Leisure Wheels Cover feature - Out Now!

My sister called me quite late last night, saying "Well done" etc etc. And I was like. Whoah-Kai. Slow down. She said she'd snatched up a copy of Leisure Wheels, and the cover feature is my article (well, Part 1).

So I doddled off to the nearest shop, nothing there, but found a copy at an Engen Quickshop. Well I must say leisure Wheels got a damn good deal. After sending them text and images, they asked for a 'package' so I quoted them R3500. They're certainly gotten value out of it - they've used like a dozen photographs (two full page spreads) and split the story down the middle to carry it over two issues. For me it's a measly R1750 per article, but hey, it's not a bad start in terms of exposure in these sort of magazines.

I would have preferred using this sort of thing for the cover:

The image below was used as a two page spread. Nice shot but blown up over two pages the bokkies distorted a bit. A 7 Megapix camera can only do so much.

Below is some of the gear we had on the trip.

How Close Are You To Nature? (PHOTOGRAPHY)

NVDL: This is pretty darn close ;-)

NVDL: And er...so is this ;-)

Kalahari Survivor

Playing this game ain't for the faint hearted.

“I smell rubber burning.” We’re just arriving in Kuruman when Candice, my sister, screws up her nose. Thin curtains of smoke curl up through the dashboard like a diluted Death Eater. The car jerks to a stop on the side of the road and while Candice contemplates running in the opposite direction, Casey Senior, my father, quickly lifts the hot hood; hand sized flames dance over the Turbo’s incinerated carbon fibre cover. There’s a short puff of white smoke from a fire extinguisher, and then languishing fumes and black smoke. For the amount of smoke and flames, we’re surprised that there is no collateral damage to the Landrover’s engine. But then the Landrover is the best, the toughest 4x4xfar.

We spend the next morning visiting at least four different mechanics and metalworkers in Kuruman, and none are able to provide us with a remedy. We decide to push on to Mabuasehube nonetheless.

The trick is to drive at a speed low enough not to activate the turbo. This means keeping the revs down. But we’re well aware that somewhere beyond Hotazel, the going gets a lot tougher as tar roads give way to swathes of sand. And it is as we drive by the Hotazel turnoff, that the clutch begins to slip. Everyone knows Botswana is not for the faint hearted. It’s a dry country with few home comforts. It belongs essentially to the wild animals, and even they know, weakness, or sickness, isn’t tolerated for long. So if you suffer from ASS (Anakin Skywalker Syndrome) – “I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough irritating and it gets everywhere.” – if that’s you then Botswana is most definitely not for you.

So with a clutch that slips at high revs, and a turbo threatening to start a fire under the hood at any moment, we push on past the Manganese mine settlement that is Hotazel, and into the gathering storm clouds at the apex of the white smear of our road. The cement colored roads sometimes bleed red; they take us through ancient river beds and across the border at McCarthy’s Rest. We get out of the vehicle and we see it is covered in a mustard colored dust. It is a mixture of powdery red and white sand. The heat is stifling. I am aware that not far from here we were still driving through pleasantly wet and cool rain. Here it feels like another country.

The sky is almost completely blue, and the sun mercilessly hot. Cicadas chisel in the background as we hand over our passports. Then there is a 21km stretch of road to Tsabong – the last human settlement before Mabuasehube. It is here that my father looks up and old acquaintance, a fellow called Rusty, who is an expert on Landrovers. He’s famous for this quip: “Landrovers are for old men.” He says this because Landrovers have very soft suspensions, it’s a comfortable vehicle, good value, and iconic. But make no mistake; the technology is dated and after being in service for some years – as one would expect – Landy’s start to become like old men. They develop all sorts of niggly problems, though nothing major. Rusty looks at the engine. Within seconds he diagnoses the problem: the clutch is set too high, and minutes later his assistants have made the necessary adjustments. The clutch does not slip again during the course of the trip.

