AS one jolts, bumps and shudders along the terminally corrugated
roads of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, fellow visitors approaching from the
opposite direction often stop and ask: “Seen anything?”
I used to make the mistake of excitedly replying: “Gosh
yes! There’s a herd of springbok about 2km further on your left! You can’t miss
them. And gee, I think I saw a
groundscraper thrush!”
I would be met with blank, even pitying looks, as
though I had to be suffering from fundamental cognitive development
issues. See, most people visit the park
for the big fierce animals: leopards, cheetahs, lions. The antelope are there merely to provide the
predators with something to chase and eviscerate. You’re not supposed to pay any actual attention to them.
Imagine my joy then when during a visit to the park
in June I met Joe Martin from Durban, who is not only interested in birds and
gemsbok but in inanimate objects. “It’s amazing to see all those border markers
and trig beacons,” he said, his face lighting up.
Martin is a surveyor, so his enthusiasm is
understandable. But I felt an immediate kinship – I too had gazed at those
concrete blocks that stand at intervals along the Nossob river bed, “RSA” emblazoned upon them,
and marveled at what they represent, an artificial boundary laid out in
colonial days to separate one nation from another. The jackal that weaves its purposeful way
through the low grass – one minute it’s in South Africa, the next it’s in
Botswana.
And the trig beacons ranged along the tops of the
red dunes – so essential once, so
quaintly archaic now in the GPS era.
They should have heritage status.
I met Martin and his wife Barbara Siedle, a
watercolour artist of immense talent, at
Grootkolk, an unfenced wilderness camp at a waterhole in the far north of the
park. Try to go much further north and you are brought to an abrupt stop by
Union’s End, a spot that demands to be
visited just because of the delightful air of geographic finality captured in its name.
Grootkolk might be my favourite place in the world.
There are just four units, accommodating a maximum of two people each, so,
counting the camp attendant, there will never be more than nine people in
residence. By comparison, a camp like
Twee Rivieren at the southern entrance to the park is a rowdy, bustling metropolis.
It’s remote, quiet, surrounded by statuesque
camelthorns, pitch dark at night -- so
you see every star that it is humanly possible to see – and filled with the
delicious risk that you are being watched by unseen lions lurking within easy
pouncing distance.
In other Kgalagadi wilderness camps, like Kieliekrankie
and Urikaruus, the accommodation is raised on stilts, so there is a comforting
two or three metres of vertical space between yourself and the heavilyfanged creatures
on the ground below. But at Grootkolk
the units are built at ground level, so step out of the door at dawn and
you could be eye to eye with the neighbourhood lion pride. The camp itself is
open to the surrounding savannah, but each unit has a small braai area in front
of it protected by a waist-high fence. This obstacle, which a lion might or
might not regard as insuperable, is all that stands between you and ending up
as prey.
The accommodation structures at Grootkolk are a
hybrid of tents and World War 2–style sandbags – the bags, filled with a mixture of
sand and cement, have been stacked to
form low walls, with canvas for the roof.
Because the camp is so small, and so perfect, it’s
hard to find even one free night on the SANParks website, let alone two
consecutive nights, as I counted myself extremely lucky to have done.
The trick, as I learnt from Martin and Siedle, is to
try a travel website like krugerpark.com. They and their friends, two other couples from Durban, were able not
only to book three units at the camp at the same time – albeit a year in
advance – but to book three units for the same three consecutive nights.
The six of them very kindly invited me for dinner
one night, which they hosted in the camp’s communal kitchen and braai area. The
camp attendant strongly urged the Durbanites not to risk walking the 20m or so
from their units to the braai area in the dark, so they drove over in their
vehicles, for possibly the shortest ever drive they had taken in their lives to
go out for dinner.
The attendant must be a bit paranoid, I thought as I
lay in bed later that night. As I drifted into sleep, I heard coughing on the
other side of the canvas. What is the attendant up to out there at this time of
night, I wondered before dropping off.
Next morning Martin asked: “Did you hear that
coughing last night? Sounded like it could have been a leopard.”
So yes, perhaps paranoia is a useful survival tool.
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