Now here is a subject that interests me greatly. I cannot pretend to be a scholar or an expert on the subject, but i have certainly spent a great deal of time watching and studying animals, birds and humans for that matter, many thousands of hours in fact, so it is safe to say that ethology and ethnology are a hobby of mine. Whether it be in the bush, the garden at home (where i run a ‘bird’ restaurant), out on the streets, at work, or at various social gatherings…anywhere and everywhere in fact
I have read quite a few books along the way, some of them specifically focused on Ethology, most of them just wildlife books with observations and remarks regarding the behaviour of different species. Regarding human behaviour, i have not read so many books but every day i read various reports in the newspapers and magazines, which although i largely consider to be comics to varying degrees are nonetheless a constant education when learning about the ways of man.

A very complex subject to say the least!!

I think my first observation overall, with regards to what i have read is that no living creature can be categorically typecast when it comes to talking about their personalities or behaviour. Of course most species do have certain habits and traits, particularly with regard to habitat and diet, but even that cannot be 100% cast in stone. After all is said and done, if a creature is hungry enough they will eat most things, and although many species are just not found in certain areas, should they happen to get caught in unusual circumstances they will adapt to survive.
When it comes to personalities, all warm blooded creatures, just like humans, can think, react and behave differently when faced with different situations, whether it be everyday life or special or unusual circumstances.
Just like humans, every bird and animal species contain individuals who are exactly that, individuals. Happy, grumpy, sad, in love, out of love, lonely, gregarious, piggish, picky, cautious, conceited, down to earth, difficult, easy going, shy, boisterous, lazy, energetic. I honestly believe that every trait one can attribute to humans can also be attributed to animals. They have good days and bad days, and quite often for no apparent reason.
Habits too cannot be completely generalised across any particular species. For example, we all know that LEOPARDS are essentially shy and secretive nocturnal animals. Some books will go as far as to say that you will never see them at any other time. That is absolutely not true. I have seen them at all times of the day, hunting and on the move. If they are hungry enough they will hunt. If they are sleeping up a tree and a prey presents themselves on a platter so to speak they will go for it, even if they are not particularly starving hungry. Once again, depending on their character, and probably age and experience, they can be totally opportunistic.

One time, in the absolute heat of a scorching hot summers day in the early afternoon i was up on the Shingwedzi, (and believe me it can get just about ,as hot as it can get up there) when i spotted two leopards crossing a very dry section of the river. I was plotted up in complete shade on the river bank reading and writing and waiting for things to cool down a bit, even the birds were taking a siesta. The temperatures down on the dry river bed must of been absolutely blistering. Yet these two leopards, side by side, strolled down onto the sand, walked up the dry riverbed for about 100 metres and then up the far bank. As they walked along the riverbed the heat rising from the sand was so intense it created an illusion that almost made them look like they were wading through water.
They were not hunting, but clearly going somewhere with intent and focus. There was a pontoon another couple of hundred metres upriver so i drove up and crossed over when they went up the far bank and found them again. They were not hurried, nor were they looking around or deviating in their course in any way. They were just plodding on at a steady pace pedantically heading for some specific location. Where, i cannot say, i lost them when they passed a fairly wide open plain and entered a slightly thicker bush line after following them for about a kilometre . For as far as i could see, there were no large trees, rocky outcrops or particularly dense thickets that they could have been heading for. It was a great sighting and the last thing i expected to see at that time of day. From the moment i first saw them to the time i lost them was over 45 minutes, and in all that time they barely stopped or changed their pace at all, even as they climbed the river bank.They knew i was there, probably when they first walked down onto the sand of the riverbed, but for sure once i followed them over the river, and it did not bother them in the slightest.

Having said all that about different characters within different species, they do of course have basic habits and traits that they live by which are largely governed by their surroundings. Also the case with humans from different parts of the world is it not?
Leopards are solitary creatures for most of their lives, the only time one is liable to see them with others is when they are mating, or when a mother has cubs, or if their territories overlap and they are fighting which would invariably be male against male or female against female.

After mating, the male will leave the female to it. Generally she will go off and have the cubs in some secluded cave, hole in the ground or hollow tree, although the mother will probably move them around while they are still very young to avoid other predators. She will then stay with the cubs or cub as a family for up to 2 years, teaching them the ways of the bush and how to hunt and survive. Thereafter the young will go off to find their own territory and other leopards to mate with when the females are in oestrous.

