Cape Town & surrounds

Aside from getting my heart racing abseiling down Table Mountain, I explored a little further, taking in the Woodstock markets, where I found buffalo mozzarella and flammekueche (YUM!), the V&A Waterfront and the District 6 museum.

Five of us also rented a car for the day, starting off at Groot Constantia for a wine tasting (aside from the poor [self-]designated driver), followed by lunch in Simon’s Town. A highlight was definitely seeing the nearby African Penguins at Foxy Beach,

 once called ‘Jackass’ penguins because of their donkey-like braying. 

 

Breeding season only started a couple of months ago and there were many fluffy penguins waddling around or demanding food from their parents.

We saw dassies looking at the view from the lighthouse at Cape Point

 and ostriches at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa’s most South-western point,

before heading to Kommetjie for a beer and then Hout Bay for dinner at the Mariner’s Wharf (I highly recommend the calamari steak – so tender…)

Definitely not the easy way down Table Mountain, Cape Town

Ah, Kaapstad…such a beautiful city where the mountains tumble into the sea...last visit 2003. Here I was also reunited with the (now clean, semi-civilised) truck family

 – those who are continuing on up to Cape Town and 6 newbies.

Table Mountain was recently voted one of the seven natural wonders of the world and glimpses of it can be caught up certaincity streets. Watching it over the 4 days I was there, I saw it in some of its many guises including when its flat top is covered in clouds, otherwise known as the ‘tablecloth’.

I went up the mountain on the first and last day I was there and fortunately it was a clear day on both, albeit incredibly windy. It was even once aptly named ‘Windberg’ (Windy Mountain) as winds canblow up to 130 km per hour here.

In spite of the wind (evidently less than130 kmph!), Dom, Lee and I attempted the 112 metre abseil down the side of the mountain, touted as ‘The World’s Original Highest Commercial Abseil’.

Starting from one of the main viewing platforms at the top, you naturally attract a lot of attention. Instead of focusing on the beautiful view, tourists tend to focus on you in your harness and hard hat, ‘crazily’ climbing over the edge.

It almost feels like you’re a celebrity – although probably one with a death wish.

Having canyoned and abseiled many times before, including the 200 metre multi-pitch abseil, Malaita Point, in Katoomba, Australia, I was feeling pretty confident. I was confident going over the edge, leaving the safety of the viewing platform. I was even confident when hooked onto the safety rope, scrambling down over rocks to get to the starting point.

Lee scrambling down rocks on the safety rope

But then when I was waiting for my two friends to abseil down first, my confidence started to crack.

Lee...upright!

Dom hadn’t abseiled before but he didn’t seemto have any trouble sashaying down the cliff face. Lee, on the other hand, who had also done some canyoning, was slowly commencing her descent when suddenly I heard her yelp and then saw her boots sticking up in the air – Lee had flipped upsidedown! My initial reaction was to laugh but then concern for her safety took over. Luckily, however, the instructors were only concerned about her safety and swiftly got her back ontoher feet. I asked the instructors if that happens often and they took a deep breath and said ‘No…’ Lee’s excuse now is that she apparently ‘wanted to get a better view’…

Once they both made it to the bottom, theropes were hauled back up and it was then my turn to be hooked up. The wind had frozen me right through by that stage, and I couldn’t work out whether I was shaking from the cold, the adrenaline or both.

The hardest part of abseiling for me isalways leaning out over the edge of the cliff. This time it seemed even more daunting as when you look down, you not only see the part of the cliff face you’re abseiling down, but also all the way to the bottom of the mountain, some further 900 metres below! I reluctantly let go of the ropes as instructed to get a photo taken leaning out over the edge, and then quickly grabbed them again to re-establish my (false) sense of security.

The abseil started off a little shaky as I struggled to get sturdy foot holds and felt like I was slipping. I could feel the weight of my body in the harness, and whilst it was reassuring it was also quite uncomfortable, and left me feeling bruised for the next day or two.

I took my time, having dismissed the idea of doing a few jumps down the cliff very early on and stopping briefly to attempt taking a few photos (relatively unsuccessfully as I wasn’t very steady!).

