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Published: February 1st 2009
sunrise
The sun kicks the door in into a cloudy day*little story*
PICKED ON BY NATURE........
The last day before we left the yengele house to head to Durban and onto St Lucia we went for a day walk in a nature reserve. It statred promisingly enough, a nice forest walk and not too hot. Butterflies and birds and seeing a couple of large monitor lizards clattering away through the forest away from us.
Then the trail headed into dripping jungle type forest. I noticed straight away there were these small sort of triangular-ish red spiders in their webs strung across the trail ahead. I knew from the time I came to South Africa before to avoid these spiders, they're not dangerous but can give you an unpleasant rash if you have contact with them.
From there on in this trail turned into a spider safari, there really were loads of these webs strung across our path from ankle level to above our heads. I realised it must be because of recent bad weather that no one had been up the trail maybe a week hence the profusion of these webs.
So I picked up a leafy stick and we proceded tentatively up the trail with me on point wafting the
stick up and down and side to side in front of me to clear these webs (like a mighty hunter) lest they touch Lynn. Soon I had loads of these spiders on the stick and I was worried they might crawl onto my hands so I had to find a longer replacement stick.
As we got further up the trail there appeared a different type of spider that had a bigger web than that of the red spider which also spanned the trail. It was a hairy ugly fat leggy thing I couldn't stand the sight of. At first I didn't mention I'd seen them to Lynn as she wasn't happy with the first red spiders, but soon there were so many of them I had to warn her they were there as they looked toxic. This walk was not enjoyable any more as we couldn't look at things as we were too busy looking for webs
We got up to some grassland where we stood for just a couple of secs just to get some of the breeze it had been a very humid climb up through the forest. But within seconds there were these biting ants running up
my socks, Lynn saw them before me and started to brush them off and then she got bitten herself by ants on her own legs.
So we moved on fast into more forest with Lynn shrieking. Here there were so many webs it was getting stupid, and I don't exagerate when I say the webs and the spiders themselves were getting bigger the further on we seemed to go, I couldn't dare mention that fact to Lynn.
I could tell by now Lynn wasn't for going on, she didn't think we had even done half of the 8km trail and I think she was right. Right about then right on the path at my feet I saw a black scorpion, and this was the very very end for Lynn so we started to head back the way we came.
The return journey was harder than the climb because of slippy moss on the rocks that was out in force after the recent rains. We both felt claustrophobic in the forest and a little freaked out thinking "scorpion" as you couldn't see where you were putting your feet sometimes because the trail was overgrown in parts. There were still webs brushing
millipede
seen many of these black, but never red before our faces or arms and all manner of winged bugs that alight on you or bounce off your face, and after the sight of these spiders and scorpion anything and everything was making our skins crawl. Lynn shrieked once at the feel of her own stray fringe hair on her forehead, we just couldn't get down the trail fast enough.
I slipped on my ass, one of those slips where your feet just slide off in front of you and there's no way you can stop and you land on the bone at the top of your ass and bottom of your back. It really was painful but I was more concerned about what I might be coming into contact with on the forest floor so I sprang straight up. Then Lynn took exactly the same slip. I'd had enough enough of nature for one day.
Once out of the trail I had a chat with the National Park guy that takes your entrance fee. He confirmed that the red spiders are itchy if you come into contact with them but are not dangerous, and that if the hairy spiders were to bite you you'd need to see a doctor,
and that if the scorpion stung you you would probably be unconscious.
Later that day had a chat with the lady who owns the beach house we stayed in about our days activities. She told me a bit of local history about how further down the wild coast there are Portuguese and Dutch shipwrecks from a couple of centuries ago. The survivors of these wrecks would have had to make their way a few 100 kms to what is now Durban for rescue. Going through the same forests as us but for days on end searching miles in land to find a place shallow enough to cross the river gorge, and also dealing mozzies, thirst and lion and leapord. An andurace test you'd have to live through to understand I think.
