No Stopping for Lions

by Joanne Glynn

  On the way out next morning we drive past the rockiest olive grove I’ve ever seen to look for the ancient San (Bushman) rock paintings said to be hiding in a sandstone alcove nearby. We walk along what’s barely a path through scrubby vegetation and when it stops at a rocky overhang the paintings are right there before us, clear and unprotected. Animals and what appear to be hunting scenes are depicted, but what is remarkable is the clarity of the work. With few tourists to this private gallery, the drawings are so well preserved they could be the recent works of a homeless vagrant. Walking back to the Troopy we see in the dust large cat spoor, which I know must belong to a mountain leopard. Neil and I are debating whether this could be true or just fanciful — that we might be on a path that a leopard wandered along the night before — when it hits me that we’re here. It’s not a daydream or someone else’s story anymore, it’s us walking in the footsteps of leopards and living life large.

  Still in the Cederberg, we check into a camping ground where we’ll spend a couple of days before continuing northward towards Namibia. This is to be our first attempt at camping and we couldn’t have chosen a better spot. A place called Algeria, it’s in a valley between towering peaks, with a little river flowing through it and manicured grassy lawns. We have the whole camping ground to ourselves, which is just as well under the circumstances. The rangers in charge of the ground direct us to the best site under oak trees, and they offer to give us free of charge any provisions that we may be lacking, our being novices. The generosity of strangers here is so unexpected.

  It takes us some time to erect the tent, an hour of laughter (and not always from us) interspersed with bouts of dissension and dispute, but by 5 p.m. it’s stable, we’ve had a shower and are sitting around a roaring fire in the dark with a glass of wine, waiting until it’s late enough to eat. We’re going to have to think of something to do to fill in these chilly, dark hours before bedtime.

  With our thermals on we climb into the sleeping capsule and pile blankets and sleeping bags on top of us. At every little noise we stir and whisper ‘What’s that?’ but it turns out to be just some sort of little beast scavenging in the dead oak leaves around the Troopy. The loudest noise, which gives Neil the biggest fright, is from the zipper when I open a peephole to check outside.

  On the road out we pick up a local who’s hitching a ride. He’s a young Coloured man, jogging into the next town 15 kilometres away to visit his sister. When we ask him where he’d like to be dropped off he politely says ‘at the tree’ and, sure enough, as we approach the town there is just one tree on the side of the road. Later on we pick up an old fella, another Coloured, who has a big backpack and two bags of oranges. He’s a little under the weather and after he establishes that we can’t speak Afrikaans he stops chattering, sings a bar or two then falls asleep. Just in case he’s listening subliminally we play some Ladysmith Black Mambazo tracks. This male group has developed a style of performing which combines a cappella singing with choreographed dance steps, and their worldwide appeal lies in the primeval beat of Africa that permeates their music. If they don’t get a reaction from our friend, nothing will. Well he doesn’t move, so when we get to his turn-off we wake him up, bail him out and leave him on the side of the road looking dishevelled and dazed. But he rallies enough to give us the thumbs-up and he shouts out ‘Good ride!’ as we drive off.

  I’m impressed by the etiquette shown by drivers on country roads here and we’ve quickly become used to flashing our indicators in thanks when a car pulls over to the far left of the road as we overtake. In actuality it’s most often us pulling over for vehicles which, as they draw close, flash their intention to pass us, travelling at a leisurely pace, then, once in front, flash again. Sometimes it goes to ridiculous lengths, when we then flash acknowledgement of their flash in return. Such a degree of consideration engenders a sense of camaraderie that I find infectious, and once or twice I’ve annoyed Neil by adding my own touch such as a double flash or a wave preceded by a flash then a quick beep.

  The further north we go the straighter the road becomes and the sparser the vegetation. We’re aiming for Springbok, 600 kilometres north of Cape Town and just 120 kilometres from the Namibian border. Springbok lies on the only main road between the two and it’s the only town of note for hundreds of kilometres in this thinly inhabited corner of the Northern Cape. We book into a guesthouse and have dinner in a steakhouse off the main street. Being Saturday it’s a big night out and the bar plays old Elvis and Stones tracks. There are kilo steaks on the menu and blond blue-eyed men in the bar. Here English is very much a second language and we get the feeling that we’re being looked on as a curiosity, with our Australian accents and small appetites.

