Animal Magic

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After Durban we have two sea days until we get to Port Elizabeth. The night before we are invited to the Captains Cocktail party. This occurs every three to four weeks. Normally the Captain talks to us about our voyage and tells a couple of marine themed jokes. This time he tells us that there is a special guest on board and introduced Sir Bob Geldof. We are very surprised and Bob Geldof talks about his father who worked on the original Queen Mary. He is going to give a talk before departing at Cape Town. We will miss that because we leave the ship at Port Elizabeth to do a three day safari.



We leave the ship and Port Elizabeth and a mini bus is waiting outside for us and one other person. So we are a small group of four including the guide. We travel for ninety minutes to get to the Kareiga wildlife reserve.

We are met by staff with cold flannels and a welcome drink. Our rooms are lovely and we relax until the first game drive at 4 pm.



Our ranger and guide is Damon and he is waiting for us in his open topped vehicle. There is only the four of us so we can spread out. We have about three hours where we drive over dirt tracks and Damon is

looking for footprints or dung to track certain animals. As we travel he points out different plants and informs us as to what eats it. He also shows us the Golden Orb Spider, a large spider with a very big web. We see lots of impala, kudu and various other breeds of antelope. It is time for sundowner so Damon finds a beautiful spot overlooking the park and I am served a gin and tonic and various nibbles. We eventually see a herd of approximately 40 elephants. There are a mixture of females, young males and calf’s of a variety of ages. We sit and watch them for quite a while before returning to the lodge.



We have a tasty meal of Kudu (antelope) and superb South African wine. We retire after dinner to bed as we are getting a wake up call at 5am for the early morning drive.



The next day we are up and away before sunrise. There is a mist over the river and at the bottom of the valley. It is cold and I’m grateful for the blanket that Damon provides. The first wildlife we see are giraffes. Some are lying down but their necks are still upright and others are grazing on the trees . They are beautiful creatures. Some of the other game we see are wildebeest, water bucks, wart hogs, zebra and jackals. Damon points to what looks like two dried bushes in the grass. We move towards them and it is two male lions fast asleep. We pull up less than three metres away from them and they don’t stir. Just the odd twitch of the ear confirms to us they are still alive! After three hours we return to the lodge for a lovely cooked breakfast. We have some time to kill before our evening drive. Damon takes us on a boat up the bushmen river where the mullet fish are jumping. One even jumps into the boats. We spot grey herons,Ibis and several other water birds.



We start the evening drive early because Damon wants to take us to the far side of the reserve to hopefully see hippos and rhino. We travel along viewing elephants antelope, zebra, ostrich and lots of bird life.



En route we stop at a termite mound. Damon digs into the rock hard soil and produces red termites. He tells us that they are a rich source of protein and taste of mint with citrus tones. (Like describing a wine.) they are offered to Ian, who takes it and eats it. Apparently it doesn’t taste of mint and lemon, more sort of disgusting.



Eventually come to a river and Damon spots hippo. He asks if we would like to get closer. We get out of the vehicle and clamber down the bank to watch the male, female and young hippos. I’m remembering that it’s the hippo that kills the most people in Africa! I the slowest in the group so I would be first to be caught!

After leaving the hippos Damon informs is that he has a bott Fly in his ear. He needs to get to a doctor asap as this parasite lays eggs in the ear where they hatch out and fly off.

We are a good hour away from the lodge so we tell him to just go back so he can see the doctor. He can feel the parasite burrowing in his ear. We race back but he spots some elephants and stops by them for us to take photos and talks about them. We return to the lodge and Damon goes off to the doctor.



The final safari drive commences at 6am. Damon has returned but the doctor was unable to find the fly and after our excursion he will be going to a specialist. But he is determined to take us out.

We are bucketing about on what Damon calls rough roads, I’d call them barely recognisable tracks, but I suppose it is a matter of perspective.



The guides are sharing information and after an hour or so two lionesses have been sighted. We make our way to a fence line which the lionesses are following. They come over the slight crest in front of us. Two fully grown animals in wonderful conditions. They pad toward us, one pauses and stares at us from a distance of perhaps five feet. We are in an open topped truck, no roof let alone windows. All I can see is wonderfully dark brown eyes and some interesting teeth. Happily Ian is between me and those teeth so it’s not as worrying as it might have been.



Both lionesses stop by a small pool immediately besides the front of our vehicle. They crouch down and drink. It is magnificent. The first lioness to finish jumps over the second which causes it to jerk up and stare around towards us, whoops. But then she just drinks a little more and then they both walk off down the fence line. We pull back and leave the animals alone.



We are moving vaguely towards the lodge. Suddenly Damon stops the vehicle and points out a rhino which is about thirty yards from us but had been largely hidden by bushes. As we watch two other adults and a 17 week old calf move into view, eating as they do. These are white rhino (a corruption of the Dutch word for ‘wide’ which relates to the mouth shape) and they amble forward, generally around shrubs but sometimes through them. As with all other animals we have seen, they look at us and then ignore us.



We all know poachers kill these animals for their horns. What we hadn’t realised is the values involved. Damon tells us of three poachers who were convicted and are believed to have made SA Rand 320m (£14.5m approx). They were sentenced to prison but ‘escaped’ after about a year, it is suggested guards were bribed. (Shock.) But one was beaten to death by locals, the second was killed after being hit by a truck and the third just disappeared, so perhaps some form of justice was delivered.



The final big animal observation, as we approach the end of the drive we come across two adult male elephants, big animals. After a short while they leave the track and walk a few feet into the bush and become effectively invisible. Amazing to think that a beast, twelve feet tall or so, weighing many tons can be so extremely difficult to see even when so close. Makes you realise why the guides are so vital.



As an interesting change in scale, the very last thing we are shown are the thorns of the Sweet Thorn tree. Long vicious stabbing thorns up to three inches long designed to protect the leaves from giraffes and other browsers. Ants colonise the inside of the thorns and build nests. When a giraffe eats the leaves the ants emerge and cover the muzzle of the giraffe which is unpleasant for the animal. The giraffe moves onto the next tree and starts eating there, and the process repeats. It means the plants are not destroyed and the giraffes only take a relatively small amount from each plant. Damon plucks some thorns, cuts them open and lo ants emerge. Amazing how nature works.

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