Your Kruger National Park Guide - With Stories. Frans Rautenbach

      Old houses at Shingwedzi

      “I am five years old. The black sand of Letaba is hot under my bare feet. Bugs are screeching in the trees, and not one leaf moves. Somewhere a bird makes a noise: cawk-cawk-cawk-cawk, louder and louder.

      I am wearing khaki shorts and a summer shirt, because in the game reserve it is always summer, even in July.

      I stroll slowly along the footpath beneath the broad-leafed trees, and feel the bliss of the hot sand between my toes, and the sun on my face. I do not want to walk fast, because I want the feeling to last. The bush smells like Simba chips, and the camp of the smoke of a fire.

      The grownups are asleep in their hut. Number 67, in a large circle of rondavels. The thatched roof rests on thick stoep pillars made of dry logs. On the stoep there is a food cupboard made of thin wood with air holes and a latch to protect it against the monkeys.

      I close the screen door softly behind me so it doesn’t bang and everything is different at once. Inside it is cool and smells of tarred poles, soap and paraffin. After the sharp light outside, it is dark, and I stand still for a minute to get my bearings, my feet warm on the smooth green cement floor.

      The drawn curtains are yellow, with pictures of monkeys, a mother and father lion with three cubs, and a huge elephant bull with long tusks and a ripped ear. There is also a kudu with three twists in its horns, a sable antelope and a buffalo that looks sad because it is standing downhill.

      The animals are grey and black and white.”

      I have been going to the game reserve for more than 50 years. That explains why I speak of “the game reserve”, rather than its official name, the “Kruger National Park”, or – as many people now call it – “the Kruger”.

      I grew up at a time when there was only one place known as the game reserve – as essential a part of the culture of our people as braaivleis, rugby and strife. In this book I will still refer to the game reserve, although I will interchange that with “the park” from time to time.

      In 50 years even the most dim-witted person can learn something. I reckon I have learnt something during the decades I’ve spent in the game reserve. Not only the scientific things – the names of trees, the habits of the game and the birds. No, also simply how to enjoy it.

      I know it is everyone’s indaba how they choose to enjoy things. But I’d like to help.

      There are many reasons to enjoy the park, and not all of them can be realised at the same time. This book strives to put everything on the table so that you can make informed decisions.

      It’s designed for the visitor who hasn’t been to the park, or a relative newcomer. I think here of many South Africans who have not had the privilege of going to the park, especially many Capetonians and Durbanites, and also many foreigners. From experience I know that a holiday with the benefit of the information in this book can be simply life-altering. The alternative is that you as visitors will make mistakes: arrange accommodation that does not enable you to imbibe the atmosphere and natural beauty of the place, or not see what you would like to see, or worse still: become stranded somewhere without accommodation, food or fuel.

      The advice I give is aimed at a holiday in self-catering park accommodation: huts and guest houses, rather than luxury safari camps and restaurants. A trip for the ordinary guy on holiday.

      Many veteran game reserve-goers will swear there is no other way to do it than to camp. They may have a point, but this book is first and foremost meant to provide practical guidance to newcomers. For that reason I concentrate on a holiday in ordinary camp accommodation – but one where you can spend time outside in the bush every hour of the day with your people, and our animals, on the earth that belongs to all of us.

      Skukuza, late 1960s

      Why go to the game reserve?

      The obvious reason is to see animals. And there is nothing wrong with that. The park is one of the few places where an ordinary person can see almost all the mammals of Africa – and most of the birds and many reptiles – in their natural habitat. The beauty of seeing an animal – a rare animal, but especially a dangerous animal – is that it speaks to the deepest instincts of humanity. We want to satisfy our curiosity. We crave the mystery and the adventure. We remain hunters in our hearts, even though we do it with the eye and the camera.

      But the game reserve is also socially a magnificent place. Anybody who has spent an evening around a game reserve fire in good company, with a glass of red wine and a chop, can tell you how pleasant it really is. But even that is informed by nature. That is the topic people sit and talk about on evenings around the fire. That is the social glue that binds people in the park together, family, friends and strangers. Here, away from our respective homes, jobs and general life troubles, is something that can unite people, just like a national sports event.

      For someone else the park may perhaps be a significant “laboratory” for research projects, or paradise to a nature photographer. But these pastimes also focus on the wildlife.

      If I think of my own experience, the best description I can give is that it is, first of all, simply enjoyable to be there. It is a sensuous experience. If you do not retain something of the sensual pleasure of the place, then you have missed the boat. You must smell, feel, hear, taste and see it.

      If ever there was a place in the world that makes it easy to enjoy the moment, it is here. Sometimes you simply want to sit by a water hole and do nothing and say nothing. Just listen to the sound of the guinea fowl in the underbrush, smell the dry grass, feel the heat on your skin. Or in early morning, when it is cold by the roadside, see the flawless skins of the impalas shiver in the first light. Or stand by the camp fence in the middle of the night while everyone sleeps, and listen to a jackal far away, howling its heart out.

      This assault on the senses comes from nature and the culture of the game reserve as a whole. But the greatest comes from the animals. Without them the experience of the bush would be rather sterile – like a very artful garden with a large variety of trees and plants. It is the game in the game reserve that distinguishes it.

      Game watching is of course an education in itself. The game reserve is not to be dictated to. To me one of the most wonderful things about the park is its mystery: why and where things happen and how they coincide.

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