  I’ve started a list of animals we’ve spotted and so far there have been plenty of ostriches, a mongoose and some wild donkeys, and today heading into Springbok we see a springbok. I don’t plan on getting out of the Troopy when we get to the next big town on the map, Pofadder.

  The plan is not to drive into Namibia at the nearest border but to veer north-east and visit two of South Africa’s semi-arid national parks, Augrabies Falls and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The latter occupies an isthmus between Botswana and Namibia in the most northerly part of the Northern Cape and if we’re lucky the proposed border post linking Kgalagadi directly with Namibia will be open for business and we won’t have to backtrack down out of the park to enter Namibia.

  Augrabies Falls National Park surrounds the waterfall of the same name and we find a surprising number of tourists in a place we’d thought would see few visitors. We’ve booked a SANParks (South African National Parks) cottage for the night and at dusk we sit out on the stoep, or porch, with a tumbler of cask wine, thinking about what we’ll have for dinner. There’s a flat metal disc on a stand embedded in the paving and a sneaked look at the other cottages reveals that this is used as a barbecue, known here as a braai. I notice that others down the row are already stoked up for the evening meals. Wives are slicing vegetables and wrapping potatoes in foil, and their partners are dragging out the esky and uncorking the beer and brandy. We look on in admiration and resolve to become this organised in future. By the time we get up the next morning the braais are already cleaned and scrubbed shiny by staff and I’m beginning to see why barbecuing is so popular here.

  Unlike any waterfalls I’ve seen before, these ones are below ground level and are conveniently just a short walk past reception out into a rocky treeless terrain. Here the Orange River has cut a deep ravine through the desert and huge volumes of water are forced through a narrow s-bend, culminating in the final drop. Not particularly high, but powerful and magnificent, and this isn’t even after rain. There are fall-proof viewing platforms built scarily out over the ravine and we stand back from the edge and the spray, mesmerised by the thick brown blanket of water below.

  Early next morning we take the Troopy on an early morning game drive, our first, but the game is disappointing. Maybe we were expecting too much, hoping for the list to be overflowing with sightings after a couple of hours, but apart from a family of giraffe who materialise out of the red rocks then disappear again, and klipspringers, like baby dainty deer, picking their way through the early heat, the park appears empty. Driving along a track between ridges and shadows we find ourselves with the full moon of the previous night high and bright in the sky to one side, and the new day’s pulsing sun rising large and hot on the other. I feel all at sea in this landscape of strange phenomena and unfamiliar sights and I am starting to see that there’s a lot more to safariing than just animals.

  Roughly 100 kilometres upstream on the Orange River lies Upington, an economic and traffic hub of the Northern Cape. It’s said to be the hottest town in South Africa but it looks cool and green as we drive around the suburbs looking for accommodation. We soon discover that this is because of extensive irrigation, and the town sits in the middle of a narrow but long strip of fertile land of citrus orchards and vineyards. Driving in, we passed
areas like large barren paved car parks where grapes are spread to dry to supply raisins for the European market, but beyond, the empty land stretches to merge with a rainless, cloudless sky.

  Neil finds an electrical store and falls into conversation with a gentle, tall Coloured man who refuses payment after correcting a small problem with our laptop. He likes Australians. His younger brother was an Australian sports aficionado and followed every rugby, tennis and cricket match with such fanatical dedication that his family buried him with an Australian scarf around his neck after he was killed in a motor accident. This story is told to us with great tenderness and we leave the store sorry that we didn’t have anything vaguely Australian that we could have handed on to be put on the grave.

  Next Neil takes the satellite phone in for repairs to a shop around the corner and the proprietor, who’s never worked on a satellite phone before, takes up the challenge. He pulls it apart, does a bit of re-soldering and, Bob’s your uncle, the on/off switch now turns off. When Neil asks him how life has been since the end of apartheid, he answers that, for him, a Coloured, apartheid is just beginning. And by the way, he tells Neil, the roads aren’t safe so don’t ever give a lift to anyone.

