know the type. Otherwise I’m chilled. I wave at them and force a grin. I very seldom shoot them.
Beautiful dawn chorus in the mornings, the new members being Mourning Doves; the oboists in the background were our biggest hornbills. If they formed a band they should call it The Leadbeaters.
Bucorvus leadbeaterii
– ve oom’s crocs –
Later I heard a sound I thought might be the Red-billed Hornbill tutting slower than usual, but it was a croc! Well, an oom’s Croc. He was walking past on his way to ablute, and his left Croc was squeaking.
Martial, Bateleur, Fish, Wahlberg & Brown Snake Eagles; Brown-headed Parrot, Puffback, European Bee-eater, Lilac-breasted Roller, Marabou Stork. Night sounds included nagapie (bush baby / galago) crying, Levaillants Cuckoo, Scops & Pearlspotted Owls; Crowned Lapwing. Hippos grunted and hyenas wailed.
Bush Shrike & Bush Snake
In Shingwedzi camp Jess said, Dad! A snake just fell out of that tree! She pointed at about six mopani trees. I couldn’t spot it, but I know Jess spots things, so I walked towards the trees. A helpful Grey-headed Bush Shrike flew down next to the snake. The Spotted Bush Snake fled up the tree trunk, and the bird buzzed off before I could get a pic of its beautiful colours. That would have made a stunning pic. Oh, well, here’s the skinny lil colourful snake on his own:
We met up with the caravanners who’d helped with our mfezi invasion last year. They have now been camped in the same spot in Shingwedzi campsite for over fifteen months. They reported that the snake had visited them some time later, and been removed from their caravan tent by the same Ranger Shadrack, resident snake catcher.
On to Punda Maria where we camped right next to the lovely pool; Twice a day we cooled down in the heat. Then Jess said, Whoa Dad! It’s too hot! booked a chalet and switched on the aircon. All the units had these noisy old window-rattler aircons! Aargh! Ah Haydim, as Bob Friderichs used to say.
Technocamping! Fanie arrived and porked his cor. Martie hopped out and watched, tjoepstil, as Fanie hak’d af and started manoefring ve treiler wif a remote control ding. After a while I thought I’ll just record this, and filmed a bit of ou Faan’s faan. Or fun. It was all worth it op die ou einde, the West Wing and the Norf Wing were ontplooi’d, and the double verdieping rose up. Once ve satelliet dish was up he could settle down and watch rugby. Just as if he’d stayed home by the house. Pic to come
That was ten days in the park and we left Pafuri gate after visiting the very special Pafuri picnic spot on the Luvhuvhu river and Crooks Corner where Moz, Zim and SA meet.
Handyman Running Repairs
I’d been flagged down twice driving around by kind drivers stopping me to inform me ‘your number plate is ‘falling off.’ It’s not, it’s just creatively attached, vertically instead of horizontally. But now two camouflaged soldiers with R1 automatic rifles stepped out of the shade of a baobab and told me the same alarming tale. I told them my same response, ‘Thanks, but I can’t fix it now as ibhubesi might eat me.’ Usually that got a sage nod of agreement, but these gents said, ‘Nah, no problem! You can get out here and fix it!’ brandishing their weapons. That put me on the spot. I hopped out thinking, I spose at this stage a rugged oke would haul out his full toolkit, start his generator, power up his drill and choose the right bolt n nut from his annotated collection. I opened the back of our camper and aha! found what I needed to effect a permanent repair: Jessie’s pink sneakers. Sorted.
Next stop Nthakeni Bush Camp where owners Kobus and Annelise have set up lovely duo Gloria and Thelma to run their own Thusani Shack Restaurant independently.
We enjoyed two full English breakfasts – with a large helping of potato slap chips – and two huge suppers of their homegrown chicken, pap, veg & salad; then beef stew, rice, veg & salad. The third night we just sat outside our chalet and burped.
– Muriel and Jessie –
Now, after about six nights camping and seven in chalets, we headed west – on to Kaoxa Bush Camp and Mapungubwe National Park, where Bots, Zim and SA meet, and David Hill’s mate has a wonderful bush camp.
