Doug's bush blather #1: Pafuri-Makuleke
This is the first of our occasional contributions from our antipodean friend Doug, in which he explores the northern Pafuri-Makuleke and applies his warped anthropocentric view of the animal world to his fellow trailists. Ask him questions at the bottom.
MAKULEKE, north Kruger. The very far north of Kruger in fact. Few tourists venture this far north, and at first glance it's not difficult to understand why. The tar road is long and hot, and the view is invariably thorn bushes and rocks. Animals of any sort are conspicuous by their absence, even though elephant poop on the road proves that they do exist.
One of the few interesting places for the ordinary tourist is the bridge over the Luvuvhu river that marks the southern entry point to Makuleke: this is about the one place you will have a good chance of seeing anything of interest. Bird life abounds, nyala and baboons are common, and elephants and buffalo are often seen too.
However once you head north and venture away from the river, the bush thins out and changes to scrubby thorn trees, the animal life dwindles speedily and even birds are scarce.
The tar road wends its way north/west to the Pafuri gate; after several hours of driving during which the flora has got drier and sparser and the fauna has vanished altogether, you hit the gate, which is a quite tidy collection of small buildings on the Park’s western border. You won’t see anyone much outside here: they wisely stay indoors where it is cooler. If you do see anyone outside it's likely to be limited to a local resident wearing a woolly jersey and thick knitted hat.
This is arguably the hottest part of Kruger. The walk from your air conditioned rental car to the reception hut will reduce you to a sweat-covered, light-headed wreck in a matter of moments.
This experience will leave most visitors with the impression that there is nothing worth seeing in north Kruger, and the chances of them returning or recommending the region are slim.
But there is plenty to see here, it's just that driving through the area on the tar road is not the way to see it.
The best option is to stay at one of the lodges in Makuleke, and go out on either a game drive or a walk with a ranger.
All of the three lodges or camps in Makuleke do both game drives and walks. One of them, the Ecotraining Camp, actually trains people to be tourism guides and rangers. Many of the rangers and guides at the two lodges in Makuleke were trained by Ecotraining.
I eagerly accepted an invitation to join a game drive with a trained guide. Tourism guiding is a dream job for many in Africa, but it's also a tough job. Most guides burn out after a few years, and usually it's the encounters with humans that burn them out.
Our guide for the drive had been at it for longer then most: in his forties he later informed us he had been in the bush for over twenty years. His hat certainly looked like it had been in the bush for twenty years, being a bedraggled shapeless object that flopped down around his ears. He dunked it every available source of water (WCs possibly excepted) before jamming it on his head to let the magic of evaporation do its thing and cool his bush-befuddled brain.
Game drive vehicles in South Africa have no windows and often no roof either. This Guide's also has no doors. There is nothing to stop lions, leopards or other animals from joining you on the seats should they so desire. Every game ranger carries a rifle to discourage this sort of behaviour on the part of the local fauna, but since the rifle is usually zipped up in a bag mounted on the dash you wonder how effective it would really prove to be.
A lot more reassuring are the claims by guides to the effect that dangerous game almost never bothers with vehicles.
Once we were comfortably seated on the vehicle the ranger introduced himself and asked “Is anyone here studying entomology, biology, botany, geology or anthropology?” It seemed we had no ‘ology’ students on board so he nodded and said “Good. We can go and look for some elephants then”, which sounded encouraging.
Next to me on the seat was Dave, a pom (resident of the UK) but I made allowances for that. He was one of those tall gangly guys that whoever dreamed up the BMI charts had used as the model. A good natured bloke with a wide grin and a habit of scratching the top of his head with his middle digit whenever he was thinking intelligent thoughts. Not that I ever saw him scratching his head.
Next to him on the same seat was Heather, a young somewhat well endowed lass from Scotland. Unlike myself and Dave it was her first time in Africa, her idea of garb for the bush was a brief (very brief) pair of shorts, a T shirt and a pair of sneakers with super thin rubber soles that were to prove a handicap later in the day.
