Plot 136, Walkerville

Before leaving South Africa, we had a couple days in Johannesburg. I wanted to take Eric to see where I had grown up, and have a little more time with my family.
We had planned to stay in a bed & breakfast in Melville. This is a pretty hip area with a lot of restaurants and art galleries. We arrived late in the afternoon, and the security guard showed us to our room and gave us a key. There was no information in the room about the area, or the facility. Things just felt strange. Perhaps after all the attention we'd gotten at the other hotels we were used to people being more inviting. Since we couldn't really pin-point what was making us uncomfortable, we figured we'd stay and see how things went.

The next day we went to Walkerville.





This is where I grew up. My parents bought this house a couple months after I was born. Over the years they added the second floor, and redid the thatch on the roof.



They built a small cottage next door for my maternal grandparents, put in a pool and tennis court, and my mom landscaped the full five acres. It was a great place to grow up.
There were no walls, wires, or major fences when we lived here. We just had a barbed-wire fence.

This house is not very large. The upstairs has two bedroom - one for my parents and the other I shared with my brother. There is only one bathroom downstairs. It is made out of brick, and has no ceiling blocking your view of the underside of the thatch.
We moved out when I was 13 because there was (and still is) no high school in the area and my parents didn't want to send me to boarding school. So, we moved to Johannesburg.

We took a drive to my primary school - Aloe Ridge



We spent a lot of time at this school outside of regular school hours. Since my mom was a teacher at the school, my brother and I would be here before school started, after school ended, and on those days that only teachers were there to prepare for the start of the next term. My parents would play tennis here on the weekends with a group of other families.



Since the area I grew up in is mostly rural, the school was the gathering point for the kids, so this is where I have most of my memories of interaction with other children.

For example:
One weekend, we took our bikes to the school (we couldn't ride bikes at home, because all the roads were dirt... ie there was no-where to ride them). My brother was going to teach me how to ride. I remember him setting me up at the top of the driveway facing towards the school. In my memory this was a steep downhill that went on forever! At the bottom were the steps that went into the administration building. As I approached those steps I realized I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know where the brakes were, nor how to steer... so I hit them. Yip, over the handlebars.
Looking at that drive in 2009 was one of those feelings where I just couldn't believe how short and not steep it was!



The urban sprawl and development of Johannesburg seems to have not reached Walkerville yet.
The shopping center is still the same (well, there was another one across the street that wasn't there in the 1970's).





This part of the shopping center used to be the post office and switchboard. When I was a kid, we didn't have our own telephone lines out here in the country. Instead, you would have to ring up the switchboard on one of these and ask to be patched through to Johannesburg.

I'm glad we made this trip to Walkerville. It's good to go back to your roots and make sure you know where you come from. It was also really nice to show all of this to someone who knows me in America.

LISTS

So, I'm a planner... you probably know that...
but I did not do a good job planning for the walking in the bushveld.
In case you are on your way, here are some things I had and was grateful for, and some things I didn't have and wished I had thought to take on my trip.

Walking Safari Packing List

HAD:

● Sunblock
● Lip protection
● SmartWool socks
● Tank tops
● Trail-runner sneakers
- these were fine, and I can't say that I would have preferred hiking boots. It was very wet in the morning from dew, and maybe gore.tex would have been better. The water was not an issue thanks to the SmartWool, and the sneakers dried out in the afternoon so were ready for the next day.


WISHED I'D HAD:

● WOMAN's long-sleeve khaki shirt
- Apparently brown attracts the flies, and I completely did not think about what I'd be wearing, so ended up borrowing this shirt from Eric.

● GATORS.
- Boy, I feel stupid for forgetting these


● Camelbak
- I had my bottle, but the pack would have been easier

● NUUN
- WISHED I'd had some of these!

● Brim hat
- I got a suede-breezy Rogue on the way home, but wished I'd had it during the hiking. I used a baseball cap, and they are not the best sunprotection for ears.

