Tag Archives: Peter Koos Swanepoel

Mtunzini

Mtunzini, Zululand, KZN North Coast. A new chapter begins after eighteen months in the metropolis of Mtwalume, KZN South Coast.

We’ve had a very friendly welcome, a common refrain being, ‘Watch, Now You’re Here You’ll Never Leave.’

Also my landlord must have spoken to Brooose, my previous landlord. He said, Now that I’ve met you I’ll send a gardener once a week to mow the lawn, as I can see it’s not your thing. How else could he have worked that secret out?

First day’s birds:

Eastern Golden Weaver, Dark-backed Weaver, White-eared Barbet, Hadeda, Hamerkop, Yellow-rumped Tinker, Palm Swift, European Bee-eater, Puffback, Red-eyed Dove, Yellow-bellied Greenbul, Redcapped Robin-chat, Purple-crested Turaco, Purple-banded (or Marico)  Sunbird, Olive Sunbird, Emerald Cuckoo, Klaas Cuckoo, Trumpeter Hornbill, Gorgeous Bush-shrike, Narina Trogon, Yellow-billed Kite, Burchell’s Coucal, Golden-tailed Woodpecker, Woolly-necked Stork.

Jess was surprised that unfurnished meant zero furniture, but I said, ‘We Have Plenty Jess’ and unpacked our fine aluminium folding camping table, two comfortable camping chairs and the mattress from the camper. Manie took a good look at that and offered to return the furniture he’d just schlepped off  to store in his garden cottage after his last tenant left. Another bonus!  These are kind people.

Meantime Willie had almost beaten us back home to deliver the fridge and microwave from his second-hand store.

In Feb I spotted at last what I’d been hearing regularly from my stoep – A Yellow-streaked Greenbul, coastal forest special.

~~oo0oo~~

Wasn’t Me

So a chain of 600 pubs went bankrupt and I know why. If you’re selling beer and you call yourself Thank God its Friday, that will resonate with thirsty tired working people, and you’re going to be popular. If you change your name to Thank Goodness its Friday you’re starting to wimp, and that’s not a good sign. If you then wimp it down to TGI Friday’s (what!!?) you’ve lost the plot IMO. Beer sales will steadily decline over a period of about 58 years and there’ll be financial trouble.

So TGI Friday’s went bust cos they were no longer Thank God its Friday. That, and probably also that apostrophe.

Back in 1973 they very much were Thank God its Friday, and we patronised them because that sounded like a great name. It was a special night for me cos I had been drinking beer illegally for a long time and TONIGHT I was about to have my first legal beer, thus wiping clean all past transgressions like good Catholics do. Or like bad Catholics do? I’d be getting Absolution, anyway.

In the ole Vrystaat where very little is actually vry the legal age to have a pint was 18 and I was 17 when I left for America after a few years of practicing drinking beer under sustained peer pressure. That’s my story anyway. I landed up in Oklahoma where I turned 18, but that didn’t help much. The beer was Coors light, only 3.2%, but the legal drinking age was 21. That summer Katie and family took me to Louisiana which was also 21. I had to (or should have) continue to drink feeling guilty.

Larry then drove down from upstate New York and fetched me from Shreveport in his light grey VW Beetle and we drove north through Arkansas, where we might have enjoyed a beer, but the legal age was still 21, so sadly (right! actually merrily) I was also breaking the law then.

But Missouri! Now Missouri was an 18 state and in Springfield MO we needed a beer after a long day’s drive and so we repaired to Thank God its Friday. I had my passport in my pocket, looking forward to proving I was ‘of age,’ but as always the bouncer just waved me through. I’ve never been skatted younger than I am.

So there I had a pint or two with Larry who had poured beers down my throat (me protesting) when I was an innocent fourteen year old lad back in 1969 when he was sent from wicked New York to corrupt the innocent ous in Harrismith, Vrystaat.

After that they stopped calling it Thank God its Friday and soon after – in 2024 – they went belly-up.

Cause and effect, see?

~~oo0oo~~

Damn, now Hooters has gone bust! The world sure is changing when even showing cleavage to old okes can’t sell beer!