Rusty also confirms that the Landrover will be fine in the more extreme conditions at Mabuasahube. Turbo or not, he reassures us that we are not mad to continue into the wild. The road from Tsabong is exhausting. There is 60km of fairly decent dirt road to start off with, and then 50km long ribbons of sandy triplicated highway. Tyre pressures may need to be lowered where the sand is very mushy. A skillful driver in early morning or more or less damp conditions might do the drive in an hour and a half as we did. But it’s easy to imagine spending a large portion grinding away at loose sand. The late afternoon is the worst time to drive long distances on sand as it’s then that it gets hot and loose. The 110km to Mabuasahube gate requires high levels of concentration, particularly where the tracks of trucks are wider than the Landy’s tracks, forcing the wheels out of the deep ruts on one side, then the other side. Going from a side rut to the higher middle ruts feels a lot like a water-skiing and trying to mount a speedboats’ arching froth trail. You feel like the vehicle angles and swerves as the sands change from somewhat compact to very soft cushions. It will take the amateur some time to master this maneuver. Unfortunately, the best way to do it is quickly and confidently, which means mistakes can happen. A roll on the soft sand ought to shake up everyone inside, but probably won’t damage your vehicle as much as one might expect.

The conditions here going through these long grueling sandy ruts are a tough ask even for the best 4x4’s. We see two burnt out 4x4wrecks not that far apart that have been dragged off the road. Small fragments of melted engine lie like small black stones in the sand. One has white paint on it: ‘Berties Landy’. In Botswana people have driven over crusty pan surfaces and then watched their vehicles drown within minutes in black mud underneath. In one case a man attached a cable to a boulder to winch himself out of thick mud, and the boulder dislodged and landed on his vehicle. Yes, this can be an unforgiving country; it requires the same alertness and concentration, the same consciousness the animals have of what is happening around them. People must also maintain a high standard of attentiveness rather than complacency in order to stay out of trouble.

The air is unusually wet and filled with dancing butterflies. This proves to be a hugely mitigating factor. Rain has turned the winding heaps of mushy, powdery sand into a half decent substrate. We’re able to fly along at a brisk 70km/h without straining the engine unduly. What’s incredible is that the ruts are so deep, my father is able to take his hands off the steering wheel for hundreds of metres while chatting to us (with a wry smirk), while our vehicle navigates itself through curves and what not.
Driving here feels less like driving and more like the indistinctive, softer steering of a boat softly undulating through choppy sea. It’s actually a lot of fun. It’s the perfect playground for a Landy.

The sun has gone down when we reach the impressive gate complex at Mabuasahube. The gates are closed but not locked. I get out and open them, and we drive in. Although we booked in advance, one is expected to sign in. But no one is about. We decide to sign in when we’re on our way out again. In Botswana, they are far more lenient to this sort of behavior than on the South African side of the Transfrontier Park. I open a boom gate and another gate, and then we are in the park. We soon find Gemsbok and Springbok drifting across the moony landscape of a pan at dusk. We reach Lesholoago Pan (17km from the gate) sometime after 7pm. The facilities have been specially designed by an expert from England to integrate the visitor as much as possible into the environment. Whilst the campsites are basic, they are nevertheless put together very nicely. We find we prefer the open air latrines and showers to the stifling enclosed latrines.

The name of the pan, it turns out, means “Death” (Mabuasahube means ‘Red Sand”), and my father says we must make sure there aren’t lions in these open ‘6’ shaped structures. He tells us to have a look at the bite marks on the toilet seat. “A lion did that,” he explains, bringing the reality of camping in Botswana back into focus. It is while we are eating delicious wors off the braai and chewing the meat off our chops, that my father casually informs us that this site is also the venue for his most frightening encounter with lions during his 20 years traveling through Botswana.

What happened was a group of half a dozen or so young male lions approached their camp sometime after midnight, and begun to run amuck. My father who was sleeping on the roof of the vehicle, felt the vehicle rock violently as one lion chewed (and tore off) the mudguard, while another presumably was standing on his hind legs, wondering whether supper was within reach. A far worse fate was in store for my father’s friend, Tico, who had been sleeping in a tent on the ground. With a uselessly thin layer of material separating him from the lions, his heart started beating in overdrive. He could hear roaring, a chaotic ripping (a mattress was torn in two) and the clattering of dishes. At once stage a lion lay right beside him, against the tent. Frozen, armed with a bottle of wine, he was too terrified to move. This went on for three hours. He said the next morning that his heart hurt because it had beaten so fast for so long.

