Tag Archives: elephant

Mother Mary Call

Tell me where you’re staying again.

We’re in Mtunzini in a lovely wooden cottage on stilts in a forest. Lots of birds, Mom.

Well, be careful of the elephants.

Our forest doesn’t have elephants.

Good. The last time I saw elephants in a circus in Harrismith we sat in the high seats back from the circus ring. One of the town’s awfully fancy ladies walked in and sat in the front row at ring level. She was wearing her hair piled up high and her dress cost as much as a small car. Tickey the clown came in carrying two buckets of water. He threw one in the ring, wetting the sawdust, then threw the 2nd bucket straight at fancy madame, who shrieked and dived to the side. It was filled with confetti!

…

Next, we discussed cellphones and telephones:

At 95 Stuart the phone table was a converted hatstand. On the plot outside town – Birdhaven – the phone was fixed onto the wall. I kept a chair next to it to sit on while chatting.

Mrs Rogers from the forestry* phoned one day. You know Mrs Swanepoel, she said, We use this party line as a business phone, and your kids are on the line all the time! Terribly sorry Mrs Rogers. It won’t happen again! And I took away the chair so you kids couldn’t stand on it to reach the phone!

Seems I had a deprived childhood.

…

*(actually the pine plantation – plantations are not forests!)

Hwange Camp Invasion – Unruly Behaviour

Sister-in-law Janet in Maun sent this: As you know, Duncan is project manager for Beks Ndlovu’s company African Bush Camps. He is currently refurbishing the camp we stayed at with Trish in Jan 2010 – Somalisa in SE Hwange.

This week Duncan wrote to Beks: “FYI . . Jurassic is causing a nuisance in camp. Broke into the new storeroom to get cabbages and potatoes. Then did the same to the new Acacia kitchen on Monday night. I believe quite a lot of damage and refused to be chased away.”

Beks wrote: Our project manager Duncan Elliott, who has spent many years in the bush building safari camps, sent me this message tonight whilst I was on vacation in Australia. Jurassic, by the way is an elephant at Somalisa who has a seriously warped sense of humor. He eats guests’ soap and toothpaste and refuses to go by our general ground rules . . He has a mind of his own!

I can’t help but reflect that today we have these encounters with wildlife and here is what I sent back to Duncan:

“What fun and games… You are amongst very few people in this world that can tell that kind of story? Do you think your grandchildren might have the same stories in years to come?
Please kindly ask Jurassic to understand we have a new camp to open in less than a week and since he is family he needs to understand FHB ( family holds back)!”

Hluhluwe LUXURY Camping!

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.

Hlu Feb'14 (52)
– 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.

Hluhluwe Feb '14

Meals? All I had to do was eat.

~~oo0oo~~