In this case I may carry a bit of guilt. Never did go to Hooters. Felt to me like exploitation. Also, there wasn’t one nearby.

vry – free, mahala

mahala – free

skatted – estimated; collective noun: A bout of estimations (thanks Terry)

ous – young gentlemen

The Wallace Line

I crossed the Wallace Line. Many other species and even genera couldn’t hack it for millenia, but this Homo sapiens swanepoeli did it – there and back in a day. A short hop from Bali to Lombok then on to Gili Air using either a Lion Air or Batik Air jetplane, I forget which one.

During ice age glacial advances, when ocean levels were up to 120 metres lower, both Asia and Australia were united with what are now islands on their respective continental shelves – the Sunda Shelf linked Borneo, Bali, Java, and Sumatra to the mainland of southeastern Asia; and the Sahul Shelf linked Australia to New Guinea. But the deep water between those two large continental shelf areas was, for over 50 million years, a barrier that kept the flora and fauna of Australia separated from those of Asia.

The physical aspects and climates of the separated islands are and were very similar, yet species such as leaf monkeys and ponderous-beaked hornbills are found only on the Asian side, while wallabies, spiny anteaters, tree kangaroos and gliding possums are only on the Australian side. So it can be reasonably suspected that an ocean barrier prevented migration across the divide.

Alfred Wallace noticed this back in 1859 and wrote about it in his famous paper sent to Charles Darwin that pushed Darwin into finally pulling finger and publishing his brilliant and famous insights into how evolution happens which he had been dithering over and re-writing for twenty years.

So when we decided to attend a conference in Bali I thought, Aha! Never thought I’d get to do this. Aitch! I announced pompously, We’re going to cross the Wallace Line. OK, she said, as she always did. She didn’t ask ‘What’s the Wallace Line?’ as she knew she would hear it half a dozen times and she didn’t want to hear it seven times. Funny how spouses are much better when they’ve just met you and don’t know you inside out, have you noticed?

So once in Bali, we hopped onto a plane and flew across the deep and 70km wide Lombok Strait to Lombok Island, and then drove to the northwest coast and caught a ferry to a small island called Gili Air. I’m guessing gili means island? – yes: ‘The name ‘Gili Islands’ is redundant as gili simply means “small island” in Sasak.’

On the way there we saw a lot of timber trucks, huge tree trunks being carted off to make furniture. Oyoyoyoy! Someone needs a side table, so tree kangaroos and gliding possums must lose their homes! We won’t stop till the last square metre of our planet is paved, will we?

On Gili Air we lazed on the beach and snorkel’d. A handy current parallel to the reef meant you could just hover as you drifted along the reef. Then walk back along the beach and repeat. Effortless snorkeling in a spectacular ‘overstocked aquarium.’

~~oo0oo~~

I used a pic from Flickr of a jungle fowl found on Lombok. I’d love to see one of these ancestors of the garden ‘hoender.’

hoender – farmyard fowl

Clarens en route to Afriski

Winter 2010 – The Soccer World Cup frenzy was in full swing and I was pleased we were getting away from it all, off to the the relative tranquility of Afriski resort, high in the Lesotho mountains. The kids LOVED their winter skiing holidays!

En route we made our customary brunch stop in the village of Clarens and of course I had to inform our traveling companions, Andrew and Tracey Ogilvie, joining us for their twin girls’ first skiing holiday, that I had known the mayor of Clarens in the olden days. Actually, his son, the FSOC. America has POTUS and FLOTUS, so we can have Hizzoner, The First Son Of Clarens, right?

As I told my stories yet again poor Aitch just had to listen and try not to roll her eyes too hard – (btw, heard a good one: ‘rolled my eyes so hard I almost fell over backwards’).

Hilarious stories like: The TV repeater aerial and car battery on top of Mt Horeb and the walkie-talkie conversations twixt town and top that ensued; The Clarens telephone sentrale saying “34? No, Stevie’s not there, he’s at the Goldblatts, I’ll put you through;” Hilarious, right?

Oh well, Andrew seemed to enjoy them. He’s polite that way.

We were there just before the Soccer World Cup opening ceremony and the first game (Bafana the host nation vs Mexico). The Clarens central grassy square was crowded – a million kids dressed in Bafana yellow, blowing their zulufelas, I mean vuvuzelas and marching around aimlessly in neat lines. We blew out of there and mercifully, the radio reception soon got too poor to listen in.

If it wasn’t for bladdy satellites we would have been totally isolated up on the high mountains, too. So we had to watch some of the games in the pub. Civilisation is overrated.