As the Land Rover rumbled out of the camp we disturbed a herd of Impala grazing nearby. Big deal, many people familiar with Kruger might think, but even Impala are not all that often seen in Makuleke, or not from the tar road anyway.
But to heck with the impala. Dave corrected Heather’s identification of them as springbok as we headed down the trail. Despite apparently being somewhat scornful of entomology our guide Gary paused to point out a maloidae beetle, and went on to explain it was known as a blister beetle because of the painful blisters it could inflict on people.
The fact that the beetle was on my arm was a bit disconcerting so with a deft flick I missed the beetle completely but managed to dislodge the mike cover on Dave’s camcorder, which flew with precise accuracy into Heather’s cleavage. Heather, under the impression that the blister beetle had landed there promptly freaked out, but Dave saved the day by retrieving his little foam mike cover and stomping it to death. Meanwhile the blister beetle had taken off, and Gary resumed driving.
Heather thanked Dave profusely while I rightly figured that the person who saved her from the blister beetle would undoubtedly be more popular than the person who had deposited it there in the first place.
The Land Rover had three rows of seats. The row behind us had one lone female, a bespectacled school teacher type who carried a pair of binos almost as big as her, and a camera bag with a lens that looked like a rocket launcher.
In the last row were seated a German couple, the wife was a tall dark haired girl in her twenties while her hubby was shorter and blond. They chattered away in German to each other, their English was not the best and any conversation with them usually resulted in me inadvertently parroting their method of speaking. For example they would say “The opener of the bottle you must get for the bottle we must open need” and I would reply “Then in the drawer you must look because your f**king servant I am not”. Needless to say they seldom bothered to speak to me but no doubt spoke about me in German.
The husband, Dork (or at least that is what I understood his name to be), had an amazing eye for spotting game, sometimes where there wasn’t any game. At least a dozen times on a drive he would yell “Shtop shtop, bird/cat/dog/goat” or whatever else he might have seen, accompanying this exclamation with vigorous pointing and jumping up and down in his seat.
Many times he did in fact see something, but his enthusiasm for spotting game was undiminished even if it was the same sort of animal we had already seen a dozen times. After about ten “Shtop shtop, impala” cries Gary unzipped his rifle bag and started seeking out bumps in the trail.
Our game drive took us into a forest of tall yellow barked trees: this amazing sight is known as the fever tree forest. Gary identified them as acacia xanthophloeas and explained that they were called fever trees because eons ago it was assumed the yellowish dust produced by their bark caused sickness.
For me, a more interesting sight was the zebra which looked a bit out of place grazing amongst the trees. Quite a number of trees had been pushed over by elephant, some of them quite big trees too, demonstrating the strength of these great grey giants.
Unfortunately they had also pushed some of them across the trail, but it was a good excuse to get out for a walk anyway. Grabbing cameras, water bottles, and in Heather’s case a huge sunhat that would be able to shelter us all if it rained, we alighted from the Rover and headed off on foot, behind our erstwhile guide. (I have no idea what erstwhile means but it seems like a handy word to insert here).
Heading out of the fever tree forest we entered some far thicker bush, but fortunately there was a well defined trail pushed through the bush for us to take. In parts the taller amongst us had to bend over as the overhanging branches formed a tunnel. I asked Gary what had made this trail, as it was far too small for a vehicle.
“Buffalo” he replied, leaving me to dwell on the thought of what would happen if we met buffalo coming the other way. Dave’s two meter plus height meant that he found the going especially tough, and Heather was having trouble with thorns piercing her thin shoes so altruistically considering their plight, I asked Gary if there was another trail, with thoughts of going head to head with a buffalo playing no part at all in my tactics to divert us from their path.
Gary obligingly pushed through some thicker bush and we found ourselves on the bank of a river: a dry river so it must have been the Limpopo. We could see Zimbabwe across the river bed, and Gary pointed out Mozambique over to the east.
The bank was somewhat steep where we had emerged, but we managed to make out way down without too much difficulty. Unless you can call myself losing my footing and falling face down in the sand to be trodden on by both Heather and the bespectacled school teacher as they stumbled over me a difficulty.
