Dad! I found a very nice rehab place! Oh good Jess, are you thinking of rehab, girl? Um, yes I am *thinking* about it, she hedges. She’s in Folweni and alone so she has time to surf the internet on her phone. It’s called White Rhino Manor, she says, and it sounds very nice. They do courses and hikes and outings and stuff. Great, love. Sounds like Terry’s one that she recommended that her friend owns and runs. Oh, OK.
(This was some time in 2021).
I go looking online. There’s a Manor with white rhinos in Pembrokeshire, Wales. They run a fancy zoo with three white rhinos as the star attraction. There’s White Rhino Manor House Murder Mysteries who run team-building exercises ala Agatha Christie murder-solving. They don’t have a place – you have to supply your own venue in England.
Then I find White River Manor in Mpumalanga that do rehab. Ah, thank goodness, I think, we’re not talking Pommy ££ Pounds here! But they bill themselves as a 5-star discreet retreat for executive rehab. And I’m thinking Pommy ££ Pound numbers again. See their introductory pic on top. Nice! Wouldn’t mind a bit of rehab meself! A hot towel and a complimentary drink usually means ££ in my book!
Oh, well, it’ll be a good while before we have to commit, so in the meantime: All Options Open, Jess. Quick background check: Would our medical aid contribute towards this, I wonder? It seems they will. A little.
~~oo0oo~~
Later – June or July 2022 Jess spent a month at a rehab outside White River – I wouldn’t recommend them. Currently she’s on Dad rehab – aiming to beat her fourteen week record. Fingers and eyes crossed.
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!
No sooner do I manage to evict an unwanted Congolese from my apartment than I’m busy trying to evict an unwanted Mocambican! This time from my bakkie – my new home.
I went to see what the glossy starlings were shriekingly unhappy about, as we were packing the bakkie to leave the camp – and leave the park. And it was this Mocambique Spitting Cobra at our hut steps, about a metre long. In Shingwedzi camp, Kruger national park.
When I approached the Mfezi, he turned left into my mag wheel and climbed up into the engine bay; and so I phoned the rangers who soon arrived – many of them, one with long handling tongs.
But all of them agreed rather to wait for Shadrack. ‘He’s a qualified field ranger who handles snakes. He’s been trained,’ they said, standing way back. The gang of capable-looking, officially-dressed, but caution-is-the-better-part-of-valour rangers (who were mostly ‘in admin’) grew, as word got around camp; Then a Zim couple from a caravan across the road approached. ‘What’s up? A spitting cobra? Oh we know that snake. He has visited us a few times the last couple weeks.’ Turns out they have camped on that spot for a full year this month! And I thought our three weeks in the park was lengthy! They also had a coupla pythons visit their caravan and watched them until they were back in the bush outside the camp fence, telling them shoo.
Once Shadrack the braver ranger arrived, he took the tongs. We tried to grip the Mfezi from the front (him) and flush from behind (me) but he spat at us and coiled around things, so in the end we thought whoa! Also, the Zim camper said, Rather wait till he emerges vanself. So we moved off about ten metres away till Jess spotted him emerging at the front right wheel. Shadrack then got him, but he was wedged and not budging, so I fetched a mop handle to prize his rear end out so Shadrack could draw him out. After a while, Shadrack said, ‘I’m gonna have to let him go so he can breathe.’ I imagined him turning round and saying, So YOU’RE the oke pulling my tail! and spitting-cobra at me, so I said, Wait, Shadrack! Give me One More Try, and out he came like Abednigo, to be bundled into a big black rubbish bin and driven off to be released – the poor terrified and no doubt exhausted Mfezi – far from camp. What an ordeal for him.
I had ignored the glossy birds at first as they had been shouting the previous two days at two yellow-billed hornbills who were wanting to raid their nest hole. But that was just a pair of them. Today about eight of them were joined by a Crested Barbet and they were using really rude starlingese to tell the Mfezi he was unwelcome. One brave one flew at him a few times and slapped him in the face with her wing! Old Mfezi was stoic, like, ‘I know you ous don’t like me, but I’m just doing my job.’
So Jess and I have been in the park for over two weeks now. We’ve stayed in Pretoriuskop, Berg n Dal, Skukuza, Satara and Olifants camps so far. I’m hoping to keep heading north – Shingwedzi next, but will have to negotiate. I’m aware that three weeks in nowhere with an old toppie might not be every 25yr-old’s idea of heaven. Can’t understand them, huh?
