Crossing South Africa november 12 - 24/2010

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Most people take the Garden route in South Africa. It seems to be beautiful, but we decide to visit the remote area's in the North. Before we do that we will stock some wine in the Stellenbosch area near Cape town.

Stellenbosch
Stellenbosch is called after the Dutchman Simon Stellenbosch, who started the first winerie in South Africa. We find a nice guesthouse (Stumble Inn) in the town and put our tent in the garden. The wineries are beautiful situated in between the hills. Whereas Madagascar had rice paddies in the vallies, South Africa has its wineries. What a contrast! We do a wine tour along 4 wineries and in each winerie we tast at least 5 different wines: Vigonier, Sauvignon Blanc, Riessling, Chenin Blanc, Merlot, Shiraz etc. We prefer the Chenin blanc. This area is famous for it. The domains are beautifully landscaped in an English style. Together with the Dutch houses and the French names it makes an European illusion. That evening we had a nice dinner in the Volkskombuis with a bottle of...yes...Chenin blanc.

Karoo National Parc
Jan Daniel, our excellent guide shows what we have to do when we happen to meet a lion. Together with him we walk across the hills of the Karoo National Parc, not far from Beaufort West, about 400 km north east of Capetown. The scenery is beautiful. Last week lions were reintroduced in the parc. "We had too many antilopes", JD tells. We think it is rather to attract tourists. It is a pity because you have to stay in the car when you cross the parc. But not now, while we are together with JD with his rifle. He knows a lot. He tells us about the Sweet thorn (Acacia), who makes poison, as soon an Kudu feeds on it and makes a scent to warn Sweet thorns in the surroundings. Kudu's know this and try to be down the wind. I knew the story and I asked once about it to a specialist on this topic of the Wageningen Univeriteit. He also knew it but he could never verify it. We learn about the zebra's who tolerate other zebra's in their territory as long as they accept their dominance. "We do not call it a territory, but an home range", JD explains. I have never heard of it.
"Look here how a black rhinoceros ate from this tree."
"How do you know it is a black rhino and not a white one?", we ask
"Black rhino's have smaller lips. They can manoeuvre with it to eat the leaves between the long thorns. White rhino's have broad lips. They only can eat grass."
"And is there a difference in colour indeed?"
"Not at all. The black rhino is smaller, but more aggresive. It is like the scorpions. The big ones have big claws and a small poison gland. The little ones have a bigger poison gland and are therefore far more dangerous."

In our own car we do a game drive during all day across the parc to find the Black rhino's but we cannot find them. We see a lot of other animals like Red Hartebeest, Kudu, Gemsbock and Rheebock. Maybee we saw a Quagga. A Quagga is a zebralike animal, who died out in the end of the 19th century. (The last one died in 1883 in Artis Zoo in Amsterdam). Biologist try to get them back by interbreeding several kinds of zebra's. "Nonsense", says JD, "it is not possible and suppose it is possible, then it is going to take thousands of years."

At night we are safe within our fenced camping. Only the giant tortoises can pass under the high voltage wires. The porcupine stays outside. Once upon a morning one of the tortoises awakened us, because he struggled with the line of our tent. Mostly we are awakened by the song of the birds. There are lots of them: the beautiful Southern Red Bishop, the Southern masked weaver, the Cape sparrow, the Redwinged Starling and a lot more. When we eat our breakfast in front of our tent they surround us. We count about 9 species.

We follow the fossil trail. In the Perm time Therapsidae lived here abundantly. It was a kind of mammalian reptile and had nothing to do with the Sauropsidae (The Dinosaurs). From the Therapsidae the mammalians evoluted during the Jura time. (It explains why there are mammalians like lemurs in Madagascar, because it splitted off afterwards.)

On the last day we do a night drive. We like to see the Aardvark. During daytime we saw their holes. But we are not lucky. Apart from the animals we have seen already we see a rock dassie and a caracal.

Prieska
"There the Boers passed the Orangeriver", says Jo. Jo is the owner of the Maggie's Blomkrag Guesthouse (tel: 053 - 3531128), together with his wife Maggie. We stand of top of a hill, surrounded by Quivertrees. On top is a brick stone building. "Here the British could see what the Boers were doing. Actually the British have always been the problem here. They brought our wives and kids to concentration camps, killed them and scorched our farms. And still they are a problem. Because of them we had to give up Apartheid. They pushed the world to boycot us. Then it changed: whites, coloured and Indians formed the parliament, but the blacks were excluded. That was a big mistake. Of course the blacks were angry. If they were not excluded, things would have gone smoothier. Then we would not have had the problems we have now."
We walk over the cemetery where Boers and British are burried, next to eachother.
"We see a well organised country", we say.
"An inhereritance of the past. White men like me do not have a chance here. Applying for a job they take first a black woman, then a black man, then a coloured woman and so on, completely down are the white man.. That is why a lot of whites leave the country."
"When we look around we see obviously that whites are rich and blacks are poor. As if Apartheid still exists."
"Blacks do not care about luxury. Look at this cemetery. No one maintains it, no one cares about it. While it is an important landmark in history."
Back at their guesthouse Jo points to their trees. "These are Pecan trees, here I have Grapes. In future I like to plant Date palms there."
Jo stays a farmer.
When we leave their guesthouse next morning we get a bag full of pecan nuts from them. "For in the car", they say.