Dave quickly came to the rescue and helped Heather up: more brownie points for him no doubt. I tried to redeem myself by helping the school teacher up but she gave me a glare that would have wiped a blackboard clean and managed by herself.
The soft sand was a tad harder going than the buffalo trail, but to my way of thinking a lot safer. Especially after Gary later mentioned that lions and leopards also used the buffalo trails.
It was a short walk through the soft sand to an infamous part of the Kruger Park, Crooks' Corner.
Crooks' Corner
This is the point where, during the late 1800s/early 1900s, a den of thieves and robbers made their home. Their reasoning was that should the Authorities from South Africa, Mozambique or what used to be Rhodesia turn up to arrest them all they had to do was cross the border to the neighbouring country to be out of reach. The plaque there reckons that all they had to do was stand atop the beacon marking the border to be in jurisdictional no-mans land.
The Corner is also where the Luvuvhu River meets with the Limpopo. The Luvuvhu flows all year round, and forms quite a large pool where the two join. On the bank of the pool were a number of crocodile, several quite large. Most of them quickly slithered into the water when they saw us, but a number of smaller ones stayed put basking in the sun.
Beyond the crocs were hippo, half a dozen huge black beasts rising out of the water periodically, watching us carefully. Hippos have the reputation of being the most dangerous animal in Africa, and crocs are pretty high on the list too. But so long as they stayed in the water and we stayed on the land we ought to be safe enough.
Some way beyond the hippos we could see several elephant of various sizes frolicking in the water. It was obviously a small breeding herd as there were a couple of very young calves with them.
Looking at the crocs and hippos in the foreground and the elephants splashing and squirting water it reminded me of a Disneyland Jungle ride, but with real animals.
It was an exhilarating sight, and one well worth preserving on film. The Germans however were seemingly unimpressed and suggested we move on. Dave and I shared a few whispered suggestions of our own but we kept them to ourselves and watched as Gary worked the action on his rifle in case he intended to shoot them, but instead he led the way up the bank and back into the bush.
This time skirting the fever forest we ventured into a stand of thicker bush before making our way up and along a low ridge line. We were only just in time as a large heard of elephant appeared making their way towards the river, using the trail we had just used ourselves. Despite the fact they were only walking they were covering the ground quite quickly, so it was a good thing we hadn’t been still on the trail when they came down it.
As it was, we got a grandstand view of a couple of dozen elephants parading past us. They were oblivious of our presence; Gary had already determined the wind was in our favour.
Seeing these magnificent animals in the flesh only a hundred meters or so away, and knowing they were as wild as elephants can be in Africa was an awe inspiring sight. We continued to watch for some minutes after the last of them had vanished from sight, marvelling at the way they could move so fast and yet so quietly through the bush.
Gary led us along the ridge and down to a shaded spot over looking a waterhole- a mud hole really. The water had dried up into a few small pools, and many different types of animals had churned up the mud. Gary pointed out holes where elephants and baboon had dug down to get to clean water. We shed our walking packs and sat down to enjoy the peace and quiet. Although the mid morning sun beat down it was welcomingly cool and tranquil sitting amongst the trees overlooking the water hole. None of us spoke, we just lay back and relaxed.
It was as we were sitting there thinking idyllic thoughts that a movement on the far side of the waterhole caught my attention. A lithe spotted form slid out of the bush and glided down to the waterhole. By this time most of us were watching transfixed, as a full grown male leopard began to drink from the stagnant water. His spotted hide showed up his incredible muscle definition as he crouched down to drink. Not a sole stirred as his tongue lapped at the water. This was one of those moments that you couldn’t pay to see, a matter of being in the right place at the right time and knowing enough to sit quietly and patiently.
But the German Dork, who had been inspecting his camera closely, apparently noticed the leopard for the first time. Jumping to his feet he extended a bony finger on the end of a long arm and screamed “Leopard!”. Who got the biggest shock out of us and the leopard I’m not sure, but the leopard’s reactions were certainly a lot quicker than ours. In the blink of an eye he spun around and leapt into the bush at a speed that made me pleased he was going the other way rather than at us.