Negotiations opened with (and ended with), ‘First let’s get to a town so I can get all I need, then we’ll come back into the park.’ Fair enough Jess, so tonight we’re in a chalet just outside the Phalaborwa gate. Tomorrow hopefully camping in Shingwedzi.
– Found an Aitch tree – Sterculia – the African Star Chestnut –
A big black ‘garbage’ bag on my driveway. That’s strange, methought. I opened it up. Very nice clothes. Not new, but very good condition. Khaki safari shorts, Jeep branded shorts, lekker shirts, great T-shirts. Hmm.
Maybe they were taken off a clothesline and then, if the taker was feeling guilty and someone was approaching, he threw them over my gate so as to be empty-handed? I conjectured. I was on whatasap back then so I broadcast to the neighbourhood group – Found some clothes. Anyone lost any clothes lately? No reply. I asked again. One guy asked, What kind of clothes? I gave a neutral ‘male adult shorts n shirts’ answer. I wasn’t going to say Perfect safari shorts! Great T-shirts! Nah! Anyway, they weren’t his. Hmm.
I told my friends of the mystery. Oh we forgot to tell you! Those are for you. You need to wear some different, and better clothes for a change. So Louis Galop gooi’d those over your gate when he was out on a run, galop’ingin the ‘hood, as he does.
Mystery solved. I was now a well-dressed soon-to-be-homeless gentleman. Really lekker clothes, my new favourites!
Turns out their preacherman from America thought the 2021 insurrection and looting was a good reason to return home, maybe a sign from on high, and had left in a hurry. In God We Trust, but hey, discretion . .
My good Samaritan friends tidied up for him, and I benefited from that strategic retreat! I got, like, a makeover. Two years later, they’re still my best clothes.
~~oo0oo~~
I do miss my old fashionably ripped shorts, must say. I think they’da been worth a lot now. I know I pay extra for pre-ripped jeans for the kids.
Dad! There’s smoke coming out from under the bonnet! Jess n Tom shouted in unison. It’s nothing, I said reassuringly, A lot of cars smoke like that.
No they don’t! Jess n Tom shouted in unison, ganging up on me. What? Suddenly you okes are automotive engineers? I asked defensively.
So I had to break one of my rules of touring and advanced automotive engineering and open up that bonnet – something I try and avoid, and advise against. Every time I do, it costs me money. A pint of oil here, a new head gasket there.
This time a smoking fanbelt, one that ‘drives the aircon.’ That ‘had seized.’ Who knew an aircon machine under your bonnet needs driving? Who knew the aircon machine under your bonnet has a clutch? Who knew it could seize? Whatever next?
The clutch. That’s what was next. The actual big clutch for gears n things, attached to the pedal for your left foot. So now the bakkie is up on blocks like an SA Navy submarine and we await spare parts from Pretoria, wherever that is. Come to think of it, when I was in the army, we were told that the SA Navy headquarters was in Pretoria, safe from any salty water n stuff. We were. Swear. Make this make sense.
So here we are, stuck on the South Coast in a comfortable cottage having to watch humpback whales breaching beyond the breakers and dolphins porpoising in the waves, and birds in the shrubbery.
And at night, Come Dine With Me, on OpenView satellite TV, with Jess giving stern advice and criticism to the participants. And saying ‘Sis’ and ‘Yuck’ about some of their dishes and some of their habits.
My next bakkie is going to be automatic, so the clutch won’t hlupa me.
. . you don’t live in a cardboard box. I just found out I do.
I’ve weathered rainstorms here and high winds. I thought I was safe and snug in this cottage, but this morning I get this message after I’d suggested where Bruce the wicked landlord mount his second luxury TV screen:
So Jimmy Buffet died yesterday. This reminded me that I met Aitch in 1985.
Being polite and needing to make small talk I suppose I did tell her about the time we rented a Lincoln Continental in Atlanta. I’m sure I only told her once, or anyway less than a dozen times, but you know how she was. I also told her once that I was not fond of country music, having had my fill in the year I spent in Oklahoma.
So of course, the next trip we go on to a game reserve in Zululand, she’s playing this song full blast on the stereo in my white 1981 Ford Cortina 2.0GL sedan:
– Jimmy Buffet Brand New Country Star –
Just cos the oke drives a Lincoln Continental!
