T.I.A. Baby!!

This is the first part of the Africa blog. As it went over three weeks long, rather than doing one massive entry which you would get bored half way through, I have decided to try to split it into a few parts. As we went to a different area pretty much each week it would be sensible to write about each of these areas in turn. I don't know why I'm telling you this, as it makes no difference what you think, cos I'm going to do it anyway. So sit back and enjoy... This Is Africa Baby!!

Part One: Arrival and Kruger Park

I touched base on the 22nd of June and was met almost immediately by Craig and Vivian at the airport. Back at Vivian and Derek's place (a house, which working as an archaeologist, I would never be able to afford...) I met Fiona (Craig's sister) and Mark (Craig's brother in law), both of whom would become a pretty permanent fixture through the next two weeks. As I had not slept the preceding day I crashed out pretty quickly ready for the following day's drive over to Barberton.

I think we took a wrong turn...

The drive was pretty nice, the only problem was nearly being raped near Long Tom Pass. When I say nearly raped, I mean a truck load of Africans turned up, which spooked Fiona and we left pretty sharpish.

The Best thing about Long Tom Pass is this MASSIVE FUCKING GUN!

We met up with Lynne (Craig and Fiona's ma) and Joyce (Craig and Fiona's Granny) at Barberton and had a civilized tea with them, while about a million cats crawled all over us. The overall plan was to head out to Kruger National Park and spend the week there in the park's accommodation, so everyone had an early night.

Kruger Park is amazing, all the literature (and everyone we met) tells you that it is the size of Wales. I was told this so often that I began to wonder if Wales had become a new unit of measurement; 'Ah yes, it's half the size of Wales'; 'Can I get some apples please? About 1/678395ths of Wales will do, please.' But differently to Wales the only thing that lives there are wild animals, except for at the accommodation and the staff villages. This, I thought, would be a good thing to do with Wales as well. Fence it off and get rid of the Welsh and you'd have a nice little nature park for the rest of Britain to enjoy. The entire park is fenced off or is bordered by rivers and it also reaches into Mozambique and Zimbabwe. There are some issues about poaching and the general treatment of animals, especially in Zimbabwe. But given Zimbabwe's history of treatment of humans, reversal of this problem is probably not high on their list of priorities. You have to stay in your car at all times in the park and are not even allowed to open your windows (in theory). We stayed over in Satara camp for most of the time, in quasi-African huts, the camp gates are all closed strictly at 5.30 each night and not opened again until 6.30 the next morning (unless you go on a park arranged early morning ride, see below).

Pass the bongos

These two facts made me start doubting the park and it's size. I wondered if the park was really the size of Wales and but actually only stretched about 20-30 meters either side of the road where large back drop paintings of the horizon and sky had been placed. In reality are all the animals locked up each night only to be released every morning before the tourists are allowed out? The fact that you can't get out of the car or leave the camps at night to test this theory must prove it is right. Well, this kind of thinking works for Conspiracy Theorists...

Is it really the size of Wales? Or are there greater forces at work here?

although the park is pretty much cut off from the rest of the world, we still managed to hear about Michael Jackson's death (later on during my time in Africa, Craig and I watched some of his overblown tribute in LA until we got bored after about ten minutes. I just hope Gary Glitter gets the same treatment when he dies, after all he is pretty similar to Jackson, a penniless, bankrupt, kiddy fiddler who hasn't released a studio album for over ten years...). In fact I will know exactly where I was when I heard he had died should someone ask: I was watching a Leopard's arse disappear into some tall grass. Actually we had been tracking it (the Leopard, not Michael Jackson) for about twenty minutes with a load of Rock Spiders who appeared to be hanging their kids out of the window as bait (After we heard of MJ's death, Craig and I took to winding down the windows every time we passed a parked car and rather than asking what animal they had seen (as is the custom) we told the occupants that Michael Jackson was dead and drove on). The Leopard was the last of the so-called 'Big Five' of Kruger park that I saw. The others animals in the 'Big Five' are the Rhinoceros, Buffalo, Elephant and the Lion. We were very fortunate to see all five, as it has been known for some people to go into the park for weeks and not even see an single Impala (called the MacDonald's of Kruger as they are so plentiful and ubiquitous). Rather than describe every sighting we had I have put a list at the end of this piece of all the animals we did see whilst in the park.

Giraffes, not one of the 'Big Five', but just big...

One morning, Craig, Fiona, Mark and I decided on doing a Morning Drive as organised by the park. We set off before light and the vehicle had spotlights, operated by the passengers (more on this later).

The intrepid travellers, treading new ground...

One of the first things we saw were three buffaloes, which our driver, Edward, told us were old Buffaloes, separated from the rest of the herd as they were unable to keep up due to their age. We turned 180 degrees and on the other side of the road was the rest of the herd. I would have suggested that they were separated by the road, rather than old age... Edward also told us that three Elephants we saw were male, then changed his mind and said they were all females. At one point Edward also got out of the truck where a pride of lions had been enjoying a light snack of some other animals the night before. We were thinking we would have to draw lots as to who drove the truck back had the lions still been around... Mind you, he did inform us how to tell the difference between male and female Zebras: Males are Black and White, Female are White and Black.

Edward and Me, the most uninformed tour guide of Kruger Park

What was fascinating during this ride was the sighting of the Lesser Spotted Tourist. It was sitting directly in front of me and although I couldn't discern its gender, it made for fascinating viewing. She/he was in charge of one of the spotlights on our side of the truck and, boy, did they NOT know how to use it. Rather than shining the light into the bushes, he/she was shining the beam all over the tops of trees, at the road and towards the stars. It was a wonder we saw anything at all. I managed to get several photos of him/her and I present them below, this was a once in a lifetime experience, so please enjoy the photos:

He/she in it's natural habitat

He/she in camouflage

A good study of the Lesser Spotted Tourist

He/she spots something and begins to stalk...

Back in his/her lair the Lesser Spotted Tourist is most happy

Here is a list of the animals I saw in Kruger, some of them have my pictures along with them. Just because there isn't a picture of the animal, doesn't mean that I didn't see it, so I don't care if you believe this list or not. It's all true and I have the official Kruger Park Tick List to prove it. Click on the name to read more about each animal, I'm not Johnny Morris and know nothing about wildlife, so you can do your own research:

Banded Mongoose

Black-backed Jackal

Blue Wildebeest

Buffalo


Chacma Baboon


Cheetah


Common Duiker

Common Reedbuck

Crocodile

Dwarf Mongoose

Elephant


Giraffe


Hippopotamus


Impala

Kudu

Leopard

Leopard Tortoise

Lion


Plains Zebra


Rock Monitor

Serrated Hinged Terrapin

Spotted Hyena


Steenbok

Tree Squirrel

Vervet Monkey

Warthog

Waterbuck

White Rhinoceros

We saw several species of birds as well, but I'm not going to list these as I'm not a twitcher. The rarest animal we saw was the Tsessebe (try saying that when you're sober...), of which there are only two hundred in the park:

Tsessebe, as rare as hen's teeth or rocking horse shit

OK, that's it for part one. I'm off to Italy for ten days on Sunday, so I will try to write another chapter of this by then, or else you will have to wait for a while to see what happened to me in the Drakonsburg!