Dork continued to point at where the leopard had been while he turned towards us and exclaimed “Did you see the leopard?”. At least five pairs of angry eyes stared back at him, and Dave and I both started to get to our feet with the intention of doing him some serious harm. Behind us came the sound of Gary’s rifle being cocked. “Well, this time he will shoot him” I thought happily.
But Gary just rose to his feet and told us quietly it was time we moved on. We fell back into line behind Gary while Dork happily chatted in German to his wife, though from his reaction to her reply it seemed she too wasn’t overjoyed at his outburst either.
It wasn’t long however before Dork was again eagerly yelling “Shtopshtop, bird/bug/etc” as we walked along.
Gary led us through some thick thorny bush. There are many different types of thorn-laden flora in Africa, but the ones we were presently making out way through were probably the worst. Known as buffalo thorn, or to the botanists as ziziphus mucronata (thanks to Dave Rushworth for teaching me all this stuff) it was also called Wait-a-bit-bush, because if you got hooked by it you would have to wait a bit until someone came and helped you.
Heather with her bare arms and skimpy T shirt found it hard going, but Dave manfully assisted her which no doubt would stand him in good stead later that evening.
The school teacher too was having problems, although she had a sleeved shirt on the light cotton material seemed to attract the thorns. By the time I’d disentangled her a number of times she actually warmed to me enough to call me by my first name, so I reciprocated by calling her Raewyn and forgot that she had stood on my head when I fell down the bank.
Gary, Dave and I were all wearing the African Bush shirts that were designed to push through buffalo thorns, and none of us cared how the Germans were faring.
Thankfully we eventually got through the thorns, by which time Dave seemed to be almost engaged and I was carrying the school teachers 25kg camera bag and deciding she didn’t look anywhere near as school marmy as I had first thought. Such is the charm of the bush.
We had emerged out onto one of the many sand roads that run through Kruger. Animals too use these roads, and its always possible to see tracks on them. Gary quickly pointed out lion paw prints, two lion in fact, and he identified them as a lion and lioness. As we followed them he informed us the lioness was on heat, and the lion was following her to mate with her.
“Shit, is he making this stuff up because he knows we won’t know any different?”, I thought to myself. Raewyn said to him “You aren’t making this up as you go because you know we don’t know any different are you Gary?”.
He gave her a withering glare that actually caused her to step back onto my toes, (first my head, now my feet!!!!), and a few meters on he crouched down and picked up a short stick.
“See here” he said pointing at a bunch of scuffs and depressions in the soft sand in the middle of the road. “This is where she laid down, and this is where he crouched over her”. He used the stick to trace out the paw and body prints of the two lions. He drew a loose figure of eight in the sand around two tennis ball sized depressions with the point of his stick and traced a long thick shape extending from the middle.
“Looks like a cock and balls” said Dave, Heather and even Raewyn giggled while the Germans looked on confused.
“Almost” smiled Gary, and he didn’t smile often. “Those are his testicles and his tail, you won’t see an impression of his cock in the sand here.” We fell to examining the marks and Raewyn apologised to Gary for doubting him.
The lion pair had mated twice more before wandering off the track and into the bush. Some of us suggested following but Gary said the tracks were at several hours old and they would be miles away by now.
We followed the road for another twenty minutes or so by which time I was carrying Raewyn’s binos as well as her camera bag while Dave was practically carrying Heather.
For no discernible reason Gary suddenly turned off the road and into the bush. The day had steadily been heating up as noon approached and we were all feeling it, especially Heather and Raewyn who were not long arrived from a far colder part of the world. Raewyn’s shoulders visibly slumped as we hit the bush again, but incredibly in a few minutes we emerged into a clearing and there in front of us was the Land Rover. Checking my watch I was surprised to see we had been walking for nearly three hours. Time certainly flies when you are having fun. But I had to admit the cold drinks in the cool bin in the Rover were very welcome.