When you travel to Botswana, these stories get told again and again, and you don’t get tired of hearing them. While someone is talking you will look into the darkness, shine your torch, and see if you find a few pairs of yellow eyes staring back at you. “Lions,” my father says, “have eyes that dip only slightly as they advance towards you. Jackals and hyenas bob up and down.” There’s almost a military aspect to all this information, in the sense of knowing how to survive the approach of a potential opponent. In Botswana we are definitely not the masters of the universe. The lions are.

Our second campsite is at Mabuasahube Pan, a beautiful site that has been earmarked for the development of a lodge. It is rumored to have diamond deposits as the pan is situated on a Kimberlite pipe; hence it’s unusual pinkish color. We decide not to camp in the area designated to us, as there are people right next door, so we drive up the dune to the next camp site. Here we meet a host of charming creatures, from a large group of ground squirrels, to the ‘flying bananas’ as we call them – a pair of hornbills busily looking after three young chicks in a nearby nest.

Our first night at Mabuasahube Pan is awesome: the sky turns to fire, and all three of us run around like maniacs with our cameras. The following night there is a sudden swarm of termites just after dusk: with all sorts of critters – geckoes, a scorpion, squirrels and a mouse – guzzling the writhing seed shaped bodies. This is when Candice came up with the brilliant idea to cook some and eat them. They taste buttery, and their legs crunch in your mouth. After that, all hell breaks loose. One of the fiercest, most deafening storms I’ve ever experienced starts crashing around us. And it doesn’t let it up; it goes on and on. We start off standing under the A frames but we’re soon soaked: gusts blow the rain horizontally through it, and another burst of light and deafening sizzle sends us sprinting into the Landrover. We sit there eating biltong and taking in the storm. It reminds me of being at a drive-in, watching a horror movie.

We don’t sleep too well that night, as the wind blasts the tent until the wee hours of the morning.

Our final camp site is Mpaathutlwa Pan (which means, Giraffe’s Stomach) 12 km from the gate. It’s January 19th, my 36th birthday. By this time I have filled up 4 memory sticks with photos, including pictures of the three hornbill chicks we saw in the nest. There is so much you cannot photograph though, you just have to enjoy it.

The Kalahari Robin runs beak open over hot sand and when it flies; its wings beat so vigorously it sounds like someone shaking a wet cloth next to your ear. We see storks riding an invisible tornado. With outstretched wings they swing vertically as the moving pipe of air rotored them higher and higher. They remind me of fish in a tropical sea. Once they attain the height they want, they peel off and then fly in straight lines to where they want to go. We see large birds of prey like the Bateleur and Tawny Eagles, and hear the soft hoo of a white faced owl at night. We also see birds fly into the air (making the noise of a Gatling gun) and then boomerang back and land like a parachute, legs hanging, not far from where they take off. Other pheasants fly vertically as we approach, do a crazy somersault and land straight back down. We see Steenbokkies almost on clockwork at 1km intervals. We are transfixed by the most elegant of antelope, a herd of Kudu, and during a visit to Khiding Pan we see a community of perhaps a dozen Bat Eared foxes. The plant life is also amazing. Did you know that there is an underground tree (with only leaves exposed) in the Kalahari? Where it grows, nothing else grows. The driedoring (Rhygosum tricotonym) is also interesting in that each branch divides into a perfectly proportioned triangle of three.

So why do we need to go into the wild? Is it curiosity? The desire to be dirty? Don’t laugh – camping in the Kalahari can be uncomfortable. With sand everywhere, you can go to bed feeling decidedly greasy and grimy. My advice: do what the Asians do. Get a wet cloth and wipe hands, arms and face. Or if it’s warm enough, take a shower. On hot days shower with clothes on. In terms of footwear, I’d recommend open shoes, because I don’t like the feel of trapped sand rubbing between shoe and skin. My sister and I wore flip flops, but beyond the confines of the camp, sturdier footwear is necessary to protect against needle sharp thorns. The good news is, in Mabua at least, you won’t suffer from pesky mosquitoes. There’s just not enough water for them. Your shower water comes from a distant borehole (about 300 metres deep) piped to the various campsites.