(nice hat)

And since this is a post about LISTS, here is all the other stuff (besides the basics, like, underwear and toothbrushes) for the two weeks, and four different environments: Wedding, Diving, Safari, and general summer.

This is my suitcase/bag (well, I have an older version).

CLOTHES
Baseball hat
Board shorts
Fleece
Flip flops
Jeans (wore only on plane)
Sarong
Shorts
Skirts
Sneakers (wore on plane)
Sun dresses
Swimsuits
T-shirts
Tank tops

MEDICATION
Ibuprofen
Immodium
Peptobismal
Tylenol

General antibiotics

TOILETRIES
Aloe gel for sunburn (needed more)
Deet (life saver)
Dr Bronners
Hand Sanitizer
Sunblock
Wipes

OTHER
20hrs of entertainment (flight planning)
Books (barely read)
Car charger (USB car adapter to charge both iPhones and Blackberry)
Daypack (flight carry-on)
Flashlight
Headphones (didn’t use)
Kipling pouch
Maps
PADI and DAN cards
Passports (scanned and emailed the picture page to myself before leaving)
Pen
Presents for hosts and wedding couple
Printed directions to all locations
Power converter (used two of these. I love them because you can’t lose the adapters)
Sunglasses
Suunto D6 dive computer
Travel candle (didn’t use)
Travel tide (didn’t use)
Tweezers (didn’t use)

DIVE GEAR
Packed in this Akona bag:
7mil wetsuits
Booties
Snorkels
Masks
Fins

Moving Pictures

Here are some of the videos we took of our animal experiences.

Day 1 of walking, headed back to the camp in drizzle, Rangers were tracking a buffalo... and they came up right on him.
He was not happy! and became a aggressive.
Right when we arrived at Plains Camp, Bernard made it clear:
When the animals start running, head behind a tree!
...so we did.
Bernard and James worked on scaring off the buffalo, and it took some effort. They were concerned that he wasn't responding. They got him to move around so that he was downwind of us, and then he realized he should just run away.




Here is a bit of video of a Rhino who was not too happy about the big unrecognizable thing (our truck) in the road.




On the first day at Kruger, we set out early to a dead hippo in the trees, just off the road. By this time it was a vulture and hyena feast. We noticed some interesting activity going on with the hyenas, and spent some time trying to figure it out. At first we thought it was some mating aggression, but then we realized it was dominance of one clan over the intruding member of another clan. Marieka is explaining to us how hyena work.




This is the fighting tortoises!! It was the highlight of the day, and we told all the other rangers from the Rhino Post about it. Bernard and James couldn't believe that we were so lucky to catch this... they said that in their 30+ years of experience, they had never seen two tortoises fighting! It was very funny and we spent a long time watching!




Just a personal record of the tent at Plains Camp. The architecture was amazing! The basin and shower were very creative, and the whole look really completed that Imperialist Colonial Explorer look and feel!

The Bushveld

The last stop on our road trip was the Kruger National Park.
We stayed at the Rhino Post Lodge for one night, and at the Plains Camp for three.
The Rhino Post (B) is a concession northeast of Skukuza (A). And again, we were the only people staying for the first 3 nights.


(Link to Google Maps)

It's really difficult to write something concise about this experience because every moment was so amazing; from the lightning and thunder one night on the plain to the architecture of the accommodations, everything is worthy of description.

(Gabion for the walls at Rhino Post - such a harsh construction style that is turned into something straight and soft by tying it into the raw wood and canvas of the other walls.)


(The detail of the wall hanging above, for my Mom and Aunt.)


(The lounge.)


(The wine room.)


(The view from the Rhino Post deck that overlooks the river.)

The way Rhino Post and Plains Camp organize your day, is that you are up at sunrise for a drive (if you're staying in the lodge) or a walk (if you're staying at the camp). You come back at around 10:30 am for brunch, and then you take a rest until 3:00pm. After some high tea, you head out for a drive that includes "sundowners" somewhere interesting at sunset, and then you get a taste of the night at the game reserve as you drive back to camp.


