Your Kruger national Park guide, with stories: Binoculars, gravel road & map

Binoculars, gravel road & map

YOUR

KRUGER

NATIONAL

PARK

GUIDE

with stories

Frans Rautenbach

Tafelberg

To Elmari, my travel companion. Who is so fond of spending mornings reading under a thatched shade in the camp.

And who eventually also read this book, and took care of it with love.

The layout of this digital edition of Your Kruger National Park Guide – with Stories may differ from that of the printed version, depending on the settings on your reader. The layout displays optimally if you use the default setting on your reader. Readers can experiment with the settings to have the book displayed differently.

Old houses at Shingwedzi

Introduction

Decide why

Old houses at Shingwedzi

"I am five years old. The black sand of Letaba is hot under my bare feet. Bugs are screeching in the trees, and not one leaf moves. Somewhere a bird makes a noise: cawk-cawk-cawk-cawk, louder and louder.

I am wearing khaki shorts and a summer shirt, because in the game reserve it is always summer, even in July.

I stroll slowly along the footpath beneath the broad-leafed trees, and feel the bliss of the hot sand between my toes, and the sun on my face. I do not want to walk fast, because I want the feeling to last. The bush smells like Simba chips, and the camp of the smoke of a fire.

The grownups are asleep in their hut. Number 67, in a large circle of rondavels. The thatched roof rests on thick stoep pillars made of dry logs. On the stoep there is a food cupboard made of thin wood with air holes and a latch to protect it against the monkeys.

I close the screen door softly behind me so it doesn’t bang and everything is different at once. Inside it is cool and smells of tarred poles, soap and paraffin. After the sharp light outside, it is dark, and I stand still for a minute to get my bearings, my feet warm on the smooth green cement floor.

The drawn curtains are yellow, with pictures of monkeys, a mother and father lion with three cubs, and a huge elephant bull with long tusks and a ripped ear. There is also a kudu with three twists in its horns, a sable antelope and a buffalo that looks sad because it is standing downhill.

The animals are grey and black and white."

I have been going to the game reserve for more than 50 years. That explains why I speak of the game reserve, rather than its official name, the Kruger National Park, or – as many people now call it – the Kruger.

I grew up at a time when there was only one place known as the game reserve – as essential a part of the culture of our people as braaivleis, rugby and strife. In this book I will still refer to the game reserve, although I will interchange that with the park from time to time.

In 50 years even the most dim-witted person can learn something. I reckon I have learnt something during the decades I’ve spent in the game reserve. Not only the scientific things – the names of trees, the habits of the game and the birds. No, also simply how to enjoy it.

I know it is everyone’s indaba how they choose to enjoy things. But I’d like to help.

There are many reasons to enjoy the park, and not all of them can be realised at the same time. This book strives to put everything on the table so that you can make informed decisions.

It’s designed for the visitor who hasn’t been to the park, or a relative newcomer. I think here of many South Africans who have not had the privilege of going to the park, especially many Capetonians and Durbanites, and also many foreigners. From experience I know that a holiday with the benefit of the information in this book can be simply life-altering. The alternative is that you as visitors will make mistakes: arrange accommodation that does not enable you to imbibe the atmosphere and natural beauty of the place, or not see what you would like to see, or worse still: become stranded somewhere without accommodation, food or fuel.

The advice I give is aimed at a holiday in self-catering park accommodation: huts and guest houses, rather than luxury safari camps and restaurants. A trip for the ordinary guy on holiday.

Many veteran game reserve-goers will swear there is no other way to do it than to camp. They may have a point, but this book is first and foremost meant to provide practical guidance to newcomers. For that reason I concentrate on a holiday in ordinary camp accommodation – but one where you can spend time outside in the bush every hour of the day with your people, and our animals, on the earth that belongs to all of us.

Skukuza, late 1960s

Why go to the game reserve?

The obvious reason is to see animals. And there is nothing wrong with that. The park is one of the few places where an ordinary person can see almost all the mammals of Africa – and most of the birds and many reptiles – in their natural habitat. The beauty of seeing an animal – a rare animal, but especially a dangerous animal – is that it speaks to the deepest instincts of humanity. We want to satisfy our curiosity. We crave the mystery and the adventure. We remain hunters in our hearts, even though we do it with the eye and the camera.