She played it so often and so loud we both learnt the words and the choon and would belt it out on many a road trip.
he's a cheeseburger eatin', abandoned Sunday meetin' Brand new country star He rides around in a Lincoln Continental No steer horns on his car
I also introduced her to my Mom’s cousin Dapper Dudley Bain who would unfailingly tell you he was born in Harrismith (ca. 1923 I guess) and the sound of turtle doves reminded him of his youth in his Scottish oupa Stewart Bain’s Royal Hotel. He had a pencil-thin moustache, so Aitch would also play:
– Jimmy Buffet Pencil Thin Mustache –
I better not let Jess see this. She did some line dancing in her day and is prone to playing loud country music on the stereo in my white 2007 Ford Ranger 3l turbodiesel 2WD bakkie on our road trips. Her mother’s genes, I spose. The suffering continues.
We loved Nselweni Bush Camp on the right bank of the Black Mfolosi river in Mfolosi Game Reserve. Kinda artistic/rustic, but with everything you need; solid walls with canvas ceilings above and a canvas roof over that; a good kitchen good bathroom en-suite. Windows and doors that open WIDE.
Nice and quiet; and full of birdlife while we were there. Some bush pigs visited us nightly, giving us a good closeup look by torchlight. And – we didn’t take pics!
On the riverbed, we watched an ele having a moment . .
Heard at night: Lion; Hyena; Bushbaby thicktail; Hippo
~~oo0oo~~
An early adoption of solar energy with batteries is now derelict – lead acid batteries short shelflife! Godd to see the thinking, and hopefully new renewable energy sources are being investigated in all our parks?
Original Message Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 Subject: Doctors!
I should get my money back! My doc told me the same thing today he’s told me for the last fifteen / twenty years:
Your ‘annual’ checkup? Good, cos your last visit was three years ago.
You’re fat and unfit.
And for this I must pay him?
Also, the thing is, he's wrong! Fat compared to who? and Unfit for what?
Doesn't trust me, either, the skinny endurance athlete bugger. He asked for my weight and I said 80kg, and my waist and I said 88cm. So he stared at me and insisted on measuring, wasting my time and his; then announced triumphantly: "92kg and 112cm!"
What kind of doc does that? Hurt my feelings, sort-of. And also, I wonder when he last had his tape measure re-calibrated?
'Friend' Bruce wrote: The older you get, The tougher it is to lose weight, Because by then, Your body and your fat Have become really good friends.
What? Is he trying to make me feel better? Or older?
~~oo0oo~~
Progress! Today, eight years later, I measured again with my Stanley metal measuring tape in the garage. Only 108cm. That’s actually 107 cos the metal kinks.
No need for a checkup! Think of the money I saved.
Update 2023: Just been yet again. The verdict, a clean bill of health. Immaculate. Never seen anything better in all my years of practice, said skinny Dr Steve. I paraphrase.
TomTom and Ziggy and Mbono had a housewarming braai at their new home in Waterloo, north of Durbs. Jess and I were there along with Mbono’s parents, Ziggy’s Mom, sisters, brothers, nieces and star of the show: Melokuhle, Ziggy and Mbono’s baby, my grandson. Their little 2-bedroom house with its own garden is so much nicer than their last place, a flat in a high-rise building downtown.
One niece buzzed around taking lots of pics and videos, so I’ll post some of those when I get them. Meantime, I took too few:
Ziggy organised a lovely meal under the watchful eyes of her Mom and Mom-in-law – daunting, that! Luckily my Zig is a qualified chef! The young men – Mbono and two brothers did the braai for her. Tom had marinaded the meat overnight in his special sauce.
Suddenly it was decided there were too few bowls for dessert! Mbono, his older bra and Tom hopped into his Dad’s car and roared off to Spar; Later, another crisis: Older brother’s new girlfriend wanted sparkling water! Mbono, his older bra and Tom hopped into his Dad’s car and roared off to Spar. I remember those days. Any excuse to drive Dad’s car!
After lunch the large punch bowl was just about empty and the party was getting started! I thought I’d leave the dancing to the younger crowd. So Jess and I left early to get home to Mtwalume, about 100km south, before dark. We dropped off Ziggy’s Mom and a cousin along the way.