Of all the big cats, their hunting and stalking skills are probably unsurpassed by any other breed. Depending on the surrounds and vegetation they will more often than not either stalk the prey until they are just a few metres away, lay in ambush until the unwitting ‘supper’ is a leap away, or lie up in a tree and drop down onto their prey as it passes underneath them..
They are versatile though, and clever. I have seen infra red video footage of a fully grown leopard, who, in the darkness of a moonless night stalked a couple of impala with virtually no cover until the gap between them was less than 10 metres. The impala, who apart from poor night sight, have amazing powers of perception, were none the wiser for the leopards presence whose night sight is clearly excellant. Even more incredible is that the two impala were part of a large herd that were dotted around, yet none of them were aware of the leopard whilst it was creeping up to its intended supper. At that point the leopard then proceeded to start tapping the ground with its paw, thereby letting the impala know that something was afoot (excuse the pun)and making them panic. Not being able to see, but knowing that a leopard was close they became virtually like rabbits caught in the headlights of a car and were then easy prey for the cat.

The tapping of the paw on the ground shows incredible awareness and perception, and again just goes to show that no animal can be absolutely and utterly typecast as they will and can adapt to all situations.

I would say that the favourite food of leopards, based on my own observations and experience is probably baboon, small buck and warthog. However, their diet as a whole takes in virtually anything from insects and mice to birds, fish and reptiles. I doubt if anything is actually safe from a hungry leopard. They will take livestock, and probably eat more other predators on the whole than any other cat, including other cats, but in particular dogs and jackals.

I have recently seen a couple of stunning photographs of a male leopard stalking and taking a crocodile! It was twice the length of the leopard but judging by the pics it did not stand a chance. The last picture in the sequence showed the leopard dragging the croc off into the reeds. I wonder if he took the kill up a tree…that would of made for an interesting picture!!

Generally speaking man-eating leopards are seldom heard of, and then, only when a leopard has grown old and is unable to hunt properly, mankind being by far the easiest of prey for carnivores. I guess it is only the inbred instinct of carnivores, borne over the last few centuries, that lets them know that with our weapons we are a very dangerous breed. However, just a few years ago in the Kruger, a game ranger was taking a group of tourist out for an evening drive. Still daylight they had stopped on a bridge in the south of the park for a sundowner and smoke break. The ranger who had his rifle with him was sitting slightly away from the group on the railings with his back to the bush. All the group heard whilst they were chattering away was the clatter of the rangers rifle as it fell to the ground. You can imagine how quickly they turned around, but no sign of the ranger and no noise. What was later discovered to be a very old leopard had taken the ranger with such ferocity and speed that he had him in the bush and was dragging him off even before the group had turned around! I have read quite a few of the books written by the old colonial white hunters who, without exception referred to a man eating leopard as the ‘yellow flash’

Surprisingly leopards are probably second only to hyaenas when it comes to eating rotten meat , and will feed on a stored carcass for several days, also, if the need arises they have no qualms about scavenging.

Their strength is amazing, and is seen clearly when carrying dead animals weighing more than themselves up the trunks of vertical tress with no branches for leverage, often the lowest branches can be several metres from the ground.

As i have mentioned already i have been fortunate enough to have seen leopards on many occasions in various situations, with kills, with cubs, mating and stalking prey. I have only seen one leopard kill actually happen though which was totally unexpected and an absolute luck. I had pulled up in a remote spot to watch a herd of impala whilst having some coffee early one morning, i think i may of distracted the impala because within less than a minute a leopard leapt out of some long grass and took a young impala that was probably less than ten metres away from where the leopard had been hiding.In fact i barely saw it, it was more a case of hearing it and then turning to see the result! It was over in a flash and the leopard immediately dragged the kill off into a thicket from where it had come. Believe me that was fortunate, i know some people who have been visiting the Kruger park for over twenty years and have never once seen leopard!
Most of my sightings have been from the safety of my landy, or in the past various cars, but i did have one confrontation where i came close to being in trouble. I was nearing the end of a six week safari and was about 100 klicks south of Zimbabwe and about 50 klicks or less west of Mozambique. I remember that i was a bit frustrated because i had not seen one leopard the whole trip. It had been a very eventful trip in many ways, but whenever i go on safari i always have it in my mind to find leopards, it just kinda seems to make safari’s whole somehow. I had come close to giving up a week before and was in the mood to go back to Joburg for a party that i knew was happening, but something made me stay. In fact i remember what it was, i had actually started to head for home after having lunching at satara when i came across a family of warthogs that spent over half an hour grazing around my car. Another guy in an old landy rocked up and was getting some great footage on some very fancy video equipment that he had. We chatted afterwards and he was saying that the warthog family was exactly what he had been looking for to put into a documentary he was making. Somehow that reinspired me and i turned round and instinctively headed north.