(One-eye staring us down.)

This schedule really works to give you the most of the experience.



During our drives, we saw pretty much everything that you would want to see.
There had been a lot of rain, and the bushveld was green. There were lots of babies everywhere...


Impala


Elephants


Baboons


Giraffe


Rhino


I have never walked in the game reserve before, and it was on my "life list." We went with a lead ranger, Bernard, and a "backup rifle," James.


(James was ALWAYS right behind Bernard.)


(Bernard)

Each day on our walk we learned something about how the animals live. This really added a depth to what you look at when you are in the bush. Instead of seeing trees and growth as obstacles, you realize that there are trails and tracks and clues. We learned about how male white rhinos "toilet", stomp around in it, and then walk the perimeter of their territory. I would never have given these "mud piles" a second thought before.



Something else I realized was that I started feeling like I'd seen much more than we had because seeing the EVIDENCE had given me the impression of actually seeing. This must be my training as an archaeologist. You don't ever see the people you study, you just see their evidence. With that said, we saw porcupine (the dug-up half eaten bulb of a lily), and the rare and elusive black rhino (their dung has sticks because they are browsers, and they use the same "toilet" as the white rhinos, who are grazers).
:-)

Our daily walks were mostly peaceful with snack breaks at picturesque spots.

But each day, our rangers tracked one of The Big Five. On day 1 we had a fun interaction with a buffalo (more on that tomorrow).


On day 2 we spent a long time following a rhino mom and her baby. When we finally came upon them, we were SO close!


On day 3, the last day, we saw two elephants.

(can you see it in the back?)

I was nervous the first day out walking, but after about an hour of seeing nothing but trees, bushes, and bugs, I realized that Bernard was in control of what we were doing, and my fear went away. By the time we did see some animals, I knew that we had approached them from the angle he wanted, and he knew exactly what he was doing.



In the afternoons it was luxurious to nap in the tents, sit under a tree and look at the baboons and wildebeest cross the plain, and just enjoy the serene sounds of the bush in the heat of the day.

(After the "African Safari" theme of the Lodge, the "Imperialist Colonial Explorer Camp" theme of Plains Camp was a little shocking at first. I couldn't help but laugh every time I walked into this lounge.)

Since we were the only guests for two of the nights, Bernard joined us for dinner. It was great listening to his stories about growing up and living in the area, and the work it takes to become a lead ranger. We felt so far away from work, TV, computers, and the complicated technology of our Phones. We really enjoyed this experience and would highly recommend.



There are obviously, a LOT more pictures, so let me know if you want to see more.
Next post will be some videos.

one last thing...
Here's a photo of the skin, belt and knife of Harry Wolhuter. One of the resonating stories of life in early Africa.

A Moment of Peace

We planned this trip with a day off in Swaziland.


(Link to Google Maps)

Diving always wipes you out, and with all the wedding and driving, we hadn't really had time to get over the jetlag. So this day was intended as a rest day before heading to the Kruger National Park.

We had another interesting drive through the Kingdom of Swaziland...






One of the groups of people on our dive boat were from Swaziland, and they were telling us about this big dam project on the Komati river where you could drive over the huge dam. Having just moved away from Arizona and the progress of the Hoover Dam Bypass, we had to swing by and see Maguga Dam.



Phophanyane (pronounced Popanyanee) Falls is a nature reserve in the middle of tree farms (grown for paper).


Its a progressive waterfall where they have made some pools along its route.



(doesn't look real, does it?)

Adding to the peacefulness was the fact that we were the only guests for the night and day we were there.

(gateway to our room)

It was rainy the whole time, and I decided that meant I should not move off of the bed.



Eric was more energetic and went for a walk.


On the first morning, we heard this sound like someone scratching their butt, coming from the roof. We went outside to find that we had neighbors.


They entertained us all morning by chasing each other around the swimming-pool deck.




Very serene, very peaceful, the stop definitely prepared us for what came next...


(Just after driving over the border between Swaziland and South Africa)