~~oo0oo~~
Waterloo Promise to love you for ever more Waterloo Couldn’t escape if I wanted to Waterloo Knowing my fate is to be with you Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Waterloo Finally facing my Waterloo
Unfortunately the National Geographic journalist, the first journalist to reach the falls, fell prey to the temptation of sensationalism. None was needed: Angel Falls is sensational enough as it is! She should have said: Angel Falls has the highest single drop of any known waterfall, and has the MOST amazing setting, plunging from a free-standing mountain rising above a green tropical landscape, making it way more spectacular than most high falls which are often hard to photograph.
Instead, she decided to measure the height from the lip of the falls to the river two kilometres away downstream, after cataracts and even some flowing river, including all those in her overall height. This meant the ‘drop’ was over a horizontal stretch of three km, not vertical. Hardly what we think of as a ‘waterfall.’
Silly to do that, as if you measured the Tugela Falls in the Drakensberg that way, it’s actually higher! It has a tremendous single drop and five distinct free-leaping falls.
Both these magnificent falls have great vantage points from which to see their main drops, but let’s compare what really counts:
Biggest single drop of Tugela Falls: 411m
Biggest single drop of Angel Falls: 738m
– we peer over the escarpment edge to see the Tugela Falls on a climb ca.1999 –
Finally heaving the fat ass of my Congolese squatter out onto the pavement of once-toney Musgrave road and throwing his double bed after him so it landed on his bald head* led me to reflect on the 29-odd years I have been privileged to own this lovely flat I bought from my now-Kiwi partner Pete.
*The truth about my only bad apple tenant is that he skived his own shady self off by disappearing quietly in the dead of night one step ahead of the sheriff, having squatted unwanted for about eighteen months – the last eight months unpaid. His long and tedious occupation of my lovely maybe-one-day home is OVER! He’s history, so let’s look back on happier memories.
All my tenants loved the flat and paid their rent. A few asked to buy it; a few phoned to say they were sad they had to leave, but life had taken them elsewhere.
One year was memorable: One year when a tenant left I took my flat off the market for a while and spruced it up. We sanded and gleamed the wooden floors, re-did the kitchen cupboards, fitted a new shower and painted the place. It looked great. The couple who renovated it for me brought in their nineteen year-old daughter to help clean at the end. She worked like a trojan and she loved the space and begged to rent it with a fellow student friend. Sure, I said, and no regrets. They were lovely. Her name was Sierra and she and her flatmate paid on time every month. Oh yes, and they drove the oldies in the building crazy with their parties!
When the moans hit a crescendo I went and spoke to the old-gentlemen-only gang on the body corporate. Moan Moan. Your tenants are loud. They have friends staying overnight. They squeal their car tyres on the road outside at midnight. Moan. Moan.
I asked, ‘What are their names?’ What? ‘What are their names?’ I repeated. No idea. ‘Oh, Did you meet and greet them when they first arrived? Did you welcome them and explain you’re mostly rather old and would like some quiet after 9pm?’ Um no, well that’s not our job! ‘Ah. How many of you have said ‘The youth of today have no manners?’ I asked, prodding hard. Then I let them out of their deserved misery. ‘Relax, they’re leaving at the end of this month.’
So now, years later, we’re renovating again. I’m hoping to get those beautiful old Oregon Pine floors (the old guy who’s gonna fix them says, ‘They’re Douglas Fir, actually’) smooth and gleaming again. Fingers crossed.
I got a wifi-enabled camera! My cellphone can now operate the camera remotely! I am going to set it up on a tripod and sit somewhere comfortable and take pictures of unwitting birds. No, man! Feathered ones.
Having this would also have been handy to see what the hyenas and bushpigs were doing outside our hut late at night last time we were in Mfolosi, and I always want to know what’s that snuffling around my tent when camping.
So now I finally have a camera I can set up on a tripod and take pics from my cellphone. Being a cheapskate I waited till I could do it with a cheap camera – a Canon Powershot SX620HS. It’s a tiny little compact camera so I can carry it everywhere in my shirt pocket; the biggest advantage it has over the cellphone camera is 25X optical zoom.
So now I got the camera aiming at the birdbath waiting for the first exciting shot.
Hmm, getting the camera and phone to talk to each other has taken way longer than I thought. While I was sukkeling, two spectacled weavers, a golden-rumped tinker, an olive sunbird, two brown-hooded kingfishers, a fork-tailed drongo and a speckled mousebird hopped on and grinned at me. Now that I’m rigged up, nothing so far!
Ons sal sien what comes of this! Maybe word got out in the bird world that the binocular pervert who always stares at them while they’re bathing now has a camera? This Red-capped Robin-chat showed what she thought of me at the other birdbath. And this was while I was still shooting from long range!
