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Published: February 10th 2010
This weekend was supposed to be low key but ended up being quite a story anyways. We were told by the Go Experiences lady here in PE that before we left we had to go on a “canoe safari” on the Sunday River. Chris of CrissCross Adventures started his company taking tourists and adventurers wherever they wanted to go across South Africa. His parents have a nice little Bed and Breakfast though in Addo, where the National Elephant Park is, and he decided there was plenty to do right around there so narrowed his excursions a bit. He still hosts mountain hikes, camping trips, the canoe safari that we took on Saturday, and can pretty much design a trip including whatever it is you’d like to do. We arrived around 9:00 am, a little late but that really doesn’t mean much in South Africa, and loaded into the van. His dad drove us down to where we put the canoes in the river and without any instruction at all (I guess he took our word for it when we said we’d canoed before) he threw two people in each canoe and off we went. It was meant to be a quiet
relaxing ride down the river, no rigorous rowing or activity, and most of the time it was. You put a group of 5 energetic girls together though, and I think Chris and his friend JP had quite an interesting trip down the river that day. Chris reminded me much of the Crocodile Hunter in his younger days, and was full of information about the river, its inhabitants, and the history of the area. He had been canoeing and fishing this river since he was a little boy and pointed out many types of birds, including the King Phisher, which is the little blue and red one in the pictures. They are maybe twice the size of a hummingbird and easy to spot with the blue and red coloring against the greens and tans of the river. They are not, however, easy to get close to or take pictures of. In some of my pictures the camera focused on reeds and branches around the bird but they are still pretty good. Chris said that not many people get pictures like that very often. We were ok about being quiet when prompted, especially around the King Phisher, but much of the float
down the river was littered with giggles and sounds of our oars hitting things they probably shouldn’t have. You will see also, in some of the pictures, the small routes through which we took our canoes; it really was quite a safari at times. Ali and Margot even tried to make it sideways once, through these areas, but it didn’t work out too well obviously. Chris was very knowledgeable about all of the wildlife and the birds in the area; we saw some Fish Eagles, the King Phisher, the Snake Bird, a Red Heron, and the Goliath Heron. We also got out at one point and saw lots of fossils in the rock along the bank. The area above and around the river used to actually be covered in water and you can also see where the village people used to come and get the fresh water mussels and sit above the water and crack and eat them. So there are bits and pieces of mussel shells sprinkled all over the ground. You can tell, hopefully in the pictures, where the waterline was hundreds of years ago. There was also a spot with hundreds of porcupine needles and apparently (I
didn’t catch if this was a recent and present event or how long ago) but the people burn the quills off the porcupine and then cook the meat. In the walls along the river, there were numerous holes where birds build their nests. The lizards and snakes also dwell in the sides of the river and often eat the babies and eggs in the holes. We saw a lizard sunning itself on a rock but he was very camouflaged and I couldn’t get a good picture of him.
Chris also showed us later the elephant tusk that he found along the ridge. He said a couple different times down the river, he had noticed a root-like object sticking out of the side of the ground about a meter and a half from the top. He decided finally to stop one day and hiked up to where it was. When he jumped up and touched it he said he realized it was not a root. He brought his brother and father back and they dug it out and it was a REALLY old elephant tusk. You will see the pictures of him holding what looks like a tree trunk, it's
actually a HUGE piece of Ivory. He had called some museums and learned what to put on it to preserve and restore it and has fragments he's going to glue back on as well. But, tusks are much like tree trunks in that they can tell the age of the elephant and this one is from a 58 year old male, and is hundreds of years old. The males don't get to be that big anymore and he said that you will never see a tusk this big around anymore. This piece was very small compared to the full tusk from which it was cut and you can see where it was broken off at one end. This piece alone was extremely heavy so when the hunters killed for this tusk, it had to be broken into pieces to transport. This piece was obviously just left behind. A piece like this would bring 2 million Rand (divided by 7.75 for US dollars) but Chris says he's going to work on cleaning it up and definitely keeping it, he's not interested in selling! It was really cool! I never would have even noticed it was not just part of an old
tree!
In addition to all of the “normal” wildlife we encountered, we had quite a surprise when we found a baby donkey stuck in the river. I was floating by, trying to get closer to the Goliath Heron and was hearing some grunting noises in the weeds close to us. After all we had seen and heard about that day I didn’t think much of it because I assumed it was some type of animal just chatting. However, when we floated closer I noticed two nostrils barely sticking out above the water and behind them two eyes and two gigantic ears. I had heard a donkey’s bray way down the river a few minutes before, so that and the big ears gave it away immediately. I ditched the effort to be quiet and get close to the heron and screamed at Chris that there was a donkey stuck in the reeds. I don’t know that he understood at first but as he and everyone else got closer they saw. A couple of times he dunked his head under and then would come back up but there was such a deep drop off close to the shore all you could
see were his nose and eyes most of the time. Chris paddled up next to him and was holding his head out of the water and we found a rope in one of the canoes. He was apprehensive to get in the water in case the donkey kicked him, I told him I didn’t mind, I’d been kicked plenty of times out of water, but he didn’t seem to need my help (they don’t think much of girls around here…they don’t even think we can braai...aka grill/cookout). He finally got the rope underneath the donkey’s belly, right behind its front legs, but eventually had to get out of the canoe to get him turned around and toward the shore. The pictures I took were once I was able to get out of our canoe and on the bank, and once the guys had him turned around and out of the reeds. At this point he’s looking much better than when we first found him. But it ended happily for all (well I got thorns in my feet and legs trying to get pictures but whatever), Chris wasn’t kicked and the donkey made it out and stood, and after shaking his
Bird Nests
This is my favorite bird story. The male builds the nest, and if, when the female returns, she does not like it, she rips it to pieces and the male has to start all over again!head for quite some time, eventually began eating again and looked pretty steady on his feet. I am assuming the braying donkey I heard down the river was his mother and when we left he still hadn’t moved much but hopefully they were reunited later. This was obviously the highlight of our day, and maybe the coolest
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Grandma
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Only You
Only you would find a Jack Ass in distress on a float trip, Now you are a cert. teacher and a heroine.