A couple of days later i arrived at an old favourite waterhole that i have spent a lot of time at. At that time there was an old ‘windmill’ driven waterpump there to replenish the water. I pulled up beside it and walked over intending to climb up and have a scout around. I was busting for a leak though so stood by a bush doing just that as i looked around. No sooner had i started when i heard a rustling about thirty metres off to my left coming from the lower branches of an acacia tree. As i turned and focused on the tree i noticed movement in the lowest bough and saw a leopards tail hanging down but curled and swishing from side to side!! Whoa…my heart instantly started pounding…i knew that the leopard could get to me in just a couple of seconds and i was a good ten paces from the car!!

So there i am, wearing only a pair of shorts peeing into bush with a leopard staring at me from the lower branch of a tree just metres away!!…i swear that for a second the world stood still for me, all i could hear was my piddle and the tail of the leopard swishing and once i had focused on the tail i could see her staring at me through the foliage of the branch she was on. My face would of made a classic photo at that point.

Suddenly a shape dropped out of the tree and i thought i was truly in deep shit when i realised that it was a dead Civet that the leopard must of just killed, i just noticed the banded tail as it fell. I stood stock still as the leopard followed the Civet with a surprisingly loud thud (maybe it was just that my senses were extremely acute by that stage). Fortunately the leopard picked up the civet and waltzed off into the bush that led down to a dried river bed, my reading of the situation was that she was pissed at me for disturbing lunch, but was not going to distracted.
I think i kinda glided back to the car in a split second!! And once i got over my initial shock and anger with myself for not checking the area properly before i got out of the car i tried to drive into the bush for a picture. No chance, i was in a Honda Ballade and within a few metres my rear wheel jammed up against a small broken tree stump hidden by the undergrowth. Hell!! I was kicking myself, if only i had just checked the tree first i would of probably been able to park up directly under the leopard which was only about ten or twelve feet off the ground on a fairly thick bough, and gotten some fantastic pictures, especially as the civet was fresh and an attractive animal in its own right. The pics would of been brilliant.
I drove back to the windmill and parked right beside it and climbed up. I saw the leopard again in the river bed amongst some reeds. She was a beautiful specimen, young female, maybe about two or three years old. She had the civet at her feet and was looking up at me on top of the windmill, quite disgusted with my presence. At that point she picked the civet up again and walked off out of my sight.
Six weeks looking for her and i completely screw it up!!…still, it was a memorable moment, one that i shall never forgot even if i did not get any pics.

Going back to baboons, it would seem as though the two species particularly hate each other in much the same way that the lion generally hates the hyaenas. I do believe that a leopard will kill baboons for any reason and at any opportunity. Possibly, because baboons can climb equally as well as leopards and better, and therefore are often to be found in trees. Also a troop of baboons with a few experienced old boys amongst them will also fight back and additionally, will kill the leopard cubs whenever they get a chance (as they would the cubs of any large predator).