In the Kalahari you are tested and measured. We believe it is valuable that people interact with animals; probably it does more good for the people than the animals. People ask, What is there to do out there? Well it’s like one big beach isn’t it. Take along bats and a ball. Young children are vulnerable, liable to get bored and so are best left at home. You will find yourself as you get closer and closer to the Kalahari. It seems to me it is all about Discovery. This place is a writer and photographer’s dream, a place of diesel and dust, and sun, sweat, and soil in a vast wilderness.

It is such a compelling experience that you may well suffer withdrawal when you are back in civilization. Unused to road signs, fences, barriers or controls, I missed the first few Stop signs when we were back in Kuruman. Back in Johannesburg I went to gym and while swimming in a swimming pool – a rectangle of water suspended in a building in the city – I realized with some sadness that this is about as far from the Kalahari as one can get. I yearn to return. You will too.

2624 Words

The Call of the Kalahari

The land with the fewest human beings is filled with life

Shakespeare, in Richard II:
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demiparadise
This fortress built by nature for herself

It is no accident that one of the last refuges for wild animals on our planet happens to be the least inhabited by human beings. Botswana is one of the world’s most sparsely populated countries. It is half the size of countries like South Africa and South Korea, but less than 2 million people live in this Thirstland.

Botswana is situated in the centre of the African plateau, in line with the Tropic of Capricorn. It is landlocked; in the South by a 1800km border with South Africa, to the west by the equally arid and sparsely populated Namibia, and flanked on the East by troubled Zimbabwe. Botswana is Africa’s most successful democracy. It was once a Protectorate, known as Bechuanaland, under Britain for some years, as there were fears that South Africa’s Boers would take over the land. It was also the last domain of the world’s most endangered people, the hunter gathering Kalahari Bushmen.

Today, thanks to its diamond wealth – Botswana is home to the world’s largest and second largest diamond mines (Jwaneng and Orapa) – it has a currency stronger than South Africa’s. Beyond mining activities, there is not enough water for cattle or farming of virtually any sort. Hence the locals have left massive tracts of Thirstland unattended, unfenced, running wild.

The country is covered by a mantle of sand, the largest continuous mantle in the world. This is the heartland of the Kalahari.
The animals have adapted to the extreme conditions, and with sensory perception beyond our human faculties, are able to migrate to where it rains. These instincts, and man’s absence, have allowed wild animals to thrive in unusual abundance. Botswana, for example, has one of the world’s largest elephant herds. Interestingly, the Africa’s desert elephants are larger than their forest dwelling cousins, and are physically the largest terrestrial animals in the world.

Geologically the landscape is unusual, some would say it is an incredibly flat, featureless wasteland. But in the northeast is the massive desert oasis of the Okavango Delta, caused by a geological shift that has spun a river headed out to sea back into the desert. The result is crystal clear water and palm trees for thousands of square kilometers in what would otherwise be hot, dusty bushveld.
In the northeast are the world’s largest salt pans, the Makgadikgadi, visible from space. The Kalahari area was once submerged under large seas and lakes, hence the sandy beach residues and pans and the flatness that typifies the region.

What is unique about visiting the Kalahari is that the visitor is presented with a genuine wilderness experience. In order to reach the Transfrontier game parks in the south east – like the Mabuasahube (the name means ‘red sand’) – a grueling drive has to be undertaken on sandy roads. It is a 4x4 haven, but vehicles need to be rigged with extra fuel tanks, and ought to be stocked with plenty of food and water. Satellite phone is the only device to connect to the outside world. A breakdown in Botswana can be dangerous if one does not have a backup.

But the lack of human infrastructure, in fact an almost absolute absence in many parts, allows for a much closer connection to the animals. It is unique that in Botswana, wild animals such as lions, elephants and many other creatures, may visit humans at their campsites. Remember there are no fences. It is easy to become complacent, and to imagine, having been brought here by a powerful technology, that here man is also master of the universe. This deception is quickly corrected when one comes face to face with a lion. The look in the lion’s eye is a look of power. Although man is not the natural prey for lions, caution is advisable. If lions are seen during the day or night one should simply walk calmly to one’s vehicle and get inside.

It is a thrilling experience living on such terms with nature, looking over one’s shoulder, cautiously operating in the wilderness. It is a way of living that was once natural for us; it made us alert and mindful of our surroundings in every detail. The recent movie Into The Wild demonstrates to what extent joy and self discovery are part and parcel of the wilderness experience. This personal discovery of the natural world is what makes the Kalahari compelling.