  We find a camping store and get talking to one of the proprietors, a closed, quietly dour Afrikaner. After a while he relaxes in our company and tells little stories of life up here in a lonesome corner of the country. Then, after he and Neil get talking about the fall of apartheid and the introduction of Black Empowerment, he surprises us by stating that he’s always believed apartheid to be immoral and he confides with embarrassment that there are still fellow countrymen on surrounding farms who beat their workers. People are not always what they seem. Neil negotiates with him a trade-in on our recalcitrant tent and we leave stocked up with a fancy blue and yellow lightweight number, new air-mattresses and state-of-the-art headlamps.

  That night we drive back to the B&B from a restaurant in town through a strange sparkling light. The hostess tells us that it is the beginning of a desert mist and that we can expect it at this time of year. She is curious about our trip and we spend a half-hour or so chatting to her about our plans and adventures. Although she can sympathise with Neil in his wish to locate the family farm, she hints that she thinks it’s a lost cause and that he must be slightly crazy, dragging his wife into the dangers of the bush.

  Afterwards Neil asks me, for the hundredth time he says, to stop interrupting him when he’s telling a story. Justifiably, he finds it more than annoying and the fact that I keep doing it is more annoying still. I know that I do it, and sometimes do try to restrain myself, but I tell him that I get so involved in his story that I just have to add to it. He’s not buying that excuse. I try to find a more valid one but the truth is I can’t, so we leave the subject with a threat and a promise hovering over the issue like the settling mist outside.

  My determination to be a glamorous traveller is waning. By the third day out from Cape Town I cut back to a bit of lipstick; by day five it’s just a quick smear of sunblock and lip salve. In Upington main street I catch sight of my get-up reflected in the Pick n Pay window: zippered safari trousers already shrunk, baggy T-shirt and a sleeveless padded vest affair all in shades of khaki, beige or brown, teamed with my good Italian buckled court shoes now down at heel and dusty. However, unable to detect the dark roots in the reflection I think my hair is still looking pretty good.

  THE CHEETAHS MADE ME DO iT

  Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is one of the few national parks in South Africa that allows for the free movement of wildlife, the fence on the Botswanan side having been taken down. The closer to the park we get, the more ostriches and gemsbok (known as oryx outside South Africa) we see, and road-kill appears in our path and on the verge. Somewhere north of Upington we come across what I’ve been looking forward to seeing: a donkey cart, known locally as a Kalahari Ferrari. Driven by a young boy and loaded up with brothers and a mother with a bandanna-clad head, it moves at a good pace along a worn track parallel to the road. The landscape changes from rocky, tussocky desert to red sand, and we leave the tarred road behind and hit heavy corrugations. There are few trees and even fewer signs of human habitation so we’re surprised when a little family of children jump out on the road in front of us, dancing madly and waving us in to stop at a little lean-to of a stall they’ve set up to sell simple carvings and jewellery. One wears unruly hair and a lap-lap; all he needs is a bone through his nose and he’d be the spitting image of the drawing of Neil done by a good friend, an artist, as a going-away present.

  It is the policy of SANParks to maintain the ecological balance of Kgalagadi by limiting the number of visitors, and for the same reason the camps are kept small, which makes it difficult to get accommodation. Months ago we’d reserved a combination of camping sites and cabins, taking anything available, and we’d been lucky enough to score tents in three wilderness camps.

  We register at Twee Rivieren, the gateway to the park, then set off for Kieliekrankie Wilderness Camp. Almost at once we see lots of game: gemsbok, sleek fat antelope with beautiful markings and elegant sexy horns; red hartebeest, which look like they’re compiled from the body parts from many different animals and whose horns don’t seem to know in which direction they should be growing; black-backed jackals; herds of springbok; and the snooty kori bustard, a big handsome bird strutting around with its nose in the air. We’re both excited to be here and immediately fall in love with this park.