There is an old Zulu story that says in days gone by the leopard and baboons were once friends. One day a female leopard chased a hare until the hare scrambled into an anthill for refuge. Leopard asked baboon to stand guard over the entrance of the anthill while she went to the river for a drink. Being a hot day however the baboon dozed off and the hare, hearing the baboon snoring made a run for it and escaped.
On her return the leopard saw the hare disappearing in to the nearby bush, rushed up to the baboon and slapped him awake roaring “O worthless monkey” (‘monkey’ being the biggest insult a baboon could receive) “ you have let my lunch escape you worthless ape”. The leopard stood there, eyes blazing with anger as the baboon backed off in fear. Not finished lambasting the baboon the leopard grabbed the baboon with its claws meaning to scold him further. The feel of the flesh of the baboon in her claws made her stop in mid sentence, her eyes gleamed and she licked her lips as she thought for a second. “You have lost me my lunch you stupid monkey and now i don’t care about our friendship anymore and i am going to eat you instead”
“Eek!” screamed baboon, “”wait, oh beautiful one! Let me at least pay for my crime in a proper way. Did you not know, most lovely of beasts, that the best way to kill a baboon is to drop it from a great height? We break into many pieces which makes for a lovely and tender easy meal for you. Leopard paused, surprised, as she thought about what baboon was telling her. Seeing leopards hesitation the baboon carried on babbling, not giving leopard a chance to think too much, “just throw me up into this tree and you will see me fall and split open like a ripe fruit”.
Leopard could not resist the thought so she tossed the baboon high up into the tree.
In a flash the baboon caught hold of the branches and climbed high up into the flimsy thorn branches at the top of the tree. He started to laugh and cackle, screaming loud abuse at leopard for ages at the top of his voice, even daring to call her a mangy cat, which really enraged leopard. Other animals, attracted by the commotion, started to gather round and leopards pride could not stand it, and she stormed off into the bush with her tail lashing with fury.
Leopard never ever forgot the insults from baboon, nor how she had been tricked, and she never forgave. To this day, The legend says, the leopard hunts the baboon in preference to all other food, and the baboon screams in fear at the mere sight of his deadliest enemy.
There is also an old Ndebele story about why a leopard hides its food up a tree. In days gone by the leopard, jackal and hyaena also used to be the best of friends, and whenever leopards made a kill they always left some for their friends the jackal and hyaena.
One day the leopard was not feeling so good so she asked the jackal to hunt some food for a change. The lazy jackal made an excuse saying he was too tired, so the leopard asked the hyaena to catch some food. The hyaena also said he could not because he had a sore foot. The leopard roared with anger saying that she thought they were her friends but in fact they were a no-good lazy pair and in future she would never leave them with any of her leftovers.
True to her word, ever since that day the leopard never leaves any food for her old friends and always put the kill high up into the tree out of the jackal and hyaenas reach. They have become largely scavengers now, eating any old scraps they can get. A sad day for them when they lost the leopard’s friendship!!
(Zulu and Ndebele stories compiled into when hippo was hairy by Nick Greaves)

Sitting here now looking at this blank page i really wish i had kept a diary of all my bush experiences from day 1…but i didn’t, i didn’t keep any sort of diary or record but the memories are so good that to a large extent they are still as fresh as a daisy in my mind and i should not have any problems remembering and writing them down .

From here on in i will have great fun logging all my safaris and bush experiences even if no one but me ever reads them. They say that the secret of writing is to practise like everything else, which is good as i have plenty of things that i want to write about to give me that practise.

I first came to South Africa in June 1981, it seems like an eternity ago now that i have written the date, but in many ways, it seems like yesterday. It is another story altogether as to why and how i came to be here, i was 25 and as wild and free as they come. I certainly didn’t come for the bush even though i had known and enjoyed the wilderness in other parts of the world, in fact i did not really discover it for several months after i arrived. I knew all about the night life though!!…wine, woman and song. Life experience and adventure is all i was really interested in…maybe i wil tell those stories later, i certainly had it all.

I guess it must of been towards the end of 1981 when i first experienced the true African bush, although during my early days in Johannesburg i had a few trips into the countryside in the surrounding areas where i had my first taste… baboons, snakes, crocodiles, buck and other wildlife as well as, of course, the rough, rugged but exquisitely beautiful countryside.

I was on a road trip to a place called Phalaborwa, far in the North East of the country on the edge of the Kruger park and nestling into the surrounding bush. I used to love driving up there, through the Drakensburg , places like Long Toms Pass, the Blyde River canyon, Pilgrims Rest, Gods Window, all long way round routes, but it really didn’t matter then, everything was exciting and new and i wanted to see it all. Whether i took the Northern route through the Magoebaskloof and the sub tropics of Tzaneen or the Eastern way over or around the mountains and up through the bush lands of Hoedspruit, it was always a fantastic trip, and i made it many times in my first few years in the country.

I often stayed in a place called Hippo Pools in Mica which is about 50 Klicks south of Phalaborwa, either camping on the banks of the Olifants River or staying in one of the small old rondavels that were available at about R2.00 per night!!…in those days about 65 English pence and at todays rate about 15 pence!! Seems strange when you cannot even buy one egg for that amount today.

Hippo pools is a wonderful spot, far off the road which in itself was just a quiet bush road in the middle of nowhere, one travelled for several klicks along a bumpy dirt track that was heavily corrugated by wind and rain and twisted and turned every which way in order to reach the old homestead, talk about Out of Africa.