Into The Wild Kalahari

My father has travelled to Botswana, the country that has by the far the longest boundary with ours, several times a year for the last twenty years. Each time he comes back with stories about lions and wild animals. This year, my sister and I went with him to see whether the Kalahari Wilderness is such a big deal.

Our road to Botswana is neither easy nor trouble free. The Landrover has a defective clutch. By Saturday, the Landrover has still not received any attention (after sitting in the shop since Tuesday). Saturday is the day we are scheduled to leave, and the first day of my annual leave. Work finally starts up at the dealership on Saturday morning. An attempt to drive to Kuruman on Saturday evening has to be aborted 36km outside Bloemfontein. Bookings have to be cancelled and rescheduled. By Monday morale is plumbing the depths and my annual leave is fast trickling down the holiday drain.

At last the Landrover is declared ‘repaired’, (it’s midday Monday, and R9000 in mechanic’s fees later). We head off down the long road that takes us into the sunset.

The road will take us west to Kuruman, through the border at McCarthy’s rest, up to Tsabong, and then into the pans of Mabuasehube. But just outside Kuruman, a final omen: after being on the road for over 400km, a fire in the engine burns what seems like our last hopes of getting into the wild. A blast from a compact red extinguisher we have on board quickly extinguishes it. What now? Anyone else, going anywhere else would have given up and gone home long ago. Not us.

It turns out that the fibre glass above the turbo caught alight. After a little tentative analysis we decide that we may be able to continue at 90km/h or less (without activating the turbo). True enough. But it is on the road sukkeling with the vehicle that I realize to what extent the buy in is on this trip. It’s HUGE. Even I am dismissive of OUR VEHICLE CATCHING FIRE, saying: ‘90km/h turns out to be just above the conventional maximum speed one would be travelling on dirt roads anyway.’

There is something mythical about travelling in a fully rigged Landrover over an increasingly desolate landscape; there’s something about it that whips up the Wanderlust. And even with its defects, it is still a smooth sail; it is still an incredible vehicle. My father says: ‘80% of all Landrovers are still on the road. The other 20% have reached their destinations.’

The Landrover is the classic outdoor vehicle. Ours is not unusual: it has a wooden platform for daytime game viewing, photography or sleeping safely out in the open. The raised platform on the roof also has a convenient flap down tent and is otherwise an entirely self-reliant unit for several days; it has a large 80 liter diesel fuel tank with a specially designed 60 liter spare tank, a space engineered refrigerator (using very low voltage), a tap under the spare wheel connected to a large drum of water, and plenty of resources designed into its sturdy infrastructure.

At Hotazel the clutch plate begins to slip again. R9000 has already been spent in Bloemfontein to repair this problem. Under the Hotazel sign, about 100km from Kuruman, my father says: “We have to make a decision now. We can turn back, or go on and possibly breakdown in the middle of nowhere.” Interestingly, no one offers a response.

The tar road gives up. Soon after cellphone signals are permanently gone. We just keep going through splashes of rain.
Road signs become scarce, we pass virtually no traffic. The surface becomes less gravelly and widens, and the landscape transforms into an almost featureless series of low bush covered dunes.

We notice Botswana’s border facilities are better than ours, and also, there is a tar road on the Botswana side.

Dogmatism seems to pay off in the Kalahari. At the small dustbowl settlement of Tshabong, 30km from the border, we find a mechanic. Rusty diagnoses the problem within seconds (the clutch being set too high), has an assistant make a few adjustments, and charges us nothing. A test drive confirms that the problem has been repaired (and for the rest of the trip, the clutch did not slip again, not a single time). Not long after that inbound electricity from South Africa was restored to Tshabong, and the garage was able to turn on the pumps and fill up our diesel tanks.

Tshabong is the last human settlement. We are now heading towards a system of pans at Mabuasehube (which means ‘red earth’). The ruts in the road grow so deep we are able to drive, even follow curves in the road, without touching the steering wheel. En route we pass two entirely burnt out 4x4’s. They catch alight, my father explains, because the exhaust gets extremely hot and long blades of grass break off and begin to wedge in the undercarriage. The sand in many places here is red, and I wonder, recalling the movie Blood Diamond – and since the land is so entirely devoid of human beings – how much Bushmen blood was spilled here.

