South Africa Places 2 Go
Leopard savaging a crocodile caught on camera
This amazing phographic sequence was recently captured at Kruger National Park by American Wildlife Photographer Hal Brindley while he was concentrating on a unrelated subject. According to wildlife experts this is the first recorded or witnessed incident of its type. The incident astonished park rangers who had no explaination as to why the leopard would choose such a potentially hazardous meal.
Date: July 26th, 2008 |
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The Sardines Arrive
Another great contribution from South African industry pro and travel writer Sean Ross.
KNZ Sardine Fever
It’s a real gamble setting a festival date to celebrate the expected arrival of a natural phenomenon, in this case the greatest shoal of fish on earth, many months in advance of their arrival. And even more so when this incredible mass of millions of sardines failed even to arrive at all in 2007 and 2006. So it was with great relief to the KwaZulu-Natal tourism authorities when the first shoals were spotted off the South Coast a day ahead of the June 13 launch of this increasingly popular Sardine Festival.
Annual Phenomenan
This migratory phenomenon is set in motion when millions and millions of small fish, a pilchard-type species, embark on a northwards journey along the country’s coast from their home base in the cold waters of the south-eastern Cape to as far north as the province’s capital of Durban, before peeling off seawards and into deeper waters. Why they travel this route still unclear, except probably that new territory is created as the cold winter waters from the Arctic pushes upwards into the warmer Indian Ocean waters.
Date: June 17th, 2008 |
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Shootout at Sodwana Bay
Sodwana Shootout
You will be forgiven for thinking that the Shootout at Sodwana Bay is yet another cowboy style cash-in-transit heist gone wrong in this country with its voracious appetite for exotic crime. In fact it is nothing of the sort. The Shootout is an annual gathering of national and international SCUBA diver photographers and videographers at one of Southern Africa’s finest coral reef sites, Sodwana Bay in the Maputaland region. This beautiful, sweeping bay on the northern borders of the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Area, itself a World Heritage Site, is home to one of the most exquisite stretches of coastal waters north of the country’s shipping capital of Durban.
Date: June 3rd, 2008 |
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Vulture Restaurants: Dining with Vultures
An Empty Place At The Table
At one time the vulture was one of the most ubiquitous species of the African plains, the harbinger of death, the clean up man of the veld, but most visible these days, it seems, only when it is not there.
There is nothing that quite captures the morbid quintessence of survival on the African plains quite like the image of a congregation of vultures tearing to shreds the rotting carcase of a wildebeest. From this it is easy to imagine various vulture species surviving mankind long into the post-nuclear era, but in truth vultures are just another of the many species falling behind in the race to survive the adaptation of Africa, and the world, to the needs of mankind.
Vultures, of which there are nine species listed in the SASOL Birds of Southern Africa, are one of those peculiar indicators that scientists look at to establish the general health of an environment. If vultures are visible in numbers, then all is well on the ground, if not, then grounds for concern exist. In recent years vulture populations have been falling dramatically, and not only in Africa. Countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal and Cambodia are all currently documenting dangerous declines in their vulture populations.
Date: May 6th, 2008 |
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Drakensberg: Giant’s Castle Game Reserve
Giant’s Castle Game Reserve
Continuing on with the theme of gracious accommodation and civilized pursuits, I am returning to the Drakensberg, and this time to Giants Castle Game Reserve. As with the Royal Natal National Park, and Cathedral Peak, the dominant themes here are walking, climbing and horse riding, with the usual emphasis on bird-watching and gorgeous seasonal floral displays. Also, of course, there is the celebrated vista, which differs within the Giant’s Castle Game Reserve only inasmuch as it is characterised this time by a grassy plateau among deep river valleys pressed up against the sheer cliffs of the escarpment.
Again the walking trails allow for the participation of just about anyone from the very occasional stroller to the maniac death marcher. For the sake of the latter there is a magnificent contoured trail that runs from south to north, pressed tight up against the escarpment, and continuing up almost the entire length of the reserve. On a clear day, and sometimes even on a cloudy day, this trail offers sweeping views of the diminishing perspective of foothills that run, it seems at times, into the deepest blue infinity.
For the rest of us there are about 285kms of varied footpaths that traverse the reserve with the two main focus’ tending to be in the south and the north. Scattered around the reserve there are four mountain huts as well as a handful of caves that are suitable for overnight camping. The huts are equipped with bunks, a gas stove, cooking oddments and a flush toilet. Reservations for both caves and huts should be made with the Officer-in-Charge of the reserve.
How To Get There
There are two main routes into the reserve, north and south, the first being to the Injisuthi Camp to the north via the 331 from Loskop (a dorp with the lovely name, translating from the Afrikaans as Loose Head, or Space Cadet in contemporary parlance) which is reached via either Winterton or Ennersdale, both off the N3 near Estcourt. The second route in is through the Witteberg Gate via the 391 from Mooiriver/Nottingham Road, also off the N3. Here you will find the main KNZ Wildlife Office, and the Giant’s Castle Main Camp.