Once I got the setup going, I soon noticed another small problem: My attention span! This is not really a sport for someone who hops from twig to twig and makes frequent forays to the fridge and/or the kettle. One olive sunbird has been spotted and photographed, small and blurry; moving fast and olive-greenish against an olive-greenish backdrop. Meantime various ostriches and vultures might have taken gulps while my attention was elsewhere. I wouldn’t know.
I can see I need auto-shoot with a movement detector so I can leave it and go to sleep and then see what happened in my absence. And so the drive for ever-more expensive equipment starts!
Other challenges: Battery life! After waiting a few hours the whole setup suddenly switches off: “Re-charge Battery” it commands. And mine only operates with wifi – I’ll need bluetooth to be able to do this in the wild, far from wifi.
So whenever you see a great bird picture, take your hat off to the patience, perseverance, skill and equipment required to get those shots!
I now remember the stories Neville Brickell used to tell me about how he got his bird pics. Something along these lines: He would find a spot where his target bird was likely to be. He would give a big bag of the right seed or feed to someone living nearby and ask them to put a handful out every day for a few weeks. He would set up a hide in a good position and place likely perches with good backgrounds. Later he would return, enter the hide and wait. If all went to plan he would get his picture! His resident feeder would be rewarded for that ultimate success so he had a reason to keep up the feeding. A lot of work and patience! Of course, he also sometimes caught birds and photographed them in cages with controlled light and backgrounds.
~~oo0oo~~
I finally started getting a few fun pics – better anyway than I could get with my little camera from my stoep 30m away. And I could play with the images:
– purple-crested turaco –
and I could zoom in:
Once when I was setting up, this Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird landed a metre away and asked What You Doin’? So I shot him right there, free-hand.
Now that I’ve sold my home and am wandering around, I really need to get going on an alternative system. Fingers crossed. One day . .
Update: I picked Lee Ouzman’s brain and our last thought was Get Another Cellphone and let them talk to each other. So for now I think that’s what I’ll do. I’ll need to mount one on my Manfrotto tripod . . .
I love rivers and river valleys; water, especially water rushing downhill – the direction I wish to go; big water, we call it; hairy rapids; fun and scary and I enjoy the . . let’s call it excited, tense anticipation. Yeah, fear. My approach to scary rapids is logical / statistical: I know that big water is high perceived danger, but low real danger and that driving to the river is low perceived danger, but high real danger. So I’d reassure myself with that, have a pee, then fasten my splashy and push off into the current. Of course once you’re there on the riverbank, ‘scouting your line’ through the rapid, peer pressure does have a bit to do with it! You going? Yeah? So’m I.
I love little rapids too. As long as the water is flowing I’m happy. If I can do much of the trip with my arms folded and the current schlepping me downstream, I’m in paradise. Still water may run deep, but it’s hard work – no progress unless you’re paddling. And the wind is always agin ya!
Perspiration? Not so much. On many a trip my crazy paddle mates would paddle back upstream to where I was drifting in awesome wonder and ask, ‘What’s Wrong Swanie?’ Nothing was wrong, the day was long. My thought was, What’s the hurry?
In big water my mate ace paddler Chris Greeff would say ‘If you ain’t scared, you ain’t havin’ fun!’ a quote he got from Cully Erdman. ** Now Chris – he was a very good one. And also a FreeStater who was ‘born to be’ a kayaker. Like me, he grew up on the banks of a Vrystaat river – the lesser Vile (Vaal) as opposed to my mighty Vulgar (Wilge). I used to give him good advice but he’d ignore it and win races. He has no handbrake; He won just about every race you can win except the one South African laymen ask about. And he nearly won that one, despite short and reluctant legs. These things are hard to verify, but if there was a combination trophy for the highest beer consumption the night before, coupled on the tote with winning the race the next day, I reckon the only other paddler who would maybe come close was Jimmy Potgieter, a decade earlier.
He should write a book.
~~oo0oo~~
* I saw this lovely basketball quote –
‘I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one’ by Pat Conroy
seen on Dr Mardy’s Quotes
** fear quotes:
Closest I can find are –
‘It ain’t brave if you ain’t scared’ by Victor J. Banis in Deadly Nightshade
‘If you ain’t scared you ain’t human’ by James Dashner in The Maze Runner.