~~oo0oo~~

telephone sentrale – the telephone exchange, in those days a real live human being who knew what was going on in town and dorp

dorp – village

vuvuzela – instrument of one-note aural torture; probly modeled on the instruments that toppled Jericho

Train Journey

Tommy had a lovely fun collection of model trains. Mom Aitch and I started the trend, then his rolling stock fleet was given a boost when Val & Pete Excell brought him a Thomas the Tank Engine from England.

Trains were a thing. He went on a few train rides, one for his fourth birthday party:

Then all of a sudden he was grown and the trains gathered dust. He agreed it would be best if other children could play with them, so off they went:

~~oo0oo~~

Kosi Bay Again

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.

Matters Tonsorial

Oops! Sorry Daddy!
Huh? I started awake. What, Jess?
I cut one part way too short.
Oh, doesn’t matter, love.
Were you sleeping?
I did nod off.
Sorry Dad.
Really love, I’m just happy you’re giving me a haircut. You can see how relaxed I am.

After:
Jess you’d better sweep up here, my girl. It looks like an eagle caught a goat and pecked out all its fur on the stoep.

(*hoses herself* *fetches broom*) Okay Daddy. Can I have a picture of your haircut for my profile?

~~oo0oo~~

(Sure dear. And that’s the picture above)

Airbag Sunrise

Earliest start and fastest drive to get the ole Ranger to Ford Bluff to fix my airbags. Jess missed the sun rising, my car was going so fast, but later she caught the sun once it was above the horizon.

My Takata airbags are part of the largest and most complex safety recall ever. Installed mostly from 2002 to 2015, some of these airbags could deploy explosively, injuring and even killing lil old me and Jess. Sixty seven million airbags have been recalled, proving false certain people’s nasty allegations that I’m the only airbag in my Ford. 

My first recall was two years ago and I had it done (I thought) at Harrismith Ford. Been happily driving it ever since. Not as fast as today, tis true. Last week I got another recall alert, and this time it came with a Do Not Drive advisory. Which is why I was driving so fast to have it fixed. This is urgent.

The reminder last week and its warning caused me to think, I Wonder If The Fix Was Actually Done? I phoned Harrismith Ford and asked them to send me proof that it had been done. What they sent me in writing was, Oops! Actually, It Wasn’t Done! Full confession: This thought has been niggling in the back of my large cranium for the whole two years, but I’m quite good at procrastination and kicking for touch, even though I played my rugby in an honest position, not halfback.

Now I await Ford’s verdict with trepidation, as they keep saying they’re not going to replace my airbags until they’ve ‘checked them.’ I made them assure me they have them in stock so I can drive the car today. They assured me they do have them in stock, but . . ‘First we must check.’

Okay. I’m having breakfast and multiple coffees across the road while I wait.

Update: Great service. Done and dusted by 9am! Just look how great my bakkie looks with it’s new airbag detonators:

– like a makeover –
– old detonator – obviously faulty: it’s barcode says BAM – also HERST, short for ‘herstel,’ meaning ‘fix’ –

Brauer’s Ford Flammable

They’re generous, kind.  ‘Hospitable’ doesn’t describe the half of it. What? Tolerant? Long-suffering? OK OK.

Share our home, share our food, you can even share my car. Hang on, the Ford Flammable? Is that not a hostile act?

Anyway, I drove it, donning my asbestos underpants and gloves, and it was a revelation. I didn’t know they made Fords without shakin’, rattlin’ n rollin’;

Or Fords with little TV screens on the dash that say in plain English, “oil change overdue!“ as can be seen in the actual shot of Brauer’s dashboard above. And bespoke unraveling upholstery. No boot space though – full of golf kit and old planks that ‘might come in handy one day.’

Look, it was missing a pedal and an ignition key, but thanks to my mechanical skill, I managed to get it moving. I restarted it numerous times when it stalled till I realised I just couldn’t hear the engine. It has a tiny engine smaller than a pint of milk, whereas mine has three full diesel-filled litres. And I’m used to my diesel operating and grumbling in no uncertain terms. You don’t think, ‘I wonder if this engine is running,’ in my car.

Oh, I needed a loan car cos mine was being studied by automotive engineers and marketers marveling at its 17yr-old wonders. They’re considering relaunching it as a special edition.

