Innehållsförteckning för January 2019 från go!

Feeling broody? Q TINA VISSER writes: I took this photo on a weekend breakaway in the Stanger area. This is an African hoopoe feeding a greater honeyguide. Is this common behaviour? A Bird expert JOHAN VAN ROOYEN says: Honeyguides are brood parasites and lay their eggs in a variety of host nests. According to Roberts VII, greater honeyguides prefer hosts that nest in holes in the ground or in trees, like hoopoes, wood-hoopoes, kingfishers, woodpeckers and bee-eaters. If the hoopoe hatches the egg, it considers the chick its own and rears it. Built to impress Q HANS LINDE from Durbanville writes: There’s a weaver that nests in our backyard every year. This year he built a double-storey nest. Is this common? A Bird expert LUKAS NIEMAND says: This is a…

The bad news African penguins and West Coast rock lobster populations in South African waters are decreasing at an alarming rate, according to WWF South Africa’s 2018 report on the local ocean economy. The penguin population is threatened due to food shortages and the effect of climate change (the water is getting warmer and less salty and fish species along our coast are moving south); rock lobsters are declining due to illegal and unregulated fishing practices, and poor management of the fishing industry. The good news The numbers of both hake species found in our waters – deep-water hake and shallow-water hake – have strengthened and fishing is sustainable. The WWF SASSI programme to monitor and conserve these species seems to be paying dividends. Source: WWF South Africa 2018 Ocean…

As a child, I used to play in the veld and roam around the koppies directly opposite our house in Ruimsig, Johannesburg. I would come home just before dark covered in dirt, scratches and bruises. My brother Brent and I would make shelters in the trees and see how far we could explore each day. We were only 10 and 12, but that bit of veld was a wilderness to us. I attended the all-boys King Edward VII School (KES) and always dreamt of becoming a game ranger. But after school I got side-tracked – I became a personal trainer and managed a gym in Joburg. It was the “safe” option, I know now, looking back. It took a while, but I eventually realised I could combine my love for…

K-Way Nerolite Three-person Tent The Nerolite is a strong, streamlined tent that will survive a windstorm on the West Coast and a downpour in the Drakensberg. It packs down small and weighs 3 kg. The name is misleading – it’s better suited to a couple. (The two-person version, which weighs a kilogram less, is a good solo tent.) The groundsheet and flysheet are made from hard-wearing ripstop nylon and there’s a decent-sized vestibule in front for sweaty boots and backpacks. If it’s warm and dry, leave the flysheet off and sleep in a breathable mesh cocoon. Packed weight: 3 kg Dimensions: 210 cm (l) x 130 cm (w) x 100 cm (h), with a 100 cm vestibule R2 800 at capeunion mart.co.za Klymit Inertia X-frame Inflatable Mat This…

KZN SOUTH COAST GREENPOINT You’ll have a hard time finding a quiet beach on the KZN South Coast during peak season, but rock up to Greenpoint between the sleepy village of Clansthal and the holiday hub of Scottburgh and you’ll find a peaceful, empty strip of beach. Crocworld ( crocworld.co.za ) is a stone’s throw away – the kids will love it – or hire a stand-up-paddle board (GoSUP 071 705 8518) and cruise along the Mahlongwa River, which flows into the sea north of Scottburgh (pictured). Where? From Scottburgh, go north along the R102 and turn onto Greenpoint Drive. After about 600 m you’ll come to a small parking area on the left. Accommodation: There are a bunch of houses to hire in Clansthal. Visit…

JOHANNESBURG TRAMWAY NETWORK, CIRCA 1910 If you wanted to impress your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day in 1906, you would have taken her for a ride on the brand-new electric tram in Johannesburg. It was the first time that electric trams were used in the city; before 14 February all the tramcars had been horse-drawn. The new electric tram service ran from Market Square (pictured) to the railway bridge in Siemert Road. The first horse-drawn tramcar left Market Square in 1891. By 1893, there were about 18 km of tram routes. The service was limited to the town centre, Fordsburg, Braamfontein, Jeppe, Belgravia and Doornfontein. In the early 1900s, there were plans to implement streetcars powered by electricity, with an overhead trolley system to collect power from elevated wires. Work on…

GIVE YOUR KIDS WINGS For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved birds – I was probably the only child at school who did. Despite being teased about it, I wouldn’t dream of giving up birding. And let’s face it, with my surname I never stood a chance. Birding is a great family pastime. It’s intellectually empowering, it gets kids active, it provides a healthy form of escapism and it teaches us to respect the planet. But let’s be honest: Birds are small and fast and sometimes hard to see. Plus, looking through binoculars is a challenge for younger children. No matter – a birding trip will inevitably lead to all sorts of other escapades: You’ll stalk, scramble, crawl, climb, slip, jump and fall. You’ll use a torch to…