Louis showed me where to go. ‘Head South, young man! Along the edge of the Namib via Karibib through the Naukluft to Solitaire,’ he said. He’s lived in Namibia for forty years so I did as he told me, despite him having led me astray the week before. You know what locals are like: Go Straight, You Can’t Miss It, they always say. Keep the Namib on your right and the rest of Africa on your left, you can’t go wrong! they say with their head thrown back, eyes half closed and a beer in hand. This time he was right. I only meandered off the beaten track once, but that was to see where a dotted line on OrganicMaps led to. And the roads were gravel, not sand.
(Plug: Don’t use google or waze (google bought waze). Use OrganicMaps. Good people).
Well, Louis was right! Solitaire is an oasis with ice cold beer and wifi hovering around invisibly under cool, shady thatch. It’s owned, I was told by an American in a wheelchair, by his Dad. He represented USA in wheelchair basketball at the paralympics. I think that’s what I was told by him and his wife in the spacious cool shady pub. I do know they dish up just the right kind of fuel, food, beer and wifi that you need on a road trip, so it’s a popular spot. Also, it’s a long way to the next places to chill, and those don’t do these essentials quite as well.
So I pulled into a lovely campsite for the night, which became three nights cos who wants to leave?
Views around, and a small flock of quelea flying past. Sociable Weavers in camp – here’s one of their communal nests some distance south of Solitaire, nearer Helmeringhausen.
– another Ford bakkie salutes mine as I leave Solitaire – mine’s the white one –
Notice the Morris Eight open-top 2-door tourer in the feature pic?
I grew up in Darkest Wildest Africa to the sound of a lion roaring in the evenings and the early mornings. Some of this is true. Just not the ‘Darkest Wildest’ part. I would lie in my bed at 95 Stuart Street in Harrismith, and if the wind was right, there’d be the clear, authentic sound of the ‘King of the Jungle’ roaring in the background. Except of course he didn’t live in a jungle and he didn’t really do what I’d call roar – he went uuuuunh uuuuunh uh uh uh uh like lions do. Here’s how that came about:
On 1st June 1955 I was exactly two months old and in other notable news, Mr CJ (Bossie) Boshoff was appointed as parkkurator of the now well-established President Brand Park by the Harrismith Municipality. It seems to have been a happy choice, as his entertaining letter about the history of the zoo attests. It was written in November 2005, fifty years after he’d established the zoo. He moved to Harrismith to take up his new post, and stayed in Soekie Helman’s Royal Hotel while his council house was being renovated.
As park curator, the thought came to Bossie that he could do more. Maybe, he thought, he could: ‘n kampie in die park aanlê waarin n paar wildsbokkies kon loop wat ‘n aantrekking vir die publiek sou wees.
make a fenced paddock and keep a few antelope in it to attract the public!
Once he was given the nod by the town council, he chose an area about one hectare in size just above the Victoria lake, and put a fence round it, then put a road round the fence so people would be able to see his planned wild animals from their cars. Much like in the Kruger Park’s two million hectares. First, though, he’d have to bekom some wildsbokkies.
obtain – somehow – some antelope
His first inmates were a mak ribbok ooi – a tame mountain reedbuck ewe (‘rooiribbok’), two fallow deer and a tame aap mannetjie – a male monkey, likely a vervet. A female baboon named Annemarie, a tipiese raasbek boerbok – a typical ‘loudmouth’ goat!, and a blesbok ram who he thought was behaving a bit oddly – nie lekker op sy pote nie. On enquiry he discovered it was onder sterk brandewyn kalmering.
Not steady on its feet – it had been given a strong dose of brandy to tranquilise it!