Since then we've picked up my Mum in Durban and are now in the St Lucia wetlands near the border with Mozambique. We were really glad to leave Durban, the atmosphere there is seriously unpleasant compared to Cape Town. Its nice to be away from there and back amongst smiling faces again. I can see no reason for anyone to go to Durban, unless they need to use
the airport. It sells itself in glossy tourist literature as an exciting vibrant holiday destination but it's all about shopping opportunities as far as I can tell. There's beaches, but who wants to sit on a beach in the middle of a high rise city?. Some beaches and parts of the downtown areas are too dangerous to go to, so who would choose to live here? There's plenty of shopping malls though similar to the Trafford Centre in Manchester, cinemas, restaurants and shops. I've heard that this was how white people socialized during the apartheid years, leaving their fortress houses to head to the malls, but I don't know if it is true or just an opinion.
St Lucia on the other hand is a tourist town in a region that is entirely given over to national park land. There is wildlife rich coastal forest, estuary, lake and beaches spread out over a few hundred kms up to the border of Mozambique. You can go on safari if you simply have to see the big mammals and cats, but I've found you can just walk in either direction from the St Lucia town main street into forest or grasslands and
Cape Vidal
must have been nice after a days travel hassle to get to this there is a profusion of bird and wildlife everywhere. I noticed self guided trails on the map of the town and they've turned out to be mini safaris in themselves. On one with Mum one day after ten minutes we walked up on and unintentionaly surprised a herd of zebra.
The thing that strikes me is that these walking trails are all free. (I remember me and Lynn were once on a safari in Etosha national park in Namibia during the wet season when animal sightings are scarce because the animals are not forced to use the watering holes that the safari vehicles frequent. And on this one day in Etosha in five hours of driving we saw less than what if you include the St Lucia estuary hippos and crocodiles you can see here for free)
St Lucia town is based around an estuary mouth where you can see seabirds, birds of prey, wading birds, and crocodile and hippo lazing on a sand spit from the river bank. You can even sit in the garden of a bar with a beer in your hand and watch all this, which is a forward thinking concept.
The self catering apartment we
are in looks on to the river, hippos can and do come up an night to graze but we've not seen them as yet.
First day here the weather was unusually good and I was relieved and pleased for my Mum as the weather had been overcast for days before her arrival. You wouldn't want someone coming to visit you all the way from the UK winter and walking straight into rain and clouds in Africa would you? Especially your Mam! cos who's fault would that be? mine of course.
Drove the 40km to the beach at Cape Vidal one day and on the way back stopped at a couple of viewing points of Lake St Lucia, lots of bird and wildlife, its possible to see black rhino here from the road but I think you'd have to be lucky.
This North East part of South Africa is in the tropics so the weather is hot and humid being punctuated by thunder storms. Yesterday evening there really was a sky tearing ass kicking run for cover thunder storm. The thunder claps and lightning strikes as the storm approached are the loudest noises I've ever heard, they had the earth and
Wife / Mother
as I prefer them - facing away from me building physically vibrating. It nearly had me on my knees repenting at one point.
After a couple of days of heavy rain the weather has turned back to hot and sunny, so hot I could of expired this afternoon, but I'm not complaining. Another highlight here is the river cruise, again one great David Attenborough moment after another.
South Africa is easy to travel around, the infrastructure is there so you can take a small car like a Vauxhall corsa and get to almost any place you'd want to see. You can't say this about any of South Africa's neighbours where the roads vary from good to bad to rutted tracks. If you run out of anything in South Africa you are never that far from a town with shops. You can't say this in places we've been to like Tanzania. For reasons like this South Africa can sometimes feel a bit un-African and sometimes areas of natural beauty feel a bit over-commercial making me wish we'd planned to stay longer on the African continent and gone further up to places like Mozambique and Botswana.
But in saying all this we have made good use of South Africa's
well tarred roads, and we've had the convenience of the shopping centres when your trainers wear out or you need batteries for your camera etc etc. So I suppose I should shut up. Plus as well South Africa's national parks are so vast you can easily escape any other people within a few minutes walk and walk for hours and never see a soul.
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