The last two years running I have been fortunate enough to do a 3 day walking trail in the Kruger National Park and find the time to step away from cell phones, meetings, traffic and the rat-race in general. These walks provide me much opportunity for friendship, enjoyment, introspection and re-connecting with nature and my place within it. The Kruger Park is an immense wildlife sanctuary in South Africa where game roams free and wild and the natural order prevails; it is roughly the size of Wales and covers nearly 19,000 square kilometers. We drove up to Kruger on Wednesday and entered through the Malelane gate near the bottom of the park. From there we took a slow 2 hour drive up to Skukuza camp where we were to meet the rangers who were to take us the final leg of our journey into the private wilderness areas to Metsie Metsie and our bush camp for the next few days.
The rangers, Steve and Abel, arrived with a big open top Nissan and loaded all our belongings into a trailer and we set out for a scenic one and a half hour drive to Metsie Metsie. A short distance into the wilderness area, where the general public is not allowed, we happened upon this herd of buffalo next to the road. On the whole they were pretty chilled and watched us cautiously, kicking up clouds of dust as they jostled around. There were two buffalo that amused me no end as seen in the picture below, the one on the left just looked old and grumpy and fixed us with a drop-dead Walter Mathau stare while the one on the right was more content with chewing his cud and seemed content to watch the car full of excited pink primates.
We also saw giraffe, elephant and the ever pervasive Impala.
We arrived at our bush-camp which consisted of 4 A-frame sleeping huts raised off the floor away from night-prowlers, snakes and scorpions; a thatched boma where we would eat our main meals, a camp fire area, a kitchen unit with fridge to keep the beers cool, ablution facilities and a bird/game hide overlooking a river and game trail.
As we were driving in through the gates we all noticed one lone hut nearest the gate and quite isolated from the rest of the camp and for some reason this was nicknamed broke-back hut to much hilarity. As the car stopped there was a mad dash by all to not end up being the two sleeping in broke-back hut and thus Chris and I found ourselves carrying out stuff out to ‘broke-back’; this ended up being a theme of much ragging and good humour for the remainder of the stay. After unpacking we settled in around the fire and watched the sun float gently down to the horizon; dinner was served and we retired back to the campfire. I am always over-awed by how loud almost total silence can be; The only sounds after the banter had died down was the pop and crackle of the wood as it was consumed in a quiet roar of heat, the occasional call of nearby hyena and the splintering of trees as the great lone bull elephants foraged in the darkness. The orange flicker of the flames becomes your entire universe, the stresses and importance of modern life suddenly seem a million miles away. Bruce Bryden said it best in his wonderful book A Game Ranger Remembers:
“Imagine you’re sitting somewhere in the Kruger National Park a little after nightfall, and enjoy the stories. Everybody knows that the best ones are told around a campfire, when the world is bounded by the flickering edges of the fire’s light and you sit on a rickety folding chair, wriggling toes that are sore from a day’s walking, your well-worn jersey keeping the cold away from your sweated-out body, a can of ice-cold beer sending frissons down your face as you roll it against your forehead. That’s when the good tales come creeping out, while the night creatures sing their unforgettable accompaniment from somewhere out in the great darkness that falls so swiftly over Africa when each day’s sun has set.”
The next morning we were woken at 5:30 by the banging of an African drum and Abel bringing a wash basin with hot water to the front of each hut. After a quick face wash we all met round the camp-fire as the first light of day painted the sky in beautiful gradients of colour; A cup of coffee and a rusk and then we set offon our first mornings walk.
The walk took us up alongside a mostly dry river, small pools of water had collected in little pools where wither the clay soil permitted excellent water retention or where natural springs fed the pools. Bounded on both sides by rock walls we followed the river’s contour up to the big pools where hippo had taken sanctuary from the dryness of winter. The river bed itself was fascinating in it’s rock formations and plant life; the wonderful diversity of rocks made me wish that I’d taken Geology as a subject in university.
