Tag: Gemsbok

A night drive is a game drive, obviously, in the dark; well it was really in twilight as we set off just before sundown. The idea is to see lots of animals big and small as they cruised around in the coolness of dusk and then stop for a sundowner in the middle of nowhere. As it got darker so our reliance on the two spotlights grew and of course the obvious happened one of them blew. So the ten of us on the drive all had to squint into the dark to spot anything.
We did actually see quite a few animals. But of course we didn’t see any of the more popular ones like lions, cheetah’s etc.

Back at the camp we ate one of Roland’s culinary masterpieces under the light of plastic drink bottle covered candles.
Now was the time for that beer as we got to know each other better.
Simon & Hannah had just left school and were doing a bit of travelling before starting University in England. Alex, was visiting rellies in J’burg and I got the impression that they had shunted her onto this tour to get her out of their hair, she certainly was a little temperamental. Michelle was the quiet one. She had finished her Peace Corp stint in northern South Africa and this was her last days in Africa. Despite her quietness and the fact that she was American she had a great sense of humour. Well I think she did, she laughed at all my jokes.

The tour kept rolling on, our next stop was the camp at Mata Mata, 127 kilometres north on a gravel road. The idea was to take it slow, have brekkie and lunch on the road and do a game drive at the same time.

Well we saw heaps!

Cheetahs and lions in the distance, black backed jackals, cape foxes, steenbok, gemsbok, wildebeest, springbok (these last our all from the antelope family) and the quaintly named long legged big bird, kori bustard.

The park was named after the Gemsbok, being quite common in the Kalahari. It’s a big animal at around 1.2 metres tall with striking fawn grey flanks, black legs and tail and metre high pointed horns. In my humble opinion, this is the most beautiful of all the antelope species found in Africa.

The next day was pretty much the same format, as we drove on to Nossob, the last of the three camps, except the little critters must’ve sent out the message via the desert telegraph to hide when ever we came on the scene, because we saw virtually nothing.

Nossob like Mata Mata was more basic than Twee Rivierien, but it did have an animal hide. Once again the animals didn’t read their scripts properly and forgot to come and see us. So we had to gain our entertainment from Roland who was busy being his industrious superhuman self. He was cooking spag bowl and fixing three punctures all at the same time. That night he told us stories of rangers cutting off their limbs to save their own lives after a predator attack in the bush. How he caught tick bite fever and was hospitalised for 9 weeks and how he had just recovered from a bout of Malaria which was really bad that year and had resulted in many deaths in central and eastern parts of South Africa. I think he has the philosophy of “never bugger up a good story for the facts”.

Fortunately he told us these stories after we ate!

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The following day we ‘jumped ship’ and found a little apartment just out of town.
Not that there was anything wrong with the Stumble Inn, it was just the noise from the other ‘guests’.
I’d like to think that we haven’t we’ve lost touch with modern music but the repeated thumping of ‘techno’ music is not the best bedtime music as far as we were concerned.
A young guy, John also from Perth, who was travelling around on his own, shared this opinion. In staying in the dorm, he was in a worse position than us and was getting fed up with being constantly disturbed as his fellow bedmates stumbled in and out of bed.
Never really gave that much thought before. As a couple we always got a private room and had drawn a line in sleeping in a dorm. But anyone on their own is pretty well damned if they want privacy. They either pay more than double the cost for a double room (they are often more expensive per person than a dorm) or put up with sleeping in the same room as a load of strangers, have no privacy and in some circumstances be permanently on guard watching their belongings.

Anyway we had enough of the Stumble Inn, we had lasted two nights, and for just a few more Rand we had a nice cosy little place tagged on onto someone’s house called “Kaveeltjie”. That someone was Gertie an extremely helpful and warm housewife with a couple of youngish kids. She picked us up at the tourist office in town and couldn’t do enough for us.

One of the fascinating things about South Africa is the white Afrikaners. Most of these are descended from the original Dutch, German and French settlers and have been in South Africa since the seventeenth century. This is different from the whites of British heritage that have only been around since the nineteenth century. That in itself is interesting but what really fascinates me is that when you meet the Afrikaners is their own country they are totally different from your expectations. After all this is a race that is responsible for apartheid. A lot of these expectations are based on the media and those you meet in Australia who have left the country for good.
Well we found them to be kind, friendly, warm and honest people. You almost get the feeling that they would give their lives for you. A lot of that comes from their strong religious beliefs, but I’ve met plenty of religious people over the years who will hardly acknowledge your existence let alone help you out in tight corner.
These people also have an amazing attachment to their language, which for most of them is their first language, with English being used only whenever it’s really necessary.
One particular lady we met on our first visit, actually pitied us for not being able to speak Afrikaans, saying it was such a shame that we were unable to use words that there was no equivalent for in English to describe the world around. At the time I wasn’t that convinced. But the more of these people I met the more I think there must be something in it. So many actually struggle to translate certain words from Afrikaans to English which tends to surprise as their English is usually so fluent.

Any way Gertie fitted this mould, and was happy to give us a few pointers for our future travels and expeditions.

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