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Mpumalanga

The place where the sun rises

Ask people abroad what they know about South Africa or where they've been to and one of the first places they will mention is "Kruger Park". So obviously the Kruger National Park was on the itinerary and fairly high on the priority list of places that I wanted to show Peter. The Kruger Park is in the province of Mpumalanga that was previously referred to as the Eastern Transvaal or simply "the Lowveld". Before I tell you about the game park I first want to take on the difficult task to try and describe Mpumalanga. Yes, Mpumalanga, "the place where the sun rises" has much more in store for the traveler than animals in the wild...

Of this 82,000 square kilometers (31,661 square miles) province nearly three quarters is occupied by plateau grasslands of the Highveld and Middleveld and the rest forms the Escarpment where the mountains rise 1 600 metres and more above sea level, spectacular in both their beauty and dimensions. This magnificent mountain is the northern extension of the Drakensberg and runs from a point just beyond Nelspruit to end in the misty forest of the Magoebaskloof near Tzaneen in the Limpopo Province.

The route from Pretoria took us first past Witbank a town that thrives from the richness beneath the soil. Nearly half of South Africa's 115 billion tons of coal (the largest coal reserves in the southern hemisphere) are located on Mpumalanga's plateau not far from the Gauteng border. They feed the vast Sasol liquid fuel plants and the three biggest coal-fired power stations that generate 70 percent of South Africa?lectricity. This part of our country has few claims to beauty - the towns exist largely to create material wealth. Farther east are unpretentious country towns that draw their prosperity from the soil and are sustained by the maize, groundnuts, sunflower seeds and dairy products from the surrounding farms.

A view of the Lowveld

Just before the twin villages of Waterval Boven and Waterval Onder (their names referring to their location "above" and "below" the Elandsriver waterfall) we turned off the national highway towards a town called Lydenburg. The first settlement of the Voortrekkers was Ohrigstadt, sited in an unhealthy valley that they abandoned after malaria had taken its toll and then moved to a kindlier area further to the south. They called this town Lydenburg which means "town of suffering". However, in spite of the grim reference, this town became the capital of their short-lived republic.

Today the town is the centre of a prosperous forestry and mixed farming region and is particularly popular for trout fishing. We arrived in Lydenburg just after midday and had lunch at a roadside restaurant. From Lydenburg we followed one of the many scenic routes in this area towards Sabie and Graskop.

The Long Tom Pass between Lydenburg and Sabie marks the first step in a staircase of descents from the highveld to the lowveld. This winding road reaches its highest peak at 2,148 m in the northern Drakensberg making it the highest tarred road in South Africa. The pass is notable for its tortuous gradients and grand views including the four peaks called the Devil's Knuckles and another called the Staircase. The view from here towards Sabie can hardly be described for its beauty. An enormous emerald green valley of plantations and indigenous forests as far as the eye can see.

The Long Tom pass is named after the artillery guns that the Boers used during the Anglo Boer war. In the last days of the war the two sides were involved in fighting down the pass. The British nicknamed the artillery guns of the Boers "Long Toms" because of the nine-kilometre range across which they could fire. Some way down Devil's Knuckles the spot where the Boers used their guns for the last time can be seen indicated by a replica of one of the cannons. The story goes that the Boers had named one of the cannons "Die Jood" (The Jew) because the British had sabotaged it with dynamite. After its repairs, the muzzle was a good deal shorter and the Boers believed it looked circumcised!

After many stops to enjoy the scenery we reached Graskop in the late afternoon where we settled into a nice self-catering chalet ready to explore the vicinity. We went to the nearby supermarket to stock up on food and drink for the next few days and that evening Peter set out to prepare his first Boere braaivleis. In between he made his famous garlic roasted peanuts. However, his culinary skills were in competition with the many different things that needed his attention: making the fire, drinking beer, listening to my plans for the next few days, braaiing the lamb chops and Boerewors AND frying peanuts!!! By the time he remembered the peanuts they were almost scorched to cinders!

Nevertheless, we ate a lot of them just imagining that they were a new variety called "Cajun peanuts". For punishment blackened peanuts did not agree with his digestive system and he suffered quite some discomfort afterwards.

The next morning we were up and about and on our way to the Kruger national Park way before sunrise. The little village and beyond were covered in a thick fog as we departed from Graskop. I did not know at that stage that our road would take us down the steep and winding Kowyns Pass towards Hazyview and the Kruger Gate entrance to the game Park. We were indeed in the land where the sun rises! We reached the gate at about 06:30 and the sun broke through the mist. The clouds cleared with the promise of a hot, sunny African day. After buying some maps and guide books we were camera-and-binoculars-ready to "hunt" the Big Five and do the tourist thing!

