Friday 3 September: Homeward Bound!

This will be the last blog in the series. I’ve arrived safely at O. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg for my homeward flights, first to Dubai and then on to Birmingham, where I’m due to arrive at lunchtime tomorrow.

What a full and remarkable two weeks it’s been. Only two weeks ago, I was boarding my outward bound flight. The ‘International Congress on Calvin Research’ already seems a long time ago. Even Matlosane seems to be weeks rather than days in the past, because I’ve done so much and covered so many miles in the last three days. There are lots of photos on my phone, and even more memories in my head. The whole fortnight has been an experience to treasure and I’m grateful to all those who made it possible – family, colleagues at Lichfield Cathedral, funders and hosts. It would have been still lovelier to share the experience with Cathy and the boys. But if I'm going to be apart from them for a couple of weeks, these are the circumstances in which I'd choose to do it.

The B&B in Middelburg was a good call. The owners were thoroughly helpful and the accommodation exceptionally comfortable. I never eat breakfast at home. In the ordinary course of things my appetite doesn’t wake up until midday. But when cooked-breakfast smells are wafting in the air, I get hungry much earlier than usual – especially when it’s combined with the knowledge that breakfast is already paid for! So I tucked into a slap-up feast, before hitting the road at 8am.

It should have been a two-and-a-quarter hour drive to Maporeng, the Museum of the Cradle of Humanity. My host at the B&B persuaded me that Pretoria is hardly worth a half-day visit, and that it would be a shame to be so close to Jo’burg and not visit the place where the earliest humanids are believed to have lived. But – despite the investment of some time on Google maps – I got hopelessly lost in the motorway network near Pretoria. Out of town motorway driving in South Africa has been a pleasure. But the stretch around Jo’burg/Pretoria is like Spaghetti Junction outside Birmingham, or like the bits of the M25 around London which connect with the M40, M4 and M3 near Heathrow – with the added difficulty (for me) that I don’t have the basic geography to know whether a signposted place is in the right direction or utterly the wrong one. On top of that, its clear that South Africa embarked on a massive national infrastructure upgrade for the World Cup, and failed to finish it all. So these major highways are also major roadworks. Anyway, I turned north at one point at a motorway intersection, instead of south. And because I believed that was the right thing to do, I persisted in that direction much too long, and got deeper and deeper into the suburbs of Pretoria and further and further from where I was supposed to me.

No matter. Eventually I arrived at Maporeng. The museum is located close to the place where ‘Mrs Ples’ (the skull of one of the earliest and certainly the best example of one of the early humanids: the 'australopithecus africanus', if you must know) was found. The museum sets out to tell the story of the evolution of the planet, as well as of the human race, with a strong conservation message and an emphasis on the damage this generation of humans is doing to the Earth. I chuckled on arrival however: the first stretch of the museum takes the form of a lazy-river. There’s no alternative. It’s not an option for kiddies only. All visitors are expected to clamber into circular floats, which are then swept along a water course for 20 minutes or so, as you are taken back in time to the origins of the human race. I had a float all to myself, and sat there in a bewildered sort of humour, thinking that I really needed a couple of 5 year olds with me to get the most out of the ride.

Mostly, the museum is well conceived and delivers a powerful message. But I did also laugh at some of the overblown rhetoric. My favourite phrase was this one: ‘Africa is the birthplace of humankind. This is where our collective umbilical chord lies buried’. Birthplace yes. Collective umbilical chord? I don’t think so!
Happily the journey from the museum to the airport proved easy enough and I was able to return the hire car in good time. It served me well. I’ve covered over 1000 miles in the last four days, much of it on dirt tracks rather than tar roads. I’ve bumped over pot-holes and sped too fast on occasion. I’ve negotiated alarming motorway junctions and gunned the engine anxiously at ‘four way stops’ in isolated areas. I’ve passed road-signs which have said, ‘High Risk of Hijack’, and those which have said, ‘Stay in your vehicle. Wild Animals’. But I’ve stayed safe (despite the national strike, which has still not been resolved) and have felt the risks to be reasonable. Still, it was a relief to arrive at the rental returns srea without a breakdown or a prang.

Now I’m hoping for flights which are not seriously delayed. I won’t mind the hours in the air, or the three-hour stop-over in Dubai. I’m back to work on Sunday, and there’s a sermon to write for the Sung Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral in the meantime. I don’t think I’ll be short of material.

PS: two of these pictures have been uploaded at Dubai International Airport, where I've now arrived safely, and from where I posted the first blog in this series two weeks ago.

Thursday 2 September: 'Joyful' River?

Hmm… well, that sense of thankfulness with which yesterday ended lasted about an hour this morning. Then came an unpleasant incident, which spoilt the following hour or two, though I can see the funny side now.

