Tag Archives: Peter Koos Swanepoel

Remote-control Photography

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.

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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 . . .

~~oo0oo~~

I was Born to be a Kayaker . .

. . just not a very good one. *

Actually ‘born to be’ . . ? Yep. Check it out here.

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.

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* 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.

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Ama Criminal Record

I was on the phone to an ancient friend named Owen as I neared Port Alfred when a lady invited me to join her at the side of the road. I did so with alacrity. She was a traffic gendarme in Ndlambe. The ticket she wrote tells me I was pulled over in Voortrekker Street ‘opposite the Lunch Box.’

May I see your drivers licence? asked the friendly lady in the every-stitch-on-duty uniform. ‘Sure,’ said I, ‘You will notice it has expired.’

Tut tut, she tutted me and wrote out that ticket. Five hundred bucks cos I “Drove a M/V on a Public Road with Expired Driver’s Licence.” Not quite true, as my driver’s licence is for life. What she meant was my proof of having a licence had expired. The card had expired. That was true. The driver on the other hand, he was still fresh.

I forgot about it till today and so now I have just paid it online. I hope the good people of Ndlambe municipality accept the cash, as I see I am past the deadline date!

I don’t want a criminal record! I was reminded of such often on our journeys, as it’s one of Jessie’s songs she plays as we buzz along the byways of Southern Africa.

Ama Criminal Record – by Blaq Diamond. Long before the song is over – it’s a long one – I usually ask Jess: ‘Earphones please my love!!’

Mtwalume Cottage

A quiet time in the cottage. Except when Tommy joined me for a few days! Then there was action, fires, big meals and a much fuller bin bag for the rubbish truck on Wednesday.

~~oo0oo~~

Cape Passes & Poorts

Normal people may find this post boring.

As Jess and I whizzed southwestward in search of clear skies to dry out the tent on my lorry after the floods in the Kruger Park at the beginning of the year and the soaking rains in Mpumalanga, Free State and KZN which kept my canvas damp. It got so bad I started thinking there wasn’t a sky in the cloud. On the tar roads we passed numerous signs saying some or other pass. You notice the lovely scenery, but the passes pass with no effort, so we seldom stopped for photos. Thanks to the amazing website run by the geeks, nerds and – worse – engineers of mountainpassessouthafrica.co.za anyone can go on a virtual drive over these passes. I used them gratis for a bit, then subscribed. Well worth R465 a year in my view, even if you’re only doing one trip with one pass – you’ll get so much more out of the trip once you’ve read the amount of info these guys post about each pass. A narrated video of the route, angles, altitudes, distances, directions, gain, gradient, history, can you take a Fiat Uno or do you need a Unimog, ens. Fascinating.

I had some well-known and challenging passes on my to-do list for this trip, and on those I did take pics which I’ll post.

Wapadberg Pass – On the tarred R61 between Cradock and Graaff Reinet; 17km long; On YouTube here.

Carlton Heights Pass – On the tarred N9 between Noupoort and Middelburg; 7km long; On YouTube here. It was here I remarked to Jess, ‘Look, not a cloud in the sky!’ We had found our dry blue skies to dry out my tent! We stopped for a pic and saw there was one wee cloud to the south, no bigger than a man’s hand, just like in the Bible.

Now four passes on the tarred N9 north of Graaff Reinet. Heading South, as we did, they are: Naudesberg Pass; Paardekloof Pass; Goliathskraal se Hoogte Pass; Perrieshoogte Pass; All tar, all beautiful, but none caused us to stop and take pics. Also near – almost in – Graaff Reinet are van Ryneveld’s Pass and Munniks Poort. Some of these passes were Andrew Geddes Bain passes, the famous road- and passbuilder whose reputation I accuse my ancestors of appropriating when they got to Natal!

In Camdeboo National Park we found the first pass, mountain and valley I had long wanted to see: Camdeboo Pass leading to the Valley of Desolation! Back in 1972, fresh from a wonderful Veld & Vlei adventure, I’d been invited on a Boy Scouts patrol leader camp to the “Valley of Desolation near Graaff Reinet.” The camp was cancelled, but my imagination had been fired up and I always dreamed of seeing this mythical place one day. Now, a mere fifty one years later, I was driving up the pass. – – (virtual drive it on YouTube here and here)

— Jess halfway up the pass; and the tent on my lorry nice and dry —

Next we headed to the Karoo national park outside Beaufort West, my old mate Louis’ stamping ground. Inside the park there’s the Klipspringer Pass built with great effort and care. Being in a declared nature reserve, rocks were sourced from outside the park, ruins of old houses and kraals eg. and local labourers dry-packed them by hand to minimise the damage to the area. Jess chose to loaf back at camp while I drove it. She missed out.