Kruger National Park

Founders of the Kruger Park

The Kruger National Park is South Africa?argest and best known wildlife sanctuary. It covers 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) and well over a million people pas through its eight gates each year. After listening to Peter's first impressions of the Kruger Park I realized that it is important to emphasize the vastness of this park when telling foreigners about our visit. Therefore I would like to start off with a description of Peter's first impressions of Kruger Park:

"When we arrived at the Kruger Gate early that first morning the first impression I had was a feeling of remorse in seeing the high fence that appeared to be surrounding the whole park. My thought was that these grazing animals are "locked in" and there is no escape from the predators confined inside this enclosure with them. Later in the day as I became more aware of the immensity of this reserve I reflected back on those fences and thought more deeply about the complex issues involved".

"Suppose the fence was taken down and the zebra could wander freely as they did 200 years ago, would they really be free? Not quite, since the first animals to follow them would be the lions, and they have partially survived off the zebra for thousands of years. What difference did it make to the zebra if they were confined behind that fence in that huge reserve or roaming freely throughout South Africa? The lions would still be chasing them! There was no escape from that nor could there be. Without the predator the zebra would overpopulate and vast herds would starve to death".

Skukuza Camp Courtyard

But before starving, they and all those animals would confront a more savage predator that would give them no peace. When Paul Kruger was in his last term as president of the Republic of South Africa he wisely set aside that reserve for those animals. That was just over 100 years ago. He was a visionary person who had come into that part of Africa as a child with the Voortrekkers and knew of the vast herds of wild animals that roamed throughout that country; he had hunted many of them and was nearly killed several times in his exploits.

"He reasoned that if nothing was done the children of the next generation would never know what a kudu or zebra looked like, other than by pictures out of books. When protest was brought against his decision he offered to back down on what he had done. He told those people, mostly farmers who wanted that area for cattle grazing, if anyone would live in that Lowveld where the Park is for 4 months of the year, October through January, he would grant that person freehold of the land they chose; there were no takers! For to live there during that part of the year at that time of human medical advancement would have been suicide".

With maps of the park and guide books on mammals we set off to view the animals. I first stopped at Skukuza, the main camp in the Park hoping to have an early cup of coffee in the restaurant but the restaurant was not open yet and we just studied the maps and worked out a plan for the day. We decided to follow the Lower Sabie river and travel towards the southern parts of the park contemplating to come back for another day trip to cover the northern parts of the Park.

The various camps in the park are linked by a 2,600 km (1,615 mile) network of roads, the main ones fully tarred, that lead to waterholes, viewing sites, picnic spots and to the wonders of the park's wildlife. Shortly after leaving Skukuza we made the wise decision to leave the tarred roads and venture deeper into the bush.

We drove on slowly, following the river and hoping to see wild animals coming for an early morning drink at the water's edge. The first we came across was a troop of baboons with a huge male keeping watch from the rail of a bridge over the Crocodile river.

Peter provided me with the following delightful description of the antics of the baboons:

"As we drove along the Sabie River well within the boundaries of the Park, there were numerous places where a car could pull off the road and park along the embankment. Below us, perhaps 30 meters (100 ft.) and off in the distance perhaps 200 meters (200 yds), there was a colony of baboons occupying the granite rock shelf stretching over to the river's edge. The children were playing some sort of game and though it didn't involve the use of balls or sticks it was a game that could have been played by the kids I grew up with. What I lacked on this day was knowledge of the rules but as a child playing tag in trees 15 ft. above the ground who, as an adult observer, would have known what we were playing unless they had played the game themselves"!

While Peter was trying to figure out the rules of the baby baboons' game I delighted in looking at a heron perched high on a tree top overlooking the river and the baboons down below and a single small antelope close to the water's edge trotting daintily over the rocks on its stick-like legs. It also pleased me to hear birdsong in the trees although I could not identify where the sounds came from and therefore found it difficult to spot many of the colourful birds in the park. Later during the day I delighted in seeing many of the beautiful lilac breasted rollers as we drove along.

Elephant in Kruger Park

On our way we also saw giraffes, many impala and other antelope. As we traveled on after watching the baboons we spotted a few elephants on the opposite bank of the river. They were however so far off that we had to use the binoculars to watch their movements. I was hoping that they would come to the water's edge but they seemed to be just happily grazing. No wonder that they put themselves to this task early in the morning because a single bull elephant's daily intake of grass, shoots and stripped bark ranges up to 300kg (660 lbs) per day.

South Africa, has an excellent conservation record as far as African elephants are concerned and elephant populations have flourished so much so that although unpleasant, herds have to be periodically culled to protect the environment. Since culling is a seemingly cruel process, other methods of controlling the numbers of elephants in the park, like birth control, are being investigated. The Kruger Park has approximately 8,200 elephants that is the optimum carrying capacity of the area.