At any point in the last four days I might have reported that in South Africa speed limits are advisory rather than mandatory. That was my clear impression. When I picked up the hire car on Tuesday, I spent the first few hours observing the limits scrupulously… but watching everything else whizz by. As I relaxed into the driving conditions, I conformed more and more to custom as I was seeing it, and became increasingly careless of the limits. Today I find that the limits are thoroughly, drastically enforceable…

It was entirely my own fault. I was speeding – no doubt about it. And I got pulled over by a traffic cop. Perhaps SA cops are all fierce, or perhaps it’s just him, or perhaps he just got out of bed the wrong side, or (and this is what I really think) perhaps he was playing a practised game. Having flagged me down as he was not just entitled but obliged to do, he shouted at me in broken English what I took to mean, ‘I have power to arrest you. You can be arrested!’. If his intention was to scare me, he succeeded. I admit to speeding, but I wasn’t driving that recklessly and I couldn’t see how it was an arrestable offence. He demanded my driving licence and walked off with it to talk to a colleague, leaving me feeling very little and heavy-hearted. When he came back, he said, ‘Don’t worry. Not arrested. You pay the fine. 750 rand. You pay this?’. £75 more or less was a bit more than I’d have expected, but it sure felt like a relief at that point. So I said, ‘Yes, I’ll pay. But I’m not carrying that much cash.’. ‘How much you have?’, he said. I fished out my wallet and took out all the notes – it amounted to about £40. Whereupon he said, ‘You give me that’; and when I did, he said, ‘No you go. Go’. So I did. As I drove away, of course, I became more and more aware of the irregularity. No paperwork. And since when is the size of the fine determined by the amount the offender is carrying? In the end I couldn’t decide whether I’d been conned, or had actually got off lightly. Maybe both. TIA... this is Africa.

You can imagine that my mood took a while to lift. But it’s been a good day really. It’s hard to feel sorry for yourself or weighed down by regret for very long, when the sun is shining and you’re looking out on vistas like the ones I’ve enjoyed today. It’s been another longish day behind the wheel: I’ve covered about 430 kms. First I drove the ‘waterfall route’, and then the length of Blyde River Canyon. It wasn’t arduous driving: there was something to pull over and explore every 20 kms or so. And ‘Blyde’ is Afrikaaans for ‘Joyful’ (as in ‘blythe’ presumably). So it would have been a different sort of crime to let my earlier traffic offence undermine my capacity to enjoy the moment.

One of the early treats was ‘God’s window’, a spectacular panorama across the canyon. I found the name quite thought-provoking. It implies God’s view, God’s outlook – but also a place where we might catch a glimpse of God. It put me in mind of the Bible in that respect: it conveys, mysteriously but truly, God’s view and outlook – but also affords me glimpses of God.

Bourke’s Potholes were fun: vast eroded pits in and around the river bed. And the Three Roundevals were worth waiting for. I hope the pictures give an idea of how extraordinary they are. This may not be The Grand Canyon. But it is staggeringly pleasing one all the same.

On the return leg of the journey, down a parellel set of roads, I visited Echo Caves – a 16 km stretch of interlocking underground limestone tunnels and caverns, of which visitors are able to walk 1.2km. It was a deserted place. I was the only visitor. But there were guides standing by and I got a personal tour. It was a comically surreal experience. My guide spoke only the English she had learned as a spiel. Questions were out of the question, so to speak. I’m pretty sure she’d learned her lines parrot fashion and without much understanding. She also had a strong accent, so we walked happily along, she declaiming as if to a group of 20 an interpretation of the caves of which I only really understood a tenth part, me nodding encouragingly and smiling to indicate interest. It finished well enough: the caves were 4 km down a dirt track, and at the end of the tour my guide asked if I could give her a lift as far as the ‘tar road’. I was delighted to do it, and had the feeling that was a prepared line too!

The last part of the drive reminded me of Scotland or New Zealand. It’s fly-fishing country and the landscape is dotted with trout pools and small lakes. As the sun grew lower in the sky these caught the light and shimmered.

This evening I’ve gone upmarket. You can only have so much Formula 1 motel. So I’m doing B&B. Actually it’s lovely. Just to give you an idea of the plushness: there were fresh flower petals floating in the toilet bowl. My room is spacious and well-appointed. The towels are soft, the bed is high – and what luxury: there’s a fridge. I might yet recover that sense of bliss!

Today has been my last day in this astonishing country. I hope to visit Pretoria tomorrow morning. But in the afternoon I have to return the car to the airport and check in for my homeward flight. It's been a wonderful fortnight, but I'm ready to see my people again and to resume routines. Nearly.

Wednesday 1 September: The Big Five!

In one sense, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a hunters’ convention, after all, to single out the five most ferocious beasts in the African wild, and to declare them ‘the Big Five’: the elephant, the rhino, the lion, the leopard and the buffalo. Why the cheetah misses out, I’m not sure. Or the hippo. Or even the warthog, which looks pretty fearsome to me close up, I can tell you. Those upright tusks could do some serious damage. But the Big Five it is. And the answer is… yes I did see each and every one. Woo hoo! I was ludicrously and irrationally happy to sight the leopard to make up the set. Utterly irrational and hopelessly conditioned. But there we are.