In due course our guides brought us to a halt and said that we were getting to the hippos and we should proceed quietly and in single file. We saw the pool from a distance and had circumvent the pool to a viewing point above and the the back of a pool, where a sheer rock wall provided us a safe vantage point to view these magnificent animals. The pool itself was muddy and covered in a frothy scum, the hippos seemed perfectly happy and would break the surface of the scum to look at us, wave their tiny ears and then plunge with much exaggeration and puffing back beneath the water.
After about half an hour of watching the hippo we set out again and we were immediately greeted by a beautiful green pool so out of character with the rest of the surroundings as to be startling; the green colour was due to an algae growing in the water. The water between the algae looked clean, more so than the muddy grime of the hippo pool and it was this that that our guide said lured many animals to drink at pools like this and then ultimately perish. The algae apparently causes the water to become toxic, a death-sentence to any person or animal drinking from it.
A steep and intense climb out of the river and up the side of the mountain brought us breathless and pouring perspiration to our morning breakfast spot. Breakfast was at about 9am and consisted of provita, cheese, dried fruit, cold boerewors (spiced sausage) and fruit juice. It was a nice little spot in the shade with a view.
The rest of the walk was in the fierce heat of the day, the sun was relentless and the terrain quite difficult ranging in extremes from ankle-breaking rocks to soft river sand. Walking along the river we came to an enormous boulder sitting like a giant in the middle of nowhere; Paul didn’t pass up an opportunity for a little climbing practice.
An interesting bit of bug-lore belonged to the communal web spiders that bind leaves together to make their dwellings. Hundreds to thousands of these little spiders then live inside these structures safe from the fierce heat of day and emerge to hunt in the evening. Steve told us that small birds sometimes get caught in the webs and fall foul to a thousand tiny bites.
By 11:30 we were all thankful to be back at the vehicle for a short drive back to camp; Steve put the windscreen of the vehicle down which provided wonderful cooling air for our ride home. On our return to camp we were fortunate in having two elephant coming to drink near the hide. We sat and watched them, sipping cold beer and cool drinks, until lunch was served. The one elephant seemed in a jolly mood and let loose with all 40kg’s of erect elephant penis. We watched in awed silence as he proceeded to waggle it around and scratch his belly with it.
After a feast of a brunch we all retired to a sleepy siesta out of the sweltering heat. The drum went at 3:30pm and it was time to head out again. After another short drive we came to a watering hole with a large reservoir about 100m to the left of it. Elephants started emerging silently from the bush to drink. Elephants are apparently quite fussy about the quality of their water and the larger ones would poke their trunks over the top of the reservoir, fill them with nice clean water and squirt it into their mouths. We were quite unprepared for the size of the elephant herd coming to drink and they numbered anywhere from 50 – 80 elephants. There were a number of babies in the herd and the females accompanied them down to the water where they drank and then wallowed in the mud.
One of the babies was very curious about a lone crocodile at the far side of the watering hole and crept round for a better look. He tried on a number of times to get close to the croc but each time his ear-flapping nerve failed him and he was forced to retreat. It all came to a head when on the final attempt he got too close and the croc opened his cavernous maw; this proved too much for the baby ellie who made a hasty retreat back to the safety of the herd.
I was fortunate enough to have my tripod with me and was able to take a number of really nice sunset pictures and capture the slow unhurried return of the now-satiated elephants back to the sanctuary of the bush.
We returned to camp after the sun had fully set and given sway to the silent blackness of night. We had a wonderful dinner and retired to the warmth and comfort of the campfire where we sat initially sipping port,talking and joking and then slowly conversation ebbed away and a peaceful stillness settled over us as we watched the flames and the majestic stars in their full splendor turned slowly overhead. Dennis had brought his telescope with him and earlier we were lucky enough to see the binary stars of Alpha Centauri and Jupiter and 4 of its moons. We all soon drifted off to bed, foot sore and weary but looking forward to another day of adventure. (days 3 and 4 to follow ..\)
Technorati Tags: South Africa , Kruger Park , Nature , Bush , Bushveld , Trees , Animals , Wildlife , Photography , Elephant , Spiders , Hippopotamus , Hippo , Sunset , Water , Campfire , Watering Hole
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