We took another dirt road towards the south and had to stop to allow a herd of buffalo pass right in front of the car. The Cape buffalo is a huge, powerful animal and regarded by hunters as one of Africa's most cunning and dangerous game species. Looking at them docilely passing right in front of the car this was not all that evident.

After allowing the buffalo the right of way we proceeded towards a hippo pool on the crocodile river. We found a friendly guard near the hippo pool where we were allowed to get out of the car. Peter noticed wild pointsettia flowers and found it strange to see them in the middle of summer. He pointed them out to the guard telling him that they were "Christmas Flowers" in America. The guard did not know the name and asked us to write it down for him.

We followed the guard to the river to have a closer look at the hippos. He informed us that the crocodiles could not be seen since it was not hot enough for them to sun themselves on the sandy banks of the river. Once again Peter caused me a couple of very anxious moments when he walked towards the water's edge without further ado, Let me give you this story in is own words...

Testing the water temperature

"Measuring which of the stupid "tricks" I've survived during my lifetime that gets the top award, is pretty difficult but the one I pulled in the Park that first day ranks toward the top. The Crocodile River marks the southern boundary of the Park and it was flowing with a pretty swift current when the armed guard brought us down close to the river's edge to see the hippos bathing in the water. Curiosity got the better of me and I had to feel the temperature of the water to compare it to the mountain streams back home. The water was a warm 80 deg. F and the crocodiles missed out on an easy meal that day".

I was less concerned about the crocs however. After recovering from the shock of nearly seeing a hippo chasing Peter up the steep bank of the river (more people are killed by hippos than by lions and hippos can outrun any man at a speed of 35 km per hour) - I had to take a photo of Peter and the guard to serve as evidence of his folly!
As we were driving west again we came upon a water hole with zebra, more impala, hartbeest and wildebeest as well as a few warthogs rolling in the mud. Further west from there we were fortunate that a vehicle stopped along the road and the occupants told us that there were a pride of five lions a little further on along that road.

At least when we saw the lions I had no problem to keep Peter safely in the car. He commented as follows about the lions...

"When we saw the pride of lions about 100 meters or so from the road the first thought that came to me was the recent movie, "The Ghost and the Darkness". Watching Val Kilmer getting chased up a tree by that lion was enough to convince me that getting out of the car, even though those lions looked contented, would have been a fatal move. Lions aren't supposed to climb trees but there wasn't a tall tree close enough to us that would have got us out of the lion's reach even if we would have had time to climb it.

Trying to imagine that within the past 48 hours those same lions had killed and consumed at least one of the relatives to the zebras we saw back up the road just couldn't enter my thoughts; they looked too peaceful lying there".

We regarded ourselves as very fortunate to have seen lions in the wild. Although there are about 2,500 lions in the Park one seldom sees them because they are intrinsically shy animals, elusive in their solitary habits and hunters of the night who hide away in dense bush or among granite outcrops during the hot hours of the day. Even the ones we saw blended in so well with their bushveld surrounds that they hardly showed up on the photos that I took.

Later we drove north again and took several "back" roads to arrive at the Numbi Gate before it closed stopping on our way to enjoy the picnic lunch that we brought along. On the way home we drove through the small town of Hazyview. It was getting dark when we drove into Graskop and the stores were closed so we went back to our cottage. It was a pleasant day and we were happy to relax with some good South African wine and reflected on all the animals we saw during the day.

Two days later we went to the Park again and travelled north from the Numbi Gate. Again we arrived at the gate at about 06:30 that morning. The first we saw was an elephant right next to the road not far from the Numbi Gate. We were not as fortunate as on the first day and apart from a number of giraffe and some antelope we did not see a huge variety of animals. We followed a road up a steep hill (that was actually one huge outcrop of rock) to a lookout. We were fortunate to see a bird that we identified as a Bateleur eagle in a nearby tree.

After along drive without seeing much, the occupants of another car told us about a wild dog next to the road. He was alone lying near the road under some trees. A few cars were already parked along the road to look at him and when the 4th car stopped the dog decided to move to a quieter place. What surprised us was how big this dog was. He stood up to a Golden Retriever or Black Labrador. The wild dog or Cape hunting dog, of which there are several packs in the Park were long regarded as pests by farmers and have been relentlessly hunted. They are now regarded as endangered animals and various game breeding centres have programmes to breed them in captivity and release them in the wild again.

I was a little disappointed that we did not see as many animals as on our first day in the park. However again Peter saw the positive side and once more shared his journal entry for that day with me:

"For some reason I had it in mind that we would see a lot more animals than we spotted during the two days we visited the Park but as an afterthought I'm quite contented in knowing that those dwellers of that vast enclosure have the freedom to roam over a large area where most of them are seldom seen and can live in the peace they knew before humans carried anything more dangerous than a sharp rock tied to the end of a stick".