A lovely old Afrikaanse couple lived there, seemingly stuck in a time warp, especially to a London boy like me. They were tough old folk, make no mistake. One night the old man shot at me with his rifle because i was taking some firewood from his stack around midnight, i am not sure to this day whether he really thought i was a thief or whether he knew it was me and was just giving me a fright. Whichever it was, I’ll never forget the sound of that bullet zipping over past my ear!!…i was camping down on the river bank that night and woodless, i legged it back to camp pretty rapidly i can tell you. I had a couple of ‘mild’ run ins with them over a three year period.

It was a gorgeous spot though, although i say they lived in a time warp, they had put in a huge pool which was well maintained and perfect for the temperatures up there. Even in the late evening it was a beautiful place to have the chance to swim or just get wet. Underneath the syringa trees outside their stoop the old lady would serve homemade lemonade or tea, and often i would sit there drinking lemonade playing with the ‘resident’ monkeys. Naughty as hell, you had no chance eating there as the buggars would pinch the food off the plate at the slightest opportunity.

On one of my very first trips there i was staying in one of the rondavels. One night there was a hell of a commotion outside in the early hours and i didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. It was quite scary actually, it could been anything from several bandits trying to break in to a herd of elephants stomping around. Peering through the corner of the back window i came virtually face to face with a bloody great Hippo!! Those things are huge at any distance but close up they take your breath away, especially if you are crouched down looking through a crack in the curtain and the thing is just a couple of metres away and higher than you with the moon in the background shining behind its head. I got the feeling that it could of just as easily barged into the rondavel through the wall. After a while and a lot of bashing about eating the old ladies flowers and plants he stomped off. I say stomped because unlike an elephant which are virtually silent when they walk, a hippo’s footstep can make the ground seem to tremble, especially in the dead of night. In the morning i discovered that he had ‘pebble dashed’ the wall where i had been sleeping, thats pretty close to nature i would say.

Many nights when we were camping ( I was always there with a sales team, normally about 5 or 6 and occasionally up to 25 strong) we would sit up long into the night around a camp fire which we would cook our supper on before proceeding to get pretty well sloshed, we would end up crashing out around the fire and sleep under a blanket of stars. One of the nicest things about night time in the bush is that there is no light and therefore the stars are clearly visible, millions of them. It is visually beautiful and spiritually comforting , a fantastic way to sleep and to wake up. Also, it was so hot up there for most of the year that after a night of drinking, waking up in a tent with the sun on it, even as early as 6.00am, was stifling and gave one the most horrendous babbalas. Fantastic nights, and i was always confident that the fire would keep the hippos and other creatures away….i had read it in a book somewhere! There was one night when we heard a hippo a little bit too close for comfort, but then again we never actually saw it, just heard it in the riverine bush, and the sound can travel quite far at night.

On most days i walked along the river for a klick or two, Often, to get rid of the hangover. About 500 metres upriver from where we camped were the actual pools in the river where the hippos used to congregate. Many times i would be on the bank above them watching them lazing about, wallowing, yawning, play fighting, snorting and generally splashing around, especially if it was early in the morning or late in the afternoon. There was a giant fig tree which i used to shimmy up a couple of metres to give me a grandstand seat. To be honest, if i had known then what i know now about hippos i probably would not of gotten so close, i suppose that in a straight line i was just about ten metres from them.

I loved those walks though, i knew there was an element of danger which was an added attraction turning every step into an adventure into unknown for me, especially as some of the Rhodesian people who were sometimes with me were either very nervous or did not come at all. Mind you, once again, i didn’t really know. I often saw buck, snakes and baboons close by and the birdlife was fantastic. It was only when i was chatting to the old Afrikaanse guy one morning when he told me some of his stories, including a couple about the ‘resident’ leopard, that i really realised the potential danger. I knew there were none of the other ‘big five ‘ though, and i was not really put off. As far as i knew, and as far as i still know today, the only time a leopard is going to attack a human is if they are very old and unable to hunt properly…unless of course one was unlucky enough to stumble onto a mother with cubs. Somehow, i always knew i was ok, but there were a couple of times when i was out walking that i felt the hackles rise on my neck and i would turn around and head back…who knows!!

The first time i really felt danger was early one morning when i had gone out fishing.

It was one of the early trips and we were in the rondavel, a motley crew i had. Quinton, a cool dude surfer who always wished he was in Jeffreys Bay, Virginia from Hong Kong who was a trained nurse who had been brought up in a true British colonial household over there and was breaking out to experience freedom, Bill, a ‘hooray henry’ antique book dealer from London who was running away from fraud charges, always with a blazer on and smoking cigarettes through a cigarette holder, And Paul, a Yorkshire lad, who was doing a ‘gap’ year or three.

