Getting catty about Africa

 
For a trip that was meant to be all about the rhino, I'm happy to say that I came into contact with an awful lot of cats during my 12 days in South Africa. Not 'awful' at all of course: they were just beautiful, even this one, Moya, at the Endomneni Cat Rehabilitation Centre, who after being totally relaxed about being patted and petted by a series of slightly anxious tourists, suddenly swiped at one man's face, drawing blood. A bit more rehabilitation needed there, it would seem. There were caracals and servals too, and African wild cats that looked just like domestic moggies, though rather more fierce, even when they were playing.

Then there was a leopard strolling around camp at night, where our group had been blithely moving through the trees between our cabins. There was a genet there, too, with its long, long tail, prowling around the braai at the edge of the circle of lamplight, pouncing on thrown scraps of meat.

I saw lots more cheetah at Phinda: a couple of cubs with their mother in the dusk, another two in a boma, or enclosure, awaiting relocation and which I watched from the back of a ute nearby standing alongside an impala carcass the same as the one they'd just been thrown. Cheetah eat fast, as they're prone to attack by leopard and lion (there's no solidarity in the African cat world) and always on the watch. They start at the rump, because that's got the most meat, so if they have to run, they'll at least have had decent a chance for a good feed.

They also tire themselves out when they run down their prey, so that it's not unusual for the actual kill, which is by strangulation, to take longer than anyone would like because they haven't the strength left to grip really tightly. That's how it was when we watched a hungry quartet, a mother and her male cubs, catch a young nyala antelope. It's pretty gruesome (actually not pretty at all) to watch an animal literally being eaten alive, and wailing.

And then there were lion, a pride of five staring back as I stood nearby in that ute still with the bloody carcass at my feet; and later a fabulous muscled single lion with what looked like a combed mane. Then, finally, there was Missy, who staked out my bed as her own at the family home I stayed in for the last night, and who I would happily have brought back with me to my own home. If the present incumbent here would ever have allowed it.

A Bantam to save a rhino

How I do love it when this happens! Trawling through a whole notebook of crabbed-written notes on the South Africa trip, as well as transcribing three hours-plus of interviews, I went off on a bit of a side-track to find out more about the NZ-built Bantam that was referred to by Lawrence, below. He's the operations manager of ZAP Wing, which flies surveillance over 24 game reserves and responds to incident call-outs (read: ambushing rhino poachers armed with guns). It's one of their two fixed-wing aircraft, supplementing two helicopters, one of which I flew in.

Now, the Bantam is another of those heart-warming stories of Kiwi ingenuity that I also love so much. In this one, Max Clear got the flying bug as a boy from a passing crop-duster that waggled its wings at him, and went on to build his own planes. When he fancied something completely different, he couldn't find any plans to suit, so he designed it himself, and so the first Bantam was born. It became hugely popular, and he built and sold over 300 of them, of which almost half ended up in South Africa being used by farmers and game rangers to keep an easy and close check on their land and stock; which is how ZAP Wing came by theirs.

And here's the connection: Max died in 2011 and the business was taken over by Croydon Aircraft at Mandeville, where I went this January. Booked to fly in the yellow Tiger Moth in the background of the (supplied) photo above, I didn't notice the Bantam at all - but if I had, and had read the info board displayed inside the hanger, I would have learned all about its use in the fight against the rhino poachers. The people who own Croydon are on board with the cause, and there's a chance that I've been able to bring together people who could really make a difference to the rhino's looming extinction. So that's an even better kind of link.

Housekeeping

I live a life of variety, I'm pleased to say. Just when things are getting a bit boring, fabulous trips like the African one pop up into my inbox. I've been going back through my blog posts, and discovered that dodgy internet connections in the bush left out the text in some of them. I've put in better photos, too: so if you're interested, you could pop back and do some catching up.