The animals, herds of them, including some of Africa’s largest elephant populations, survive here because animals understand the trickery of erratic rainfall in the Kalahari Thirstland. They smell and migrate across the fenceless landscapes towards the rain. The only humans who learnt this superhuman skill disappeared when the giant diamond mining companies moved in, and animals have had the run of the place – most of it – ever since.

Botswana, along with Australia and Namibia, are in the top three most sparsely populated countries in the world. Less than two million people in a country half the size of South Africa, means vasts areas are entirely without humans, and human contrivances like roads, fences, telephones or power lines. . Man, who pretends to be the master of the universe, is almost entirely absent throughout Botswana. As such, the sterile conditions that man procures are also absent. Instead, landscapes are revealed that are comparatively untouched by the hand of man. Life flourishes, even in these extreme and sandy circumstances. Our first night is a chorus of barking gecko's and the demonic screetch of a barn owl whose shelter we have annexed for the night.

The setting for our first night is Lesholoago Pan – a name meaning ‘Death’. We’re greeted when we arrive by a chorus of barking geckoes and the demonic screech of a barn owl whose shelter we have annexed for the night. We’re told to keep our eyes peeled for lions, and if we see them, we’re all expected to walk calmly to the Landrover, get in, and sit tight. The joke is that whoever is dumb enough to walk ought to be guzzled by a lion.

‘Death Pan’ ironically is the site of my father and his sidekick’s worst ever encounter with a young group of lions, who terrorized them for hours, during the course of which my father’s friend made several promises which he continues to honor to this day (including going to church every consecutive Sunday and religiously paying his taxes). Gautengers, used to crime and rolling blackouts, ought to be particularly comfortable sitting in the dark and looking over their shoulders all night in Botswana.

The pans have a subtle, hypnotic beauty. They formed during the latter part of the Quaternary Age, as a result of massive climate change. They may well be waiting for us in the distant future (if we live to survive that long).

At Mabuasahube Pan, the only pinkish Pan in Botswana (and rumored to be the top of a kimberlite pipe) we make friends with an entire community of ground squirrels, a jackal (we call him Jacque Kallis , who also visits us in the day), and a very dedicated hornbill, who ferries the occasional nut to squawking chicks holed up in a nearby dead tree trunk. My father calls it the ‘Kalahari chicken’; and the hornbill is an oddity. For such a cheeky looking bird it makes an incredibly soft and modest clucking noise.

The game we encounter in the sub elliptical depressions of the pans appear to be in excellent nick. Gemsbok, with the markings of tropical khaki fish, gleam in the sun. They are uniquely endowed with a collection of capillaries in their snouts, enabling their brains to endure slightly cooler conditions and giving them the resilience to withstand hellish external conditions. We find a small herd of Springbuck with plenty of little bokkies, and then a male sprints off effortlessly, bok springing as he goes, and is soon a distant speck. I am awed by this simple display of raw and effortless speed energy.

On the eve of an incredibly fierce storm, with lightning so continuous it seems as if we are sitting under an very erratic fluorescent light, we encounter the deadliest scorpion in Southern Africa. It is capable, we find out later, of spitting its venom into its victims eyes. Centipedes here are a foot long.

Our last night is spent at Mpaathutlwa Pan, which means ‘Giraffe’s stomach’. The pan is silver from plenty of rain. We see Blesbok, and a murder of crows. Many moths – who seem immune to our torchlights – converge on open cans of lemonade and Hunter’s Dry. We eat a delicious stew enjoying the firelight and the shadowy presence of another jackal.

We encounter many creatures besides, communal spiders, acrobatic birds, termite eating mice, the world’s largest flying bird but no lions. In the wilderness of Botswana, campers naturally run the risk of close encounters with the big five. We do not see any lions, but hear from rangers that they are around. We are half relieved, half disappointed about the lions and deeply imbued with the freedom and tranquility of a desert filled with so much nature.

Botswana is the place to listen to your loneliness. A great space to probe one’s inner space. It is the perfect venue for those seeking a true ‘wilderness experience’. As I write this, Rusty is sitting somewhere in Tsabong drinking from a bottle of whiskey we gave him on our way out, while a firing squad is en route to a certain Landrover dealership in Bloemfontein.