As I was lowering myself, I suddenly realised there was no more cliff face to walk down. The instructors told me they always know when we get to that point as there is a moment of hesitation, before we work out exactly what to do. It was a big overhang with a remaining drop of about 30 metres, and I gradually lifted my feet off the edge and let the rope slide out from behind me, enjoying the 360 degree views.

All three of us were shaking at the bottom, again either pumped from adrenaline or just frozen stiff.

But what an incredible abseil. Definitely the toughest I have ever done. (I’m pretty sure Lee would agree!)

The walk out was also a tricky one as you then have to hike back up or down the mountain, along the path that is marked ‘This is not an easy way down’.

We opted for the quicker option of hiking back up the mountain, whilst watching our step on the thin path that just seemed to crumble away in parts. Once we rejoined the well-trodden paths at the top, we then took the easy way back down the mountain, this time from the safety of the cable car.

10 pieces update

I started this blog with the intention of picking up 10 pieces of litter at every site I visited or just every day, but more importantly of getting organisations (particularly tour companies) to take on the idea and get their travellers to sign up to picking up 10 pieces of litter per site or per day.

Evidently I have been on the road so the only part of this I have been able to attempt is picking up 10 pieces of litter on my own. And I have to admit I haven’t been doing it regularly – some countries I have missed entirely and in others I have done a bulk clean up. Nonetheless this has taught me some valuable lessons on how to make this work:

·         Any litter picked up is a good effort – some days you may feel like doing lots of litter picking and not on others, but every little bit helps

·         Many hands make light work – where I’ve been able to enlist the help of others, it has been much easier and more motivating to pick up rubbish (and if you have 24 passengers each picking up 10 pieces of litter every day – that’s a fair amount)

·         Have your gloves, hand sanitiser and a reusable bag handy – sounds simple but I’ve often left my gloves in a different bag to the one I’m using

·         If you can pick up a plastic bag as part of your litter collection, use it to put the group’s rubbish in

·         Ensure proper rubbish disposal where possible

·         Watch out for areas where you should not attempt to pick up rubbish e.g. landmine areas, police check points, etc.

·         Watch out for burrs, glass, spiky Acacias, etc.

·         Only pick up ‘safe’ items e.g. no sharps, broken glass, etc.

·         Take note of the types of rubbish in different areas e.g. endless plastic sachets for water in Ghana as it may be possible to propose a way to address the problem e.g. bio-degradable sachets?

·         Often have to be mindful in areas where they have designated rubbish collectors – don’t want to take jobs away from the locals and only help if they say it’s ok

I now want to put together a proper proposal of how this concept can work and talk to some tour companies about it when I get off the truck. In the meantime, I will keep attempting to pick up litter and enlist the help of others where I can. If anyone has any suggestions, please send them through!

Rhino poaching – what can be done?

Over 109 rhinos were killed in South Africa in the first two months of 2012. That is approximately 1.8 rhinos per day.

Rhino poaching is becoming increasingly problematic in Africa so much so that ‘Africa Geographic’ magazine devoted their entire April 2012 issue towards it. I thought I’d put forward some of the facts and arguments because, as stated in the magazine by Dr Ian Player, world respected conservationist, all debate about the issue is important as it keeps it alive.

Being in South Africa (or anywhere in Africa really), you are much more exposed to the wildlife conservation debate and issues such as rhino poaching (or elephants being poached for their ivory) are very close to heart. It’s unfortunately easier to distance yourself from the debate when you’re far removed from these wonderful creatures, another reason why I thought I’d write a blog post about it.

There are five species of rhino today, with the black and white rhino existing in Africa. There are 3 subspecies of black rhino ([critically endangered] South-Western 2,000, South-Central just over 2,200 and Eastern 740 – West African was declared extinct in 2011) and 2 subspecies of white rhino ([near-threatened] Northern only 4 left and Southern plus or minus 20,000, 93% of which live in South Africa).