With a cold can in hand we eagerly climbed on board the Land Rover. When you are hot and parched there is nothing better than to wipe the sweat from your brow with an ice cold can and then open it to drink the contents. And when that one is gone, reach for another. Now we were on first name terms I hopped into the second row of seats with Raewyn, leaving Dave and Heather to the front seat. The Germans reclaimed their back seat position. The morning’s walk had really pooped out Raewyn, she propped her pack up on the roll bar upright and lay back on it with her feet up on the seat and closed her eyes.
Heather too had seemingly fallen asleep, but on Dave’s shoulder. Dork however was as full of energy as he had been at the start of the drive, and managed to jerk the girls into a state of sudden alertness with another half a dozen “shtop shtops” on the way back to the camp. One of these was well justified though, and for that sighting alone we pretty much forgave Dork for the leopard incident. Not far from the camp Dork suddenly jumped up and said “Shtop, shtop, lion”.
Yeah right most of us thought, craning our necks to see what had caused this latest outburst. Gary hit the anchors and almost slid the vehicle to a stop causing Raewyn to nearly fall off the seat, whacking me right in the tender part of the lower torso with her foot as she recovered her balance.
This discomfort was quickly ignored as I recognised what Dork had seen. Not fifty meters from us were two male lions resting under a tree. Unusually for lions in Makuleke they seemed quite relaxed and unconcerned about us in the vehicle. They were both fairly young, good sized lions but with sparse manes showing they were not yet fully grown.
Gary said due to their relaxed nature they may have come up from further south where they may have gotten used to vehicles. They were probably brothers, and had almost definitely been chased off from their pride by the dominant males. Luckily they were together as between the two of them they would probably have quite a good chance of hunting and thus surviving into their prime, when they could take over a pride of their own.
Not even Dork’s shout had disturbed them, one continued to slumber on his side while the other lay watching us through half closed eyes.
We stayed with them for over half an hour, even though they did little more than flick their tails from time to time. Lions were a rare sight in Makuleke, but their spoor was often seen and they were sometimes heard at night. Actual sightings were like gold.
Several dozen photos later we finally took our leave. It had not been a bad morning for animals at all. Lion, leopard and elephant, plus a number of other species.
And as is common with groups in the bush there had been a bit of bonding and friend making between people who had nothing else in common but a fascination with the African wild.
We rolled back into the camp parking place very pleased with ourselves indeed. Raewyn was so pleased she let me carry her pack as well as her camera bag and binos to her hut.
I think we all gratefully retired to our camp beds for a rest, but not before Gary let us know we would be out to do it all again in a few hours.
The best thing about Makuleke we found was there were no other tourists about. Sure the animals were nowhere near as common as in the southern part of Kruger. But down there if you stopped to look at a pride of lions you could bet your ar$e that a dozen or more other cars would turn up and join you, and while you had the consideration to give the animals plenty of room and avoid destroying grass and bush by driving on it, some others didn’t have the same consideration and would think nothing of driving off the road to get in front of you in order to gain a better view.
Plus it added to the pleasure of seeing the animals if you actually had to put some time and effort into finding them, rather than just driving along and seeing them beside the road.
It was much later that evening, while the Germans presumably entertained each other in their hut, the four of us and Gary got some quality time talking over the day’s events beside the campfire.
Gary, like most guides who have spent some time in the bush, was a treasure trove of stories, and he was good at telling them too. It was late when we all bid each other goodnight and headed for bed. We had another very early morning to look forward too, and another part of the vast Makuleke to visit the next day.
Next week: Leopard Encounter
After a childhood obsession with Africa, Doug fulfilled a lifelong dream and undertook his "once in a lifetime" visit to South Africa at the turn of the new millennium.
Since then, he has participated in a number of Field Guide training courses, lived and worked in wild African game reserves researching game (mainly lions), and is in no way an expert on African flora and fauna.
However, Doug has been trained by, and is friends with, the very best expert Field Guides in the business.
When not in Africa, Doug lives in New Zealand where he waits impatiently until he can return to Africa.
Labels: Doug's Bush Blather, encounters, makuleke, pafuri, trail, walking
posted by Kruger2Canyons Reservations at
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
0 Comments
Links to this post