Next he was offered a lioness from one of the Retiefs from Bergville; the asking price was fifteen pounds Sterling, and as with all finances, he knew he would need council’s permission and a formal decision. He went instead to Soekie Helman, as he knew Soekie’s “voice was loud in the council at that time.” He’d got to know Soekie when he stayed in his hotel. Soekie’s decision was a confident: “Buy the thing and we’ll argue later.” They did. Bossie soon noticed this five month-old pet was gentle for a while and then would ‘suddenly get serious,’ so he realised a strong cage was needed fast. Two high brick walls were built at right angles with a roof on top; a semicircular front of strong iron bars made by town blacksmith Pye von During was installed from the end of one wall to the other. A big bloekomstomp was placed on the floor of the cage (you can see it in the feature pic above), and a brick shelter was built in the back corner. The roof of that inner shelter became the lions resting and outlook spot.
This was the concrete stage on which the poor male lion you see in the picture, the one I heard in my youthful bedroom, would soon be lying; and daily roaring his pent-up frustration over the hills of Harrismith.
bloekomstomp – gumtree stump about 3m long and maybe 700mm diameter I would guess
Next thing Henrie Retief (Thys se broer) phoned from Bloemfontein to say he had bought a male lion which he was donating to what was now undeniably a zoo (not just a wildskampie) on condition that if ‘something happened to the animal one day’ he would get the pelt! The lion-lioness introduction was – according to Bossie – ‘Love at First Sight!
The male lion grew up handsome, and his roars could be heard all over town, ‘to the top of 42nd Hill,’ says Bossie, and certainly at 95 Stuart Street where we lived. The lioness fell pregnant but died in labour. The male watched them closely as they removed her body. She was soon replaced by another from Bloemfontein, who was placed in a separate cage for two months so they could grow accustomed to one another, but – alas! says Bossie – when they introduced them, the male killed her with one bite! Later they got new lions: A male and two females. Bossie said they had to ‘wegmaak’ the original male – kill? sell? Did ou Henrie get his pelt? Wait – The Chronicle of December 1959 says there was talk that ‘a local farmer’ would take the lion in exchange for two blesboks which would be swopped for three lions from Bloem! So it seems Kerneels Retief got the first lion?
Bossie’s zoo later got two wild dogs and a warthog from South West Africa in 1959, swopped for two mahems – crested cranes. In 1965 the Natal Parks Board donated six impala and two warthogs. I wonder which of those three warthogs became ‘Justin’ the famous one the Methodist minister Justin Michell would feed and talk to on Sundays after his sermon? I’m guessing Justin the warthog probly listened to him a lot more attentively than your average Harrismith Methodist, as the reward he got was immediate and yum; not just the vague promise – but no guarantees, nê – of later eternal life.
In January 1964 three lion cubs were born. One was killed the same night, the others were removed and raised by Mrs JH Olivier. In 1966 the Chronicle told of two five month-old cubs for sale. These cubs had ‘been involved in a hectic incident’ a while before when two African attendants were tasked to remove them from their mother and she attacked them! Workman’s Compensation, anyone? And was the story suppressed when it happened?
How to Feed this Menagerie!?
Suddenly food was an issue! How to feed the growing menagerie? They started charging adults a sixpenny entrance fee. Kids were free but had to be accompanied by an adult. Most of the meat for the lions was supplied by generous farmers. He mentions oom Frikkie (Varkie?) Badenhorst whose dairy had no use for bull calves and donated these. Mostly it was on a ‘yours if you fetch it’ basis, so Bossie would have to travel all over the district to keep his lions in meat. Farmers would donate their horses once they got too old to ride. The fact that many of these had names, and that they were still ‘on the hoof’ and looking at him when Bossie arrived didn’t make matters any easier for him.
One such was Ou Klinker, a Clydesdale used in the town’s forestry department. Piet Rodgers, the forester, told Bossie he could fetch Ou Klinker – but only when Piet wasn’t there! Bossie says usually when the shot was fired the horse’s legs would just fold and they would drop on the spot, but not old Klinker! When the shot went off he rose ‘like a loaf of bread and fell as stiff as a pole,’ says Bossie. And then he says ‘dit was baie vleis!’
that Clydesdale was a lot of meat!
The local police also phoned whenever they came across road kill, and the health inspector Fritz Doman would tell him whenever he condemned a pig with measles at the abattoir. One guy even offered a dog on a chain. But surely Bossie didn’t . . Oh, yes he did! But the lions ‘het nie baie van die vleis gehou nie,’ says Bossie. They did like the pork, however.
didn’t much like the dog meat
So you see!? it’s True!