White Sand National Parc
About 400 km to the North lies White Sand National Parc, not far from Goblershope. The last 50 kilometer goes over a gravel/sand road. Then we are in the middle of nowhere. We put our tent in the middle of a fallen Acacia.
The first night we see an animal around our tent. It is bigger than a ground squirrel. We try to catch it in the light of our torch. Then sitting next to our tent we see a beautifull cat like animal. It is a Small spotted Genet. We cannot take a picture because our camera is in the tent.
The same night we are overrun by a big thunderstorm. Inside our tent it is still dry, but we stand in the middle of a lake. We do not know what is coming up still. So we decide to sleep the rest of the night in the car.
Next day it is beautiful (very hot) weather again. We make several walkings. Specially the dunes with pink to white colours are beautiful. They are formed by Aeolic sands.
When we sit that evening after dinner in front of our tent with a glass of Riessling, we see on a distance of 100 meter a herd of Springbocks near the dunes. They stand still and look at us. Then one of them leaves the group and comes towards us. Softly and calm, like an elegant lady. At two meters distance he stops. We hardly dear to breath, afraid to break this moment. Then he turns and walks as quietly as he came back to his herd. The herd goes on and disappers behind the trees. They overnight at the open field there. It is like in a fairy tale. That night we sleep very well.

Askhum
We go farther to the North. On our way we see the enormous nests of the Social weaver or Collecting bird. Most of them hang in telephone pillars. Some 500 birds use it. Sometimes other birds use it as well, like kestrels. Each bird has its own chamber within the nest. Via Upington we arrive at Askhum and put our tent at the Khalagadi Camelthorn Camping. We are the only guests.
After dinner I hear Linda screaming. She sees a giant millionped. Millionpeds are not poisonous (as far as I know); millipeds are. But the sight is not nice. Then we see another one and another one. We see suddenly tens of them. Now it becomes dark, they all creep out of their holes and it seems to us they have only one target: our little tent. They come from everywhere. A fastidious biologist might call it an fascinating spectacle that takes place under a full moon. We rather see it like an horror movie. I kill several of them but it does not make sense. I feel like Perseus, trying to kill the Medusa. For each head he cut a new one takes its place. (Well..ahum...Perseus is maybe too much honour for me). Because no one is on the camping, we occupied with our beds the bathroom, barred the door, closed the windows hermetically and hoped there were no holes in the roof. We did not sleep very well that night.
Next morning all millionpeds are gone as if they never existed, as if it was only a nightmare. But when we remove our tent, we find under it a big millionped. Slowly he creeps away to the brushes nearby and disappears.

The Khalagadi Transfrontier National Parc
When we drive farther to the North to the Kalahari we see everywhere millionpeds crawling over the road. We learn that they come out suddenly because of the rains. It did not rain since 6 months. We had plans to sleep in the Kalahari and from there to go to Namibia, but we do not like to sleep between this creatures. So we decide to make only a daytrip in the Khalagadi Parc.
Around us we see red sands and savannah. Now and then a tree. We see Wildebeest and Gemsbock. Under a tree we see a sandgrouse. They can collect water under their feathers and bring it to their nests for their youngs. After one hour driving we are looking for a tree to picnic under. Finally we see one, but then a car stands still along the road. He points to something under a tree nearby. After a while we see them. Lions. The biggest we have seen (the Kalahari lions are the biggest lions in the world). We knew there were lions in the Kalahari, but according to our information they are only in the very North West. Actually the driver saved our life.
After the Khalagadi Parc we drove the long way back to Upington. It is a lonesome narrow road with no curves and very hot. We were afraid to fall asleep, because we were still sleepy of the night before. So we started to sing all the songs we know during the whole trip. That none of us both can actually sing we considered as a minor problem, given the circumstances.

Upington
We sit on the veranda of the Affinity Guesthouse looking over the Orange river. The river streams slowly. It has a tranquilizing effect (we can use that). We see a Purple Heron standing in the river, looking for fishes. There are some Kingfishers plunging in the water. Now and then a big fish jumps out of the water. On the other side of the river is a lot of green and behind is the endless barren landscape. The strip of green is small, but here are the farms and the wineries. It is like the borders of the Nile river. Upington is a nice city and the guesthouse is absolutely great (the best breakfast ever) and not expensive. Though we had in mind to stay only one night we stayed here 4 nights.

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Comments

[emon]

luxury safaris
one of the best I've ever seen, to a Luxury Safaris. thank you for sharing your experience.

[leigh]

That is a Thick Knee
That is a Spotted Thick Knee (or Dikkop), not a Sand Grouse

[Andre and Linda]

thank you.

[anonymous]

I'm sure that 'Zweet - jij - ook, ja ik dacht al dat ik het rook' en 'er zat een vogel op het dak die kon niet poeeeeepen' have passed this trip, right?

[Andre and Linda]

Alsof je er bij bent geweest!