Date: April 9th, 2008 |
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Surfing hippo shot dead
By Sean Ross
Nonkululeko, KwaZulu-Natal’s surfing hippo, has been shot dead by authorities this week.
The wandering hippo, whose curious behavior of taking to the surf was reported on earlier on SouthAfricaLogue, was apparently posing an increased risk to human life. Her death follows suspicions that she was responsible for the fatal attack this weekend past on 60-year old man, although wildlife authorities seem to think the wounds are not consistent with a hippo attack. Forensic authorities said the autopsy report on the man would only be available for inspection towards the end of the year.
Wandering Hippo
Nonkululeko meanwhile had been wandering freely for months, apparently starting her journey from the St Lucia wetlands in Maputaland some 250 kilometers north of Durban. It was only towards the end of June when she started nearing the populated coastal resort towns which lie about 50 kilometers north of Durban that Nonkululeko started attracting public and media attention. From then on her future lay in the balance, even although authorities repeatedly warned the public to keep clear of the animal.
Date: July 22nd, 2008 |
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Lilliesleaf Farm: A Page in the Book of the Liberation Struggle
A small but important part of South African liberation mythology was committed to posterity this week when the Lilliesleaf Farm in the Rivonia suburb of Johannesburg was declared a museum and national monument to the Liberation Struggle. Although the bustling suburb of Rivonia has since grown up around this apparently innocuous house, in the early 1960s it was an isolated farm location, and proved perfect for a time for banned members of the ANC to hide-out from the ubiquitous and highly efficient police and security services. The house was home for a few months to Nelson Mandela himself as he laid low pretending to be a gardener and a cook. It was also a meeting place for most of the luminaries of the struggle, and many of the defining policies that ultimately saw the overthrow of apartheid some 30 years later were devised here.
Date: June 10th, 2008 |
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The Surfing Hippo of KwaZulu/Natal
A curious story of a surfing hippo has been doing the rounds in South Africa recently. First spotted in the KNZ coastal resort town of Ballito, situated about 40km north of Durban, the vagrant hippo has been steadily making its way south from the area of the St Lucia wetlands in Maputaland, where the species is very common. Reminiscent of the early 20th century odyssey of Huberta, this travelling hippo has generated enormous local sympathy and interest.
Huberta
Huberta was born in the St Lucia wetland system in 1927, and a year later was on the move, migrating south on an epic 1600km journey that would take her all the way to the Eastern Cape. She was initially thought to be male, and was named Hubert, which was later changed when it was discovered she was female. Her journey took her three years during which time she became something of a local and international celebrity. She successfully evaded many attempts at capture before eventually making her way as far south as East London. There, although having been declared en-route to be Royal Game, and thus protected by the Crown, she was shot and killed by hunters. Her body was then reverently shipped to a taxidermist in London, after which she was returned to South Africa where she can still be seen at the Amathole Museum in King William’s Town.
Date: June 2nd, 2008 |
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Swaziland
An African Oddity
Swaziland certainly is an oddity. It is a tiny landlocked country that is viable as an independent nation only in the loosest sense of the word. It is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies in the world. Statistically notable for both its extreme rates of poverty and having one of the single largest concentrations of aids sufferers globally, Swaziland is ruled by a fickle, anachronistic, self serving, preening and pampered multiple polygamist who goes by the name of King Mswati III. Bordered to the west by fiercely republican South Africa, and to the east by thoroughly revolutionary Mozambique, it is hard sometimes to determined exactly where Swaziland fits in.
Controversy
In the interests of getting the ugly bits over first, the myths surrounding King Mswati’s personal indulgence read somewhat like the habits of a feted dauphin of an oil saturated Middle East principality. Inasmuch as Swaziland is indeed an absolute monarchy, Mswati has cultivated an almost medieval approach to governance, characterised by his prevailing attitude of I am very much alright, and be damned to the rest of you.
Date: May 1st, 2008 |
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Apartheid Museum and Voortrekker Monument
The Commemorations and Memories of a Race Struggle
South Africa is one of the few countries in the world where the politics of revolution are a tourist attraction. Every backpackers lodge in Johannesburg offers a variant of the Soweto tour, and of course it is impossible to complete a visit to the Mother City without a trip across the bay to the penal settlement of Robben Island, where a peep into the prison cell of former president and iconic revolutionary Nelson Mandela is somewhat akin to a visit to Graceland. Moreover, one of the most compelling and popular sites on the urban map of South Africa is the Apartheid Museum of Johannesburg.
The Anti-Apartheid struggle of the 1980s was always more than the usual dry stuff of political revival, and had about it something of a global cultural movement. Symbolic shanty towns were built in the grounds of progressive universities the world over, and music concerts were held as old and young, academic or working class, punk rocker or hippie, were all in some way mobilized and involved in the last great push to end institutionalized bigotry and racism in Africa. The eighties generation is now the upper strata of the productive establishment, and has left it to a new generation to tour the halls of the Apartheid Museum in order to ponder and digest this vast anachronism that galvanized the world, and crumbled not a moment too soon.
Date: March 5th, 2008 |
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