First world problems

I don't know if this is going to last, but travelling around rural South Africa and going into schools and communities has given me some perspective on things that loom a bit too large for so many people in our world. My pinot noir on the plane last night didn't come till I was halfway through my boeuf bourgignon, and it was too cold; and my seat on the long Joburg-Sydney leg would recline only a couple of inches. But that was nothing, having just seen the thin reed mats that poor people sleep on, on the ground, and having stood in the dormitory of a school bush camp hearing how the kids had to be shown how to use a bed, how to flush a toilet, how not to scald themselves in a shower. And how these same kids had to get up really early in the morning at home to carry water - a 25 litre jerry-can weighs 25kg, remember - before walking up to 15km to school. And then the same again at the end of the day.

The people tutting with irritation over the slightly messy organisation for boarding the Auckland flight should get over themselves. It's not "shocking", having to wait 10 minutes to get onto a plane. What's really shocking is children wearing their shoes undone because they're far too small, but it's a matter of pride not to go barefoot to school. It's shocking that there are so many child-headed households because the parents have died of Aids, and these kids can't go to school at all because they have to look after their younger siblings.

And everybody in New Zealand today, cast into gloom by the failure to win the America's Cup after such a long and emotionally-gruelling struggle, should remember that actually it's just a race for rich men's toys; and that even though Team NZ pushed themselves to the limit, it's all pretty trivial really when you consider facts like 95% unemployment, like an elephant being killed every 15 minutes, like rhino horns being hacked off with axes while the animals are still alive, left to bleed to death. So cheer up! In Africa, things are so much worse!*

*"The floggings will continue until morale improves."

Time to make a difference

They have some classy stuff in the shops at Joburg airport: lovely jewellery, clothes, carvings and household items (also plastic vuvuzelas, natch - and I saw some bought. What larks ahead!) overwhelmingly adorned with elephant, zebra, giraffe and lion. You have to look for the rhino.

Pretty much like real life, then. Except for us on this trip, with our exclusive focus and contacts: we were literally up close and personal with these 50 million year-old prehistoric creatures, big and little, black and white, and it was such a privilege. I come from an elephant home, thanks to one chance soft toy 22 years ago (go, Ditty!) but I'm a rhino convert now.

They're so massive, so odd-looking, so totally harmless if you leave them alone. All they want to do is eat grass or leaves and get on with producing their ridiculously cute babies (I glimpsed a 10-day old black calf - totally adorable). But through an evil combination of greed, ignorance and ruthlessness, they could all soon be gone. And that would be inexpressibly sad. www.imakeadifference.co.nz

Salani kahle

I've never sat on the loo before, stroking a cat balanced on the rim of the basin, while watching monkeys leap along the wall outside. This trip has been crammed full of close and astonishing animal encounters, far surpassing my expectations in that respect, and for that reason alone I would love to come again.

Even more, though, it's been the people. We've been so lucky to enjoy the unlimited hospitality of the Hedges family, all of them so friendly, intelligent, knowledgeable and passionate about their country with all its faults and difficulties. South Africa is a country of huge resources and potential, hampered by its government but kept going by the will of its people, and everyone we've met has had in common a determination to make things better. It'll take time, but it will happen.

The rhino issue is the perfect symbol: a unique and very special animal, threatened by greed and corruption, but inspiring wonderful and varied effort from all sorts of people, from all over the world, united in the cause. They must succeed, and we all must help: www.imakeadifference.co.nz

Yebo!

There are a lot of gaps to fill in once I'm home, thanks to dodgy Internet connections in the bush, tch, appalling. It's our last full day in Africa after two nights spent at the very elegant &Beyond Rock Lodge at Phinda - private plunge pool, sherry decanter in the room, oodles of delicious food at frequent intervals and super-enthusiastic ranger Matt partnered by spotter extraordinaire Joel. (Not, of course, that there was time to get into the pool or even sip the sherry.)

The focus shifted from animals to people: the hard lives of the locals, and the inspiring work of others trying to help them to make a difference to their own circumstances. Marvellous people. We went into communities, actual houses and were treated with courtesy and generosity by people who had so little.

And then of course there were more animals: a walk through the bush tracking giraffe, and a rather too close encounter in the Kombi with an irritated rhino, who approached, snorting, to within 2 metres of where I was sitting at the open door. No photo of that, unfortunately. I was somewhat preoccupied.