Extracts from the book ...
Kalahari Transfrontier Park
Kalahari in style
The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park really is in the back of beyond. The gramadoelas. The boondocks. It’s a 10- to 12-hour drive from Cape Town or Joburg, depending on how often you want to appear on the traffic department’s candid camera show. And once you leave the southernmost camp at Twee Rivieren, there’s no cellphone signal so you’re on your own in a vast and arid wilderness.
It’s the sort of place where you can eat baked beans straight from the can and feel pretty good about it. Where the dry air plays havoc with even the freshest of bread so breakfast is a doorstopper of stale bread and fig jam, or coffee and rusks for special occasions. Where campers cook up whole cows and sacks of potatoes as if they’ve never heard of any other vegetables, let alone salad. Where you can forget about blow-drying your hair or applying makeup and just go ‘bush’. And where people sneak shamelessly out of their cars for a quick pee in the sand... [to read more, order the book from Aardvark Press]
Ai-Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park
Prozac for the soul
For months we’ve been reading that the landscape of the Richtersveld is harsh, unpredictable, inhospitable and forbidding. We’ve been stressing over reports of how isolated and desolate it is, how tough the driving conditions, how you have to carry in all your firewood and water, how the wind can whip itself into a frenzy and strip away huge swodges of your vehicle’s paintwork.
Instead, what we discover is a fierce magnificence of vast, dazzling spaces, a treasure-house of succulent jewels and a sense of peace in what is South Africa’s last true wilderness. It’s love at first sight… [to read more, order the book from Aardvark Press]
Karoo National Park
’n Boer maak ’n plan
This is a story that directors George Lucas or James Cameron would love to tell on film. An irresistible cocktail packed with action, madcap exploits and life-threatening explosions, and just a tinge of lunacy to spice up the life of the main character. Even the scenery is cinematic: vast Karoo plains that act as a foil for dolerite-capped mountains and conical hills, spectacular sunsets for the hero to ride off into, and immense star-filled skies with the shimmer of moonlight for spine-chilling effect.
We’re at the Karoo National Park near Beaufort West and we’re facing a formidable challenge – the 4x4 trail up Pienaar’s Pass… [to read more, order the book from Aardvark Press]
Mapungubwe National Park
Falling in love
This is the bushveld. Where mothers in bright African print dresses with turbans to match push toddlers around in wheelbarrows. Where you buy T-bone steak and get just about the whole cow, minus head and feet. Where farms are called Fancy and Shotbolt, and taxidermists advertise on every second tree and fence post. Where old South African flags are graffitied onto the back of road signs and T-shirts bear the legend ‘100% Boer’. And where tiny settlements might have just a sprinkling of houses but there’ll be two churches on adjacent plots – one Nederduitse Gereformeerde, the other Hervormde.
It’s also the home of the Mapungubwe National Park, where I’ve fallen in love. With its Venda-styled camp at Leokwe, its friendly people and its magnificent baobabs – fat upside-down trees that can live for thousands of years. The park has been declared a World Heritage Site because of the cultural importance of the archaeological treasures of Mapungubwe Hill, which predate Great Zimbabwe. Perhaps there’s a magic here we can’t quite understand, but we’re definitely under its spell… [to read more, order the book from Aardvark Press]
Kruger National Park
A walk on the wild side
We’re peering into a tree looking at a Pel’s fishing owl, 10 people crashing and crunching through the riverine undergrowth and making more noise than a herd of 50 elephants. Leaves rustle behind us and we turn to find three lionesses and a young male slinking away across the dry riverbed just 40 metres away. In single file, we edge around a bend to see what they’re scuttling from, only to find we’ve disturbed them on their kill. A huge kudu bull lies half dismembered, munched on and very very dead.
Soon ranger Aron Mkansi and tracker Sjambok Dzambukeri are high-fiving each other, broad grins all over their faces as they point out various gory aspects of the kill. These are the joys of being on the Olifants Wilderness Trail in the Kruger National Park. Today we’ve already brushed noses with a troop of spotted hyaenas, the pretty special Pel’s and a bunch of lions by nine in the morning… [to read more, order the book from Aardvark Press]
Tsitsikamma National Park
Birds of Eden
We’re Lara Croft and Indiana Jones, intrepid explorers, tramping through the rainforest in search of archaeological treasures. We cross a valley pumping out poisonous fumes from suspended aerial jets and wonder what other traps lie ahead as we swing through the canopy high above the ground. We cross a dangerous rope bridge and come upon a riverside ruin in the half light, part of an ancient building that no longer survives among the forest greenery.
Actually, we’re at Birds of Eden near The Crags, east of Plett, early one drizzly Sunday morning. The toxic fumes are just jets of mist that simulate a rainforest environment. The rope bridge’s thick steel cables make it as safe as houses. And the ancient ruin is an entirely new structure created for theatrical effect as part of an attractive waterfall that overhangs the path… [to read more, order the book from Aardvark Press]
Table Mountain National Park
Slime hags and rocksuckers
There’s something about this place that makes you feel like a kid again. Something deeply satisfying about being grossed out by a bunch of hagfish lying in an ooze of slime, playing hide-and-seek with a barrel-load of camouflage artists who change colour to blend with their surroundings, or learning the gory details of how fish trap, sting, spear, smash and crush their prey.
The Two Oceans Aquarium at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront understands only too well that we have a dual need – to be beguiled by cool, fun stuff, as well as to be appalled by things that are shocking, even disgusting. And it delivers – by the tankful… [to read more, order the book from Aardvark Press]