South Africa 2001

Archive for January 12th, 2001

Day 9

It was butchery day today, but with the usual supples of meat shut down by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (not related to the foot-and-mouth outbreak in the UK which would begin in February), we had to use local catches of warthogs instead.

The afternoon and evening was taken up by one of the most memorable game drives I have had here.

After meeting John the driver (he only joined the reserve recently), and an English tourist family here to tour the reserve, we set off. The start was a success, with plenty of rhino, giraffe, hippos etc, and even some evidence of buffalo (dung), although sadly no buffalo. I still have not seen any, I get the impression buffalo will be my equivalent of the elusive snow-leopard!

It was at that this point that John realised he was “a bit lost”. It took us over an hour with Quentin on the radio guiding John to the Rhino Inn, our destination, using various stars and constellations as reference points. No sat. nav. required!

We had a banquet at the Rhino Inn, with probably the biggest log fire I have ever seen, fantastic food, and great company. It was great to talk to some fellow Englishmen all the way out here in the bush, I felt like I was at home that evening.

To round off the adventure we got a puncture on the way back to the cheetah centre. 20 minutes struggling with a decidedly dodgy jack, which I’m sure was never designed for the same vehicle, we were off again on the spare tyre. It took only a quarter of an hour before we noticed the hiss-hiss sound of, yes, another puncture. We had used the spare, so decided to carry on for home and hope it lasted the journey, which mercifully it did!

I said goodnight to a now thoroughly distraught John.

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