It was another early start and another long day in the car. In fact, I’ve probably clocked up more hours behind the steering wheel in a single day today than ever before. I may only have covered 400 kms, but most of those I drove at slow speed inside the Kruger Park. I left the motel at 4.30am, got back at 4pm and spent much of the intervening 11.5 hours driving.

It took me an hour to reach the park gate. It should only have taken 45 mins, but in the dark I took a wrong turning. As it was, I got there just after dawn, and just a few minutes after opening time.

It took me all of two minutes to see a lion. Honestly. It was the first thing I saw. I’d barely got the car into 3rd gear inside the gates when I saw some congestion in the road ahead. I’ve become a reader of the signs in the last few days. The ideal situation is a clutch of about 4 cars: that means something of real interest is in sight. More than that becomes a scrum and means lines of sight get difficult. This was perfect: two safari vehicles (that’s the other hot tip: follow that safari driver – he knows what he’s doing!) and one other car. I drove up, followed the line of craning heads and camera lenses and kept on peering into the grass until I saw it: the head and shoulders of a stationary lion. For all I know there was a whole pack of them. The disadvantage of DIY safari, which is what I’ve been trying, is that an ordinary car sits low to the road. Purpose-built safari trucks have raised seating. All those who’d paid extra will at that moment have had their money’s worth: if there were 6 lions there, they’ll have seen them. I had to make do with that one head and shoulder view.

As you can imagine, at that moment I thought I’d be sighting lions all day. I hadn’t even seen a zebra at that point. I could be forgiven for thinking lions would be here there and everywhere. But as it happens, it was the only one I saw all day. I’ll put ‘see a pack of lions’ on the list of reasons to come back one day.

A few kms down the road, however, another treat: a great herd of buffalo (the other beast I had not seen in Pilanersberg) crossing the road. This, I think, is what you get if you arrive at dawn: the animals are on the move. I was a good hour and a half earlier in Kruger Park than I had been at Pilanersberg and I think it made a difference. The buffalo were soon followed by elephants and black rhino (the ones in Pilanersberg had been white). The herd of elephants took about 10 minutes to cross the road: adults and young, they just kept on and on and on coming. So within an hour of my arrival I’d seen 4 of the Big Five. A leopard didn’t show itself until 10.30, and I’d begun to content myself that ‘4 out of 5 isn’t bad’. As with the lion, I’d doubtless have missed it if it wasn’t for the traffic jam. But there it was, sleeping on the branch of a tree by the roadside. I know it was a leopard (and not a cheetah) because one of the other drivers helpfully told me so. He was a South African, so it came out ‘Leepid’. Besides, when I got to one of the rest-stops, it was marked on the ‘Today’s Sightings’ board. A good deal later I think I saw another one. That’s to say, I certainly saw another big cat. This one I couldn’t miss seeing: it was just sauntering along the verge of the road. But I couldn’t swear it was a leopard not a cheetah, because there was no-one to advise me.

Kruger Park, you see, is – even by South African standards – huge. If Pilanersberg is the size of an English county, Kruger (at 20000 sq kms) is the size of a small country (Israel, for example). So you can drive for miles without seeing another car. At one point, in just such a situation, I found myself driving towards a rhino, standing head on to me about 100m up the road. That’s when you wish there were more cars around. It was fine, of course. I slowed, but kept approaching, and it soon moved off into the bush.

There were fewer giraffe and zebra than I’d seen on Monday, but lots of different kinds of deer (or bok, I suppose). The bird life was also spectacular. I saw at least a couple of kinds of eagle, a colourful stork, some turkey-like creatures and no end of brightly coloured smaller birds. Beautiful.

But after 12noon things went quiet. I pottered about along a stretch of river for a while, sighting any number of hippo and a single croc, but eventually (when my bottled water wasn't just warm, but distinctly hot) had had enough of the unremitting heat and headed out.

It’s the herds I shall remember most, I think – more even than the pleasure of seeing those elusive cats. And I’d recommend it to anyone. For me, seeing these creatures in what really is to all intents and purposes ‘the wild’ (that's to say, seeing them behave as they would behave if you weren't there to watch them) ranks alongside snorkelling in tropical sea, whale-watching and swimming with dolphins. I realise I’m a bit of a glutton for these intensely sensory experiences of the natural world, but it truly does wow the soul. My heart will be uplifted with thanksgiving for days, I can tell. (Well, till my plane is delayed on Friday, I expect…). The Lord be praised.

That’s ‘game over’ for the time being. I shall do a different kind of sight-seeing tomorrow. There’s a fabulous canyon not far away and some waterfalls too, I believe. And they’ll take me at least a bit closer to Jo’burg, from where my plane flies back to the UK on Friday.