So what are some of the potential solutions to curb the exponential increase in rhino poaching?

The magazine conducted a poll on their readers’ thoughts about the efficacy of the following potential measures:

-upping penalties

-increasing anti-poaching controls and tightening controls at airports

-de-horning (this is where parks get in professionals to remove the bulk of the horn, but it still leaves a stump which can be attractive to poachers. The horn would also need to be removed every two years. More importantly, rhinos use their horns for defence, attack, feeding, greeting and guiding)

-treating rhino horns with poisons (this generates considerable debate about its ethicality as it exposes anyone ingesting it to a potential health risk)

-legalising the trade in rhino horns (highly controversial)

-hunting moratorium

-educating the end users of the products (further studies need to be done on the efficacy [or lack thereof] of rhino horn but there are also alternatives – a 2006 study funded by the UK government and IFAW identified nine potential botanical replacements for rhino horn). One such educational campaign is this one, ‘Rhino horn is a killer not a cure’, by the Humane Society International WARNING: contains graphic images of mutilated rhinos)

-a combination of measures

In the reader survey, ‘a combination of measures’ came out on top, closely followed by ‘increasing anti-poaching controls and tightening controls at airports’.

There are numerous organisations working towards anti-poaching and rhino conservation. Of the ones listed in the magazine, the ones that got my attention were:

·         Rhino Force – they have a presence in the Kruger National Park shops and online, selling scarves, bracelets and other items

·         Space for Elephants Foundation – I met Digs, the CEO of this organisation when I volunteered at Thanda Game Reserve in September last year. One of their projects includes protecting and managing rhinos and they accept donations and volunteers

·        Asian Rhino Project – I found out we have a non-profit Australian volunteer organisation that raises awareness and support for the three Asian rhino species – donations and purchases can be made online, rhinos can be ‘adopted’, and they accept volunteers

·        World Wildlife Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF– SA) – linked to the WWF global network – donations can be made online, or support can be shown for World Rhino Day on 22 September

Hopefully then this blog post keeps the issue alive just that little bit longer. And it’s heartening to know that we can all make a difference even if all we do is simply talk about it.

A flying visit to Zebula

With a few more days left in Jo’burg before rejoining my truck family, Dad decided we could squeeze in one more flight – this time to Zebula Golf Estate & Spa, a five star holiday resort with a golf course, trout fishing, and game reserve. 

It was a beautiful day with clear skies so the flight was scenic, albeit a teensy bit turbulent.

Ian, another young pilot, came with us – and it was his first time to Zebula as well as mine.

As you’re effectively landing in a game reserve, you need to do a runway check for animals prior to landing. Luckily the runway was clear, save a few scattered droppings of antelope dung.

Zebula is not surprisingly named after the ‘Zebu’, which they say is a rare combination of zebra and buck that was discovered in the early 1900s – sightings are said to be rare and late at night after a full moon and after a ‘sufficient amount’ of alcohol has been consumed! They therefore encourage you to ‘Stick around and have a few more drinks and you might just experience this rare sighting on your own’.

Whilst you are unlikely to see a zebu here, you will see snakes, crocs and meerkats,

and have a choice of animal interactions. You could spend an hour with three adorable white lion cubs at 3pm,

an hour with two cheeky tiger cubs at 4pm (who said there weren’t any tigers in Africa?! ;) ),

or an untimed session with two cheetahs at any time of the day. We couldn’t stay late into the afternoon so after a tasty lunch by the golf course, we opted for the cheetah interaction – with Tarzan and Jane.

Jane was a little distracted by a nearby buck that had wandered onto the golf course and was munching away on some bright green grass, but Tarzan was much more interested by us and even started purring when we came over to pat him! He was evidently more at ease with me than I was with him – both of the cheetahs grew up in a house with a family (until they outgrew it) whereas my only pets were cats and a tortoise…

After Dad, Ian and I posed individually for pics, we got a shot together. Our guide told us to bunch up closer to Tarzan, which we did. Tarzan then took the opportunity to lick my Dad’s arm! He evidently took a liking to my Dad, though he had a quick lick of my arm too.