Anyway, i think they had sat up late around the fire but it was one of those rare nights when i had slept early, early being before 1am back then (nowadays it can be as early as 7.30 and rarely later than 10pm during the week) I had woken at dawn and decided that i would impress everyone with my fishing skills, I did a hell of a lot of fishing whilst growing up in England. I didn’t have a rod, just a line and hook and some bread for bait. The river was flowing quite strongly and i stepped out onto some low lying smooth rocks that were just a metre or so off the bank, baited up and threw my line out. I kept getting ‘bites’ every time i cast but was beginning to wonder what was going on as i all i ever got was an empty hook with no sign of even being close when i struck. It didn’t really matter though, it was a stunning morning as the sun rose downriver, one of those sunrises that has always stuck in my mind. At one point a couple of hippos about 40 or 50 metres off to my right surfaced out of the water all of a sudden, play fighting with cavernous mouths wide open and jousting and pushing each other. It truly made me jump as i did not even realise they were there, but i was just in awe at this African experience i was having.

Shortly after that i finally hooked what turned out to be a yellow fish. It felt huge as i pulled it in against the current and the line bit into my hand, but there was no way i was going to let this baby go…here was breakfast and if i didn’t get him landed no one was going to believe me. It seemed to take a while but eventually i got him and although i was not able to weigh it, i figure it must of been well over a kilogram, maybe two. The thing was flipping about all over the rock and i was battling to get to grips with it in my bare feet when i suddenly realised there was a crocodile just a metre away watching me from a couple of inches under the surface!! Well, after all my scrabbling around with this fish i just grabbed it in one hand throwing it high onto the bank and simultaneously leapt back onto the shore putting the rock i had been standing on between me and the croc…must of been adrenalin i guess as the heart was truly pumping.

When i looked back the croc had gone so i guess i had made him jump too. It was not particularly big, but knowing crocs a bit better now it must of been four or five feet long i guess. It was at that point that i understood the danger of the bush, but to be honest i loved it. I figured that he had been after the fish, but even so, it made me think.

So off i trotted back to the rondavel with the fish still flapping about whilst hanging from the hook, it had some teeth which i was not too sure about!! And i had no disgorgers to unhook it… and of course it was the easiest way to carry it for a 100 metres or so. Everyone was suitably impressed when i woke them all as i stood in the doorway, beaming, with this big fish dangling from my line. I took great delight winding Quinton up especially as he had mocked me the night before saying i was never going to catch anything.

My fish preparation skills were virtually nonexistent at that stage so Quinton cleaned and gutted it while i got the fire going for a fresh fish breakfast. It was Wonderful experience to eat my first ‘African’ fish al fresco, freshly caught and cooked on an open fire but in truth i seem to remember that it did not taste so great…a bit ‘muddy’ i think.

After that i bought a rod and all the tackle which remained always in the back of the cab throughout all my travels from there on in. Actually i cannot remember catching anything else worth mentioning at that spot, although in many other places throughout SA i caught some real beauties, including my biggest ever freshwater fish which was a 44inch Barbel in the Vaal River one night, but thats another story.

There was one other time which was quite comical and a similar story, also on the Olifants at hippo Pools. It was late afternoon, a bit further downstream and i had dropped everyone one off at work and had gone back to try to catch supper and prepare the fire and braai for later. This time i had a rod out in a fairly calm stretch of water near the far bank and i had the Kombi parked on top of the bank above where i was sitting with the rod perched on rod rests. I had gone up to the motor for something when i turned and noticed another croc, but this time he was bigger and he was clearly stalking me as he was facing the bank, a metre or so out just below the water right in front of the rod. To be honest, that was largely the end of me fishing alone in known croc infested waters and i had to sit in the car for seemingly ages before i dared go down to get the rod and tackle. Even then, i virtually just threw it all on top of the bank as i kind of rushed down and rushed back up again with both eyes on the water in front of me and heart pumping. I had to sit in the cab afterwards , have a cigarette and calm down before i could pack all the kit up properly.

Over a three year period or more i probably spent a good four months camping on the bank of the Olifants at that spot so there were several confrontations and sightings of strange looking insects, spiders, reptiles, and different creatures, there and on my travels around the whole area. I went back a few times in the late eighties but by then they had built chalets along the river bank. They were nice and blended in reasonably well, but for me it destroyed the romanticism of the place and i have never been back. I am very grateful that i was able to enjoy it when i did, at a time when it was virtually as it had been for centuries.