Month: September 2002
Neil - - if I keep leaving this until I have time it could take ages -so I
wanted to try and put together a very short but punching 'customer comment' for
you to review and consider if you want to use it on your web site. So here it
is......
'Safari'
Safari means simply 'journey' - but 'safari'
with the Bearded Heron and it becomes an expedition of discovery. From the
moment we entered the Kruger you know Neil is home. His heightened senses are
picking up the sounds, smells and spore of the bush. He stops and identifies
without binoculars a raptor in a nearby tree which you scan to find. He knows
the 'Secretary Bird' you see opposite a small 'Koppie' is a burned tree trunk
(but you stop to check it anyway). You search hard with your eyes on one side of
the road, whilst Neil covers both sides, the road itself and tracks the spore.
Guess who spots the game first?
At the end of each day there is a superb place
to stay. Natural, comfortable and in the bush. Over an excellent meal you
re-visit the days sightings, listen to the Fiery- necked Nightjar and all the
other evening voices and then to bed.
Our three children listened and learned and
became more and more 'bush aware'. They found 10 constructive things to do with
Acacia thorns, identified rhino midden, tasted Mopani, recognised spore, and,
when the vehicle stopped, silence came unbidden.
One of their favourite lessons was actually
whilst waiting for petrol in a rest camp. A large herd of homo sapiens touristus
was seen coming through the camp. Various subspecies were identified and strange
behaviour witnessed including the video of an insect in one of the roadside
gutters. Neil warned that of the extreme danger of getting between the herd and
the shop so we maintained a quiet watch from the security of our own vehicle.
Our 3 to 4 day plan had become 6. Each and
every day the bush provided something new which Neil could interpret for us.
Baby hippos chomping in the water at each other, an exhausted pair of mating
lions, the track of a large python crossing the road, giant millipedes, wild
dogs stalking and chasing warthog, 52 elephants crossing the road and walking
through the bush with barely a sound.
With the Bearded Heron your encounters are as
natural as possible without impinging their space or security. Listening to the
'whoop whoop' of the hyena, to smell the cat scent on the bushes as you pass the
game trail, to watch giraffe bending to drink at a waterhole and being in a hide
with a bull elephant in musth just 10 metres away .
I wondered if 6 days may be too long. I need
not have worried, for none of us wanted to leave Kruger. We had become more
attuned to the bush and to its rhythm. Our perceptions had changed. Fear had
diminished and turned to respect.
We walked through the Kruger gateway and
dallied a long time on the Crocodile bridge, watching the lazy 'logs' and big
fish in the river below, taking photos, saying a slow and sad goodbye.
We have a reason to return - not just to search
for the elusive leopard, heard at night but not seen, but to also to find that
part of our heart we left in the bush. You never know what the bush will turn up
for you - but for us a return cannot come soon enough!
Regards
Peter J Crawley
Email
peter.crawley@halliburton.com