  Just after we reach camp two elderly couples arrive and we meet for the first time the ugly rich Jo’burger. One wife with voluminous black hair is decked out in over-sized silver earrings, gold front tooth, diamonds on the soles of her shoes. A lineless, smileless, plump face. Polite and pleasant, one husband manages to get over in a short conversation that he owns 40 Mercedes and lectures me on the dismal state of the Union; the annoyances and inconveniences caused by the current regime; how hard it is to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime’s hard work; honest hard-working whites paying too many taxes and supporting the rest of the population, who are always wanting time off to go to the funeral of a brother or sister or granny. Do we have the same problem in Australia with Aboriginal staff?

  Neil and I sit on the terrace wrapped in blankets to guard against the rapidly dropping temperature and drinking red wine. It’s a landscape of red dusty sand, stumpy blue tussocks, afternoon greys. No sound at all, then a single jackal bark from one side, answered by the hoots and hellos of his family from all over the place.

  When we leave the next morning at 9.45 we are reprimanded by the camp officer for not observing an important park rule — visitors must be checked out of camps by nine o’clock each morning. We fear expulsion or at least a fine, but drive off with just 9.45 a.m. underlined on our access permit.

  Nossob rest camp is our next destination and on arrival we read that the temperature the night before was -5°C. We’re allotted a good site and the new tent goes up without a hitch, although we can’t quite work out what the extra toggles on the pins are for. We settle in and manage to have a meal cooked and eaten before scavenging jackals pass through the camp. Later, a lion roars and grunts at regular intervals and the sound cuts across the night and echoes around the tents. I’m getting to like this life, but I can tell by the way he starts at scuffling sounds and stumbles on the guy wires that Neil still has a way to go.

  After an 8.55 a.m. departure we drive out heading northward and come across two male lions said to be brothers snoozing right on the verge. Any closer and they would be hit by a car coming around the corner. As it is, the tail of one flips out over the road every now and then. On a later drive we see two more males — or could they be our brothers? — reclining in the scant shade of a thorny bush. They stretch and yawn and look particularly dopey — dishevelled teenagers after a big night out. We go on a guided evening game drive and see a lone brown hyena, head down, plodding around his territory with determined resignation. With his beautiful flowing brown coat he looks l
ike he’s just come from the hairdressers rather than a cramped and dusty den. We’re told he does this 5-kilometre lap of his territory every evening. The guide is excellent and bears out our suspicion that the information gleaned from a good guide more than makes up for a lack of sightings. All the other passengers are old devotees of Kgalagadi, some having visited the park many times, while one family comes back year after year. The wife tries to describe the attraction and, half embarrassed, settles on ‘mystical’. I can see what she means, as I’m completely charmed.

  The road to Gharagab, the remotest of the wilderness camps, passes close by Unions End. This is the confluence of the borders of South Africa, Botswana and Namibia and may as well be the ends of the earth. As soon as we near Gharagab we sense that this is a special place. Four timber and canvas cabins look out over rolling Kalahari dunes and low thorn-scattered savannah, totally quiet and perfectly still. The loudest noise is the squeak of the floorboards and the brightest light is the sun reflected in the waterhole below. The tap water is so salty that it leaves a crust on dishes and glasses. We love it. At night a beautiful gecko whose white spots glow luminous in the flash of the torch keeps the insects down in the kitchen. He moves into the bedroom when we go to bed and we sleep soundly knowing that he is there protecting us from the only wildlife which we fear that night — mosquitoes.

  We move on to Bitterpan camp where we’re greeted with the news that a puff adder has just been relocated from beneath a chair in the communal kitchen. We later see the camp officer out the back cautiously kicking over a log then jumping back, rifle ready. From then on I open every cupboard cautiously and look under every chair before sitting down. After dinner we go down to the huge saltpan in front of the camp with a spotlight and the only other guests, a young South African family. All we spot is the silhouette of the camp officer skulking about with a torch in the bush behind our cabins. In the morning he tells us that he was looking for a young leopard that has been sniffing around. He adds that when this camp was being built the lions were so plentiful and so menacing that a fence had to be built around the perimeter of the site to keep the workers safe. There’s no fence now, no security at all except for our armed ranger to protect against fierce predators and confused puff adders.