It’s almost time to join Toast Coetzer and Sophia van Taak on the road again. The fourth season of Weg Agterpaaie will air from January 2019 and this time our journalists will be travelling the length and breadth of the Free State. What happens on the back roads, in places like Bethulie, Lindley, Jacobsdal and Soutpan? Toast and Sophia want to show you the Free State beyond the N1 – the open landscapes and friendly people you won’t encounter on the highway. Viewers can look forward to learning more about the biggest grain silo complex in the southern hemisphere, a secret art gallery full of Pierneef paintings, jukskei, knitting and boeremusiek. You’ll see some show chickens and attend a livestock auction, fly in a glider, talk…

When you hike the Fish River Canyon in Namibia, you mostly follow the course of the river. On the fourth day, however, you can cut across some of the bends to save time and distance. Away from the water, it hits home that you’re in a desert. The sun seems hotter and you’re dwarfed by rock mountains and barren plains. It’s tough out there, but that’s why you hike: to be bowled over by nature. The Salt Rock tidal pool is right in front of the Salt Rock Caravan Park, only a few hundred metres up the coast from the town’s main beach. It’s one of the top tidal pools on the KZN coast and a great place to snorkel and swim. Pitch your tent and wake up to this…

Die Kloof, Montagu After you’ve wound between the crags of Cogmanskloof Pass on Route 62, a rock arch with an old English fort perched on top welcomes you to the town of Montagu. It might take a while to get through the pass thanks to the roadworks between Ashton and Montagu – you’ll be peckish by the time you arrive. As you pull into town from the Ashton side, you’ll see Die Kloof Padstal on the left – a haven for the hungry traveller. The menu is extensive, from breakfasts (R40 – R78) and sandwiches (R29 – R64) to light lunches like homemade pies (R64) and burgers (from R68), to substantial meals like pasta Alfredo (R80) and lamb curry (R118). Don’t be in a rush, as the menu warns: “We…

The familiar contours of a Lion matchbox; a little drawer filled with ammunition. It smells like cardboard, sulphur and trouser pocket. I give it a light shake, estimating there are about 15 matches remaining. The emptier a box of matches is, the more musical it becomes; like a rattle or a calabash. I take out a match and close the box again, then I strike it on the flint. For a moment I hold a miniature explosion in my cupped hand, then I lift the flame – like a fragile bird on a branch – to its nest: kindle built from dry grass and twigs that I scavenged around the campsite. This is my favourite kind of campfire: built on the ground. I cleared a circle using my velskoen having…

Night has fallen over Botswana. Only the Milky Way lights up the sky. Under a mosquito net, two newlyweds are asleep in the Kalahari veld, between the towns of Ghanzi and Kang. They’re not on their honeymoon. Willie and Annatjie de Graaff, along with a team of Bushmen workers, are herding cattle from farms in the Ghanzi district to the abattoirs in Lobatse, on the border with South Africa. It’s a trek of about 700km. The year is 1976 and their route follows two faint, sandy tracks. Trucks can’t drive here. A bellow pierces the quiet. It comes from the kraal where the cattle are being kept. Feet run over the sand and up to the mosquito net. “Lions, Willie! There are lions in the kraal!” It’s Xhim, the foreman.…

K-Way Kids Adventurer Sleeping Bag This cute polyester bag has a soft lining and a hollow-fibre filling. It has a tapered design with a cowl and it’s rated to 15° C – good for summer camping. And, at 170 cm long, it should last a few years before Olivia outgrows it. R350 at capeunionmart.co.za Intex Durabeam Queen-size Mattress The latest Intex air beds are reinforced on the inside with thousands of lightweight, high-strength fibres that contour to your body and offer better support. This technology also allows you to sit on the edge without getting that collapsing-jumping-castle feeling. The base material is thick and feels durable. But, as with any air mattress, watch out for thorns and other spiky things. Pumping it up with a hand pump takes…

WOODLANDS, RHEENENDAL Knysna, with its iconic lagoon and the Heads that guard the lagoon mouth, is probably the Garden Route’s biggest tourist magnet. But there’s a strong case to be made for sidestepping the busy town centre and booking your next stay in a nearby patch of indigenous forest. Turn off the N2 onto the Rheenendal Road (about 8 km west of Knysna) and you’ll find lots of accommodation options that are no more than 15 minutes from town. One of the best is Woodlands: four tastefully decorated self-catering units on the edge of a valley full of trees. Stinkwood, red alder, white alder, ironwood, Cape beech and tenfold other indigenous species. Each unit has a private deck where you can watch the sun set over the forest. Look out…

The N2 south of King Shaka International is busy late on a Wednesday afternoon: Trucks rumble past, flags wave near sections of roadworks and motorists dive between lanes. A brown sign with a white umbrella promises peace and quiet. The South Coast is beckoning and soon the traffic peters out. Green hills roll