After Beaufort we headed for Oudtshoorn to visit Louis and Gail – and what a welcome we received! Good friends indeed. Louis told of us of Meiringspoort, saying It’s Beautiful! and he was right. We crossed Droekloof Pass on the way, then took our time in the poort, stopping at every picnic spot and walking up to the waterfall. — (the feature pic at the top shows the mighty Ford Ranger on the Meiringspoort road).

Reluctantly leaving Louis n Gail’s hospitality we headed north towards a must-do pass – the famed Swartberg Pass. After passing through Schoemanspoort near the Cango Caves we started up the pass, stopping at Kobus se Gat to get Jess her 100th hot chocolate (! approx). Ahead lay 24km of Thomas Bain’s finest road engineering. The boffins at mountainpassessouthafrica.co.za rate it so special they have made eight videos to cover it! See a shorter video here, showing north to south, opposite of our direction. Swartberg could actually be called multiple passes and multiple poorts!

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A pass goes up or down or over a mountain. A poort goes through – often following a river course. Often you drive with high mountain walls on both sides, whereas on a pass there’s usually a wall on one side and a drop on the other.

Thanks to mountainpassessouthafrica.co.za; tripadvisor.com; and princealbert.org.za for pictures

Abba Game Farm

Jess and I had a wonderful chill at Abba Game Lodge in the greater Waterberg, near Modimolle. No traveling to do, nowhere to go, we just chilled for four days. Jess enjoyed the attention and kindness shown her by the ladies who run the show, especially Chantel, who encouraged her to get out and about on the grounds, but couldn’t persuade her to swim in their heated pool. She did get some exercise wandering around searching for the wifi signal!

Took me a while to get used to the pitch black impala and pale, not quite pure white, blesbok roaming the grounds. Weird!

The road we took to get there from Bela Bela was rough; the road to Modimolle much easier, so we left that way, stopping for breakfast en route to Dinokeng, north of Pretoria.

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St Francis

There are at least ten Saint Francisii. I’m sure most were skelms, so why a lovely place on South Africa’s shores is named St Francis I do not know. I bet Saartjie Baartman wouldn’t know either.

Lekker place to visit though. Cheap, too. We found a luxury fully-catered mansion where we were treated like royalty for FREE! We had our own bedrooms, me and Jess, three cordon bleu meals a day, guided tours of the harbour, walks along the beaches and a boat trip in the canals and on the Krom river, all included. And it was Easter, high season!

OK, confession: We were guests of generous good friends Mike & Yvonne who rescued us from the Easter crush. My usual procrastination meaning I hadn’t looked ahead and seen the long weekend looming. Hey! It’s not easy when every day is like a Sunday. Perpetual loafing can make your brain mushy. OK, mushier.

Chester watches Jessie’s vape escape.

Mike and a handy neighbour had almost completed a project: Building a side-car! How cool is that?

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You need to be a local to know which part of ‘St Francis’ is the Bay, the Cape, the Port, the Harbour. We had visited twice before, but brief visits. The first time we visited the red roof area and went for a walk in the nature reserve with Colin & Di Hall; the nature reserve was beautiful; the next time we visited the thatched roof area on the canals and went for a boat ride with Mike & Yvonne Lello; the river was beautiful.

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Brown Silks

Thank goodness he has Elizanne for a spot of normality. See, young David Scratchmo suffers from some strange delusions. Like thinking he’s a goeie kykende ou, thinking his lop-eared puppy is beautiful, and thinking it matters which brown horse wins a horse race. I’ve tried to tell him it makes no difference and it’s pointless taking all the horses to one end of a field and putting small people on them to slap them to the other end, cos we know one of the brown horses always comes first. He came back with this strange statement: There Are No Brown Racehorses, Koos. Can you believe it? As a race-goer of some experience I have seen dozens of brown race horses at the track that time that I went to the Rothmans July!

I spose its cos of my kindly pointing this fact out to him that he didn’t have a brown racehorse in his lounge when Jess and I visited him and Elizanne in their lovely home in that unpronounceable city formerly know as Pee Ee. He had instead, an old semi-retired black race horse in his lounge.

Personally I think he knows a lot more about people races.

~~oo0oo~~

Baviaanskloof

Anton used to tell me about the Baviaans with great excitement and enthusiasm. You gotta go there, Pete! Well I finally got there about thirty years later. After, when I got to Gqeberha I phoned my old colleague, now in Jo’burg, to tell him the valley was even better and more spectacular than he’d said!

The full Baviaanskloof route was a lot longer than I had thought; it was also far more rugged than I’d imagined; and it certainly was beautiful and spectacular, as Anton had shouted while also telling me how indestructible his old Toyota bakkie was. You know what Toyota groupies are like.