But the game reserve is also socially a magnificent place. Anybody who has spent an evening around a game reserve fire in good company, with a glass of red wine and a chop, can tell you how pleasant it really is. But even that is informed by nature. That is the topic people sit and talk about on evenings around the fire. That is the social glue that binds people in the park together, family, friends and strangers. Here, away from our respective homes, jobs and general life troubles, is something that can unite people, just like a national sports event.

For someone else the park may perhaps be a significant laboratory for research projects, or paradise to a nature photographer. But these pastimes also focus on the wildlife.

If I think of my own experience, the best description I can give is that it is, first of all, simply enjoyable to be there. It is a sensuous experience. If you do not retain something of the sensual pleasure of the place, then you have missed the boat. You must smell, feel, hear, taste and see it.

If ever there was a place in the world that makes it easy to enjoy the moment, it is here. Sometimes you simply want to sit by a water hole and do nothing and say nothing. Just listen to the sound of the guinea fowl in the underbrush, smell the dry grass, feel the heat on your skin. Or in early morning, when it is cold by the roadside, see the flawless skins of the impalas shiver in the first light. Or stand by the camp fence in the middle of the night while everyone sleeps, and listen to a jackal far away, howling its heart out.

This assault on the senses comes from nature and the culture of the game reserve as a whole. But the greatest comes from the animals. Without them the experience of the bush would be rather sterile – like a very artful garden with a large variety of trees and plants. It is the game in the game reserve that distinguishes it.

Game watching is of course an education in itself. The game reserve is not to be dictated to. To me one of the most wonderful things about the park is its mystery: why and where things happen and how they coincide. The game reserve is the stuff of life.

Now, just to contradict myself completely: to fully enjoy the game reserve, is to enjoy everything that happens to you, especially the many kilometres of dusty roads you will drive without seeing a single animal. For no matter how special the game is, there is no guarantee you will see any kind of animal at any stage at any place. Which makes me think of my impatient brother-in-law (a sworn game reserve-goer) who said, when we first drove together in the park: There aren’t enough animals here. They should bring in more animals.

It is important to decide what the purpose of your game reserve holiday is and what you want out of it, because that determines what you are going to do, how you plan on doing it, and how you execute it.

Where does one start?

Begin at the beginning, most people will tell you. It is a riddle almost like a lion hunt: you must know everything to know anything. You must, for example, know where to look for game to know where to stay. You must know where to eat in order to know where to drive. You must know what to eat in order to know what to pack. You must know where to stay in order to book the right accommodation. And so on.

I have decided that one must, as Stephen Covey says, begin with the end in mind. For that reason I start with the game in the game reserve and work my way back.

Only when you know what you want to do, can you plan your holiday. Only when you know where to look for game can you book a place to stay. Only when you know what you want to eat and do, will you know what to pack. When you have done all these things, will you be ready to undertake a trip to the Lowveld.

Chapter 1

How to sight game

I have thought a lot about how to convey my ideas about game watching. There are two sides to the story: on the one hand there are certain common-sense principles that undoubtedly help, and have often helped me. On the other is the fact that the game reserve is a wondrous part of the cosmos that works in patterns we know only in part. And it is exactly this that makes it so exciting – and that makes the experience one I wish, with my whole heart, everyone could have.

For the moment I accept that readers want to see as many animals as possible, and preferably as many of the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros) as possible – or if you add cheetah and wild dog, the Great Seven. I am not saying that to see the Big Seven is the only reason to go to the game reserve. But if I don’t tackle this topic thoroughly, I am not doing my job.

In the same breath I also ask that you do not cheat yourself out of the largest part of the wildlife – the plants and the birds. Without them the park would be similar to a zoo or a farm. The big advantage of bird- and tree-watching is you simply have a much broader experience of the bush. What’s more, most of these species come to you, or stand in one place. Stop and smell the roses – or in this case the buffalo grass/mopani trees/river rushes.

The best way to enjoy trees and birds is to learn their names, and the best way to do that is by acquiring a good book to identify them. Buy a pair of binoculars too. They needn’t be special field glasses. Most models available in shops – some of which don’t cost