Reluctantly we had to leave (and without being able to sneak away with a tiger or lion cub in my bag!), so we were taken back to the airstrip in a game viewing vehicle. Dad and Ian did the pre-flight checks together and ensured there were no animals on the runway again before taking off.

Within seconds, however, I saw wildebeest, buck and giraffe nearby and cried out ‘giraffe’ in excitement (stupidly forgetting my Dad was more importantly focused on the take off…)

Interesting and unusual animal group names

One of the things that interested me when I was volunteering at Thanda Game Reserve in September last year, was the names of different animal groups. I found a few different sites (here, here and here) that list a whole host of group names, these ones being my favourites:

-a memory of elephants

-a dazzle of zebras

-an obstinacy of buffalo

-a destruction of wild cats

-a coalition of cheetahs

-a bask of crocodiles

-a flamboyance of flamingos

-a tower of giraffes

-an implausibility of gnus (wildebeest)

-a confusion of guinea fowl

-a bloat of hippopotami

-a cackle of hyenas

-a leap of leopards

-a committee of vultures

-a carload of monkeys

-a prickle of porcupines

-a crash of rhinoceroses

-a business of mongooses (but is the plural of mongoose, mongeese?)

Marloth Park & Kruger National Park (KNP)

For a holiday from a holiday (Jo’burg) from a holiday (overlanding), Dad and I went to Marloth Park – a game reserve adjacent to Kruger that doesn’t have any dangerous animals (cats, elephants, hippos, etc.) so it’s (relatively) safe to walk or ride around.

We rented a thatched house (with a lookout over the river)

that can sleep eight. The only other resident we had whilst we were there, however, was a warthog, who came every night to sleep on our porch!

Typically warthogs live in burrows – either their own or those of aardvarks or porcupines – but evidently this one likes a good, solid front porch. He left one hell of mess though.

Other visitors to our garden included more warthogs, a kudu, and impala. And when walking around the park, we saw zebras grazing about a metre away from us,

some warthogs fighting,

and hippos in the Croc River with buffalo and kudu on the shores (through the KNP fence). You can hear the hippos at night too – a sound which Keith manages to imitate very well ;) On our last night, we were lucky enough to have elephants munching on reeds right in front of our place.

We also spent a day in Kruger and saw amongst other things: a pack of hyaena scampering up a road,

a pride of lion lazing under a tree, lots of elephant,

two sightings of white rhino, a lake full of hippo,

a lone male baboon, cheeky vervet monkeys,

crocs basking in the sun, a large snail, a monitor lizard,

a leopard tortoise,

dung beetles rolling dung,

grasshoppers,

a green mamba (deadly) slithering across the road, warthog,

buffalo, wildebeest, klipspringer, waterbuck,

tonnes of impala,

and giraffe. Interestingly, the name giraffe is derived from the Arabic word ‘xirapha’ which means ‘one who walks swiftly’ – quite apt as I found out at full gallop they can reach speeds of up to 60 km per hour! So yet again, we didn’t see the elusive leopard, but saw the rest of the Big 5 and much more.

At the Kruger camps we visited, there were noticeboards listing sightings of all the Big 5 except for rhino due to the high incidence of poaching.

Lower Sabie camp also has a wall filled with poaching photos which are truly gruesome. It’s a massive problem here though they’re trying to fight it as best they can. At the camp shops, you can do your bit to help by buying scarves and other products by Rhino Force which helps fund anti-rhino poaching.

From when I lived here, I still remember a few of the birds and of the ones I know, we saw: red and yellow hornbills, ground hornbills, mouse birds,

ox peckers, guinea fowl, vultures, lilac breasted rollers,

African fish eagle and starlings.

But perhaps the most interesting bird was this one that was hitching a ride around the waterhole on various hippos’ backs!

So after my holiday from a holiday from a holiday, it was back to Jo’burg and then onto Cape Town where I will soon meet up with the truck family again! (Some of you may not know yet that I decided to extend my trip all the way up to Egypt…you only live once right?!)