~~oo0oo~~

Agronomy

Us agronomists have lots of planning to do. There’s the preparing the soil, planting the seed and watering the crop and other stuff I know very little about. But I’ve heard about it.

Sometimes though, you can sit in a chair on your stoep and watch a plant growing in a flowerpot and idly wonder what it is. A tomato plant! Hey, look at that. I immediately claimed credit and started planning what to with the harvest once the leaves had done their bit, then the flowers bloomed and now for the harvest! The word ‘bumper’ came to mind. Harvests are often bumper.

I decided I’d share generously.

– had to tell Terry the green thing wasn’t a finger –

Maybe I’ll buy a few pockets of onions and make a bredie?

~~oo0oo~~

My pic of the stoep, chair and flowerpot was neatly photobombed by a box kite spider!

stoep – porch

bredie – cooked tomato and onion mix; mine usually found in a can

What’ll Eye Do?

A special sighting in the garden in Mtwalume! A male Black-throated Wattle-eye some 80km south of where he’s usually to be found. Durban is where I last saw him, in the Beachwood mangroves.

Roberts says: In southern Africa, along the eastern littoral from southern Mozambique as far south as Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, with isolated records from E Cape as far south as Gonubie. Near-threatened in S Africa, where evidence for population decreases due to eg habitat destruction.

Plenty of habitat destruction along the south coast I’m afraid.

As usual, me and my camera were too slow. Moving targets ‘are not us,’ but I got one good view in my binocs and one saturation view, clearly seeing his red eye wattle.

I’ll watch out for him now, camera in hand.

– pics from Roberts and Newmans bird apps –

He was still there the next day, but too quick for me and my camera.

Over. Over.

I told Steve Reed’s Clarens TV story at a 70th birthday held in a lovely home in Maun on the banks of the Thamalakane river one evening. Over.

Sally-Ann modestly said, Well I Can’t Top That One, and then proceeded to do just that, telling a hilariously disastrous tale of her mobile safari outfit getting their first walkie talkie radios so she could keep in touch with her 4X4 vehicles out in the wild.

The next safari launched. Off went the vehicles, the drivers and the clients, off into the wonderful wild of Botswana. Just a few short hours later, Sally-Ann eagerly called them up from ‘Head Office,’ her first time to be in touch with her drivers out in the wild!

Calling Safari 1. Over.
Safari 1 here. Over.
How you guys doing? Over.
Um, not so good. Over.
What’s up? Over.
Well, we’ve rolled the Landrover over. Over.

~~oo0oo~~

Black Friday

I’ve not had much to do with Black Friday. Except twice. Once near Sodwana Bay, and once in Keetmanshoop. Both times it took me completely by surprise.

– Bethanie express coach –

I got caught with a flat, well how bout that, north of Bethanie on my way south from Solitaire. The young ou there said, Oom we do have some tyres but not your size, Oom. You’ll have to go to Keetmanshoop Oom. Note: You may be pouncing Bethanie incorrectly. It’s ‘Bet-Taahny.’

At the Keetmanshoop tyre plek I got excellent service. They fixed up everything and checked all the other things. When it came time to pay I expressed surprise at the price. That’s a very good price, saith I.

Ja Oom it’s Black Friday and the Oom has got a very special price for your tyres Oom.

Well blow me tyres up and blow me down.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

‘So You Got Caught With A Flat?’

* to add video from vimeo here *

ou – fella

oom – older ou

plek – joint

Peeping Tom

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.

https://videopress.com/v/5GGbfebZ?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

~~oo0oo~~

Winter Wetland Birding

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.

Ducks – Southern Pochard, Shelduck, Yellowbilled Duck, Red-billed Teal, Hottentot Teal, Egyptian Goose, Cape Shoveler; Herons – Purple and Black-headed; Cattle Egret; African Snipe, African Rail, African Swamphen, Black Crake, Little Grebe, Moorhen, Cape Wagtail, Hadeda, Sacred Ibis, Helmeted Guineafowl, Pied Kingfisher, Blacksmith Lapwing, Bokmakierie, Fiscal Shrike, Reed Cormorant, Black-winged Kite, Stonechat.

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.

Nocturnal Noises

Plaf Plaf Plaf Plaf Plaf (growing louder) *Huff Puff Huff* Plaf Plaf Plaf 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.