On the way we met Ian, farmboy from Ireland, put-putting through the kloof alone on his motorbike while slowly going round the world. Africa is his last continent and he’s doing it slowly and thoroughly with a puptent for a home. Made me feel overdressed, did Ian, what with my Ford Ranger and canopy tent!

We stayed at Zandvlakte farm in a lovely big cottage. Only after leaving there did I realise the friendly owner Magriet Kruger was the co-author of this magnificent newly published book! Aitch would have kicked me (and bought three copies!).

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More: Baviaans

Sea Point

Life in the penthouse was fantastic, as always! Rita has hosted us there since even before we were afflicted with children, and has had the kids there many times, sometimes even as ‘Unaccompanied Minors.’ Brave lass!

Jess had a hair makeover, thanks to Rita’s friends Raikie, Berlin and Linda, who treated and spoiled her. Braids out, Curlers in.

It’s Rita’s pozzie so food plays a central role. Gourmet meals and restaurant outings. This time Italian.

Sunset over the Atlantic from the balcony; The top pic: Table Mountain mist from the other balcony.

~~oo0oo~~

Riebeeck Kasteel

On our way to Riebeeck Kasteel I phoned ahead to ask Lang Dawid how we’d find him when we got there. ‘Just drive in, I’ll see you,’ he said. As I parked under a tree next to the Groot Kerk I got a call: ‘Look right,’ he said.

And there was a lang skraal athletic figure waving at us from outside his new cottage. Above is his view of the kerk from his stoep. From the steeple the dominee can see right into his bachelor bedroom. Complaints may follow.

Dave very kindly hosted me and daughter Jess on our travels in his new cottage he has built on the grounds of his boet William and wife Mary’s lovely home which doubles as their photographic studio and professional printing business. Check out their portfolios on that website – stunning.

Some lekker eating joints in the dorpie. From this table you can see Dave’s cottage right in the middle, next to his boet’s home and studio.

Dave is an accomplished birder and bird photographer. Not only has he exceeded my forty year count in far fewer years (not that I count, of course), but he has a photo of every one of his 650-odd birds recorded. With my 620-odd tally (not that I count, of course), you only have my word. We met other weird okes talking shutter speeds, ISO, length of your equipment, whimbrels and curlews. Or was it curlew sandpipers?

– spotted a spotted moth in Dave’s garden –

And wow! Here’s a picture Mary took of that same view of the kerk from their home:

God was more besig in the skies on her day.

Jess, I said as we drove off after a lovely kuier, Dave is a Springbok canoeist and he was on the trip I went on when we kayak’d the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Oh, says Jess. Also, Dave’s birthday is the same as mine, April Fools Day. NO WAY, DAD!! SERIOUSLY!? THAT’S SO COOL! says my Jess. I’m lucky, I can still impress my child.

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Ancient Okes

Met old school chum Fluff in Bloemfontein for coffee. We were in pre-school together at Kathy Putterill’s home, went on to the local sandstone Kleinspan school, then the local sandstone Volkskool down the road, all the way to matric up in the yucky modern brick high school on the hill below Platberg. Meantime also Sunday School in the old local sandstone Methylated Spirits church. Also quite often sport on Saturdays – rugby, tennis and cricket for him to shine and me to get ducks for balance – and jolling weekends and after hours, so me n Fluffy shared much of our childhood.

Great chat over coffee, gentleman Fluffy very kind and considerate towards my Jessie; followed by an ussie taken by Fluff (see above) – he remembers to actually take pictures. I too often remember afterwards!

Driving south-west out of Bloem towards the Groot Gariep river, there’s a beep on my phone and there was the image, sent by Fluffy.

I showed it to Jess and asked, “Can you believe we’re the same age?”

NO WAY Dad! says my darling daughter, wide-eyed.

So how much younger do you think he is than me, Jess?

“Dad, I thought he was like, in his early fifties.”

No supper for you tonight! I laughed.

Pointedly explained to her that he is actually 68 and 13 days, whereas I am a mere 67. He is actually a full year older than me for six weeks every year, Jess!

NO WAY Dad! she dug her hole deeper.

~~oo0oo~~

Montagu Pass

We visited Louis n Gail in Oudtshoorn. What lovely hosts! They invited us to their holiday home in Groot Brak. They know I enjoy the byroads, so suggested we go to George via Montagu Pass.

The first road between Oudtshoorn and George, the Montagu Pass was opened in 1848, and is SA’s oldest unaltered pass still in use. It took about 250 convicts three years to build the seventeen kilometres at a cost of 36,000 Pounds Sterling. A magnificently scenic, narrow – in places very narrow – gravel road, it ascends from the tiny hamlet of Herold, on the northern side of the Outeniqua Mountains up and over the summit and then descends to the outskirts of George. – See Mountain Passes South Africa for videos, including wonderful aerial views and detailed descriptions of the history and places to see en-route.