And so now you know I really did grow up listening to a lion roaring uuuuunh uuuuunh uh uh uh uh as I lay in my bed in Darkest Wildest Africa – except for the ‘Darkest Wildest’ part – back in the day.
~~oo0oo~~
Originally posted here as the story of Harrismith Zoo, where there’s more detail on the zoo itself, the many other animals, and the man who started it. I couldn’t resist modifying and personalising the story here!
Most of this source material comes from Harrismith’s Hoarding Historian Biebie de Vos. who asked me to write the zoo story. Thank you Biebie! Much would have been lost if Biebie hadn’t saved it.
Lucky me, Jess chose St Lucia village for a three night getaway with good friend Tarryn for her birthday this year. The beautiful isiMangaliso Wetland Park is nearby, and I thought, ‘Great!’
The word mangaliso means ‘miraculous’ or ‘wondrous’ or ‘amazing’ in isiZulu, and it lives up to its billing. The tiny section I explored this time is marked on the map of the greater park in squiggly yellow: from St Lucia estuary to 20km up the Eastern Shores. I’ve been to many corners of this amazing place since my first visit ca.1965.
Birds I was looking for were White-backed Duck and Southern Banded Snake-Eagle (my main targets, I hadn’t seen them in ages); Also Lesser Moorhen; Rufous-bellied Heron; Pygmy Goose; and I saw all of those. Plus, as a bonus, Half-collared Kingfisher and Green Coucal – now Green Malkoha. I stared at these last two thru my lovely Zeiss binocs and by the time I remembered the camera they’d moved off. I’m still mainly a binocular person, not a photographer! Gazing in awesome wonder rather than recording.
The Samsung phone feature pic is on the vlei loop road, looking west across Ngunuza Vlei towards the setting sun. I turned round where the road went underwater as I wasn’t sure of the depth of the water flowing across the road. Being 2WD, lazy to deflate my tyres, and on my own, I thought best let discretion be the better part of valour! And retracing your steps is a new road anyway – you never cross the same river twice*. On the map, the vlei is south of Mission Rocks. What a joy the frog calls are all over the park after good rains.
I’ll upload pics when I get home – (done) – left my Canon to laptop cable behind! My mighty Canon is a SX620 HS. Lovely pocket camera, tragically ‘discontinued!’
Meanwhile, Gen Z was taking pics of their food. This in Mtunzini, well south of St Lucia.
For more organised and more frequent trips into Southern Africa’s wild places, see Dewetswild. Dries De Wet recently went to isiMangaliso – he guides photographic safaris. His blogpost on his last visit is what prompted me to look for that duck and that snake-eagle.
*Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher said, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’
. . is beautiful. The sandy rivers have huge fig, jackalberry, apple-leaf, marula, nyala and thorn trees along their banks. Lots of shade.
The surrounding area is dominated by mopani woodland and mopani scrub. Little shade.
When Jess chooses to loaf in camp, I go on slow short drives consisting mainly of parking and letting the birds come to me. When she comes along there’s more searching for furry creatures.
On one of those I left early to the sound of a booming duet: There aren't, There aren't, There arent any earthworms! There are There are, Dig Deeper, Dig Deeper! of a pair of Ground Hornbills.
Later, when watching a pair of Jacobin Cuckoos chasing each other round and round my parked car, the distant sound of a lion giving his best constipated rendition: Ooom, ooom, ooh, uh uh uh
– Jess finds the third leopard of our trip in a faraway tree –– me n Jess’ travels in the park in pink –
After three nights in Shingwedzi I said Punda Maria next, Jess? But she said, Whoa! Dad. Three weeks is enough. I need some DSTV and aircon. So we left the park thru the Phalaborwa gate and Jess found a chalet with her essential necessities. There was good birding there, and a great outdoor shower. Phalaborwa Safari Park.
Chuffed to have spent my longest spell in Kruger yet. More to come, I hope!