Just outside the metropolis of Herold a big sign blocked the road but there was just space enough to squeeze past it and off we went. Jess said something like, Dad! That said ROAD CLOSED, but I wasn’t sure she read it right.

At the end of the pass there was a neat old stone store and tollhouse, and another sign appeared, but it had nothing written on it. The Ole Ford Ranger squeezed past again. Looking back, it appeared to agree with Jess. Oh well, it was a beautiful pass and we’d have missed the roadside flowers if I’d been literate.

– Terrific Tracks4Africa map –

Three National Parks

Luckily Jess also enjoys driving around in natural areas. Our Karoo journey started off with these three:

Mountain Zebra National Park

Camdeboo National Park

I said to Jess Take A Selfie with the Valley of Desolation in the background. “OK” said the daughter.

Uh, here Jess, let me show you what I meant:

Karoo National Park

Karoo NP

~~oo0oo~~

Groot Marico

In Botswana’s Khama Rhino Sanctuary I was visited by Bennets woodpeckers, Burchells starlings, Meyers parrots and Meves starling. African feathered beauties saddled with the surnames of European explorers and naturalists.

The biggest of the beautiful trees in Makongwa Campsite are called variously the Mongongo nut, or Manketti, or Makongwa. Scientific name Schinziophyton rautanenii (was Ricenodendron before).

As I left, I spoke to a German couple who said they were going to exit Botswana at Gaberone “cos we want to drive longer in Botswana – we like it here.” So I changed my plan and did the same. Instead of heading east to Martin’s Drift / Groblersbrug border post, I meandered south to the Tlokweng / Kopfontein crossing.

As afternoon approached the old familiar Where To Stay dilemma started – not my favourite part of this procrastinator’s meandering life. For a change I decided to ask someone, as Groot Marico turned out to be a surprisingly not-groot dorpie. I ran out of main street in three seconds flat. Just outside the ‘city centre’ the Wag n Biekie Pub looked enticing, set in a green shady garden, so I drove in, parked and strolled in.

Three heads swivelled to check Wie’s Die Ou? One maybe thinking Wie’s Die Oom? Manne looking comfortably ensconced at the large pub. One my age was nursing a brandy n coke; one who said he was the youngest oke left in the Groot Marico at 36, nursing a brandy n coke; and Brian, nut farmer, ‘No not macadamias, the climate is wrong. Pecans,’ nursing a brandy n coke.  Once Brian and his gabbas had sussed me out – What you doin’? Where you goin’? How old are you? Where do you hail from? – he hopped onto the phone to sort out a place for me to spend the night: Hello Liddy my darling. Listen, Wild Bill Hickok has come to town and is needing a bed, can you help him sweetheart?

Liddy could, so Brian drew what he assured me was a very accurate map to get to Evergreen farm  I couldn’t miss it. Luckily I listened carefully as he scribbled.

I bought a round then, as when they heard it was my first visit they winked at the barmaid and she brought me a glass of amarula liquer. ‘Watch out, don’t choke hey! There’s something in it,’ I was warned. I thought maybe a chilli or a mopani wurm, but turned out to be a cherry, which I  slukked.

While the kind ladies in the pub kitchen made me a supper to take home we all had another dop, then I departed with thanks for the lekker hospitality and sage advice.

Evergreen Farm’s chalet was great and the monster Wag ‘n Biekie pub burger I had for supper was delish.

The next day I discovered the Groot Marico river runs gin-clear as it’s source is an ‘oog’ – a large dolomitic hole in the ground, a spectacular scuba diving spot. I now remembered as a student listening to friend and fellow student Dave Crouse raving about driving here in his Vollies – Volvo – and diving deep in crystal clear water. He was a wonderful life enthusiast was Dave!

It flows northwards, does the Marico; after a stretch it is named Madikwene, then reverts to the name Marico, bends northeastwards and forms the border between South Africa and Botswana. Further downstream the Crocodile River joins the Marico from the right – bringing its badly polluted water all the way from iGoli/Joburg and Tshwane/Pretoria. After the confluence these two rivers become our famous Limpopo River, no longer gin clear. In fact, some Pom called it ‘grey-green, greasy.’ Bloody cheek!

After just one night I was off again, heading south-east, uncharacteristically in a hurry as I had committed to a meet-up – a matric reunion. So I have yet to experience the district where Herman Charles Bosman’s lovely stories were hatched.

~~oo0oo~~

dorpie – hamlet; village

not-groot – tiny; no metropolis

Wag n Biekie – linger a while

Wie’s Die Ou? – Hmm, a stranger in town

Wie’s Die Oom? – Hmm, ancient stranger in town

gabbas – mates; chinas

chinas – mates

wurm – caterpillar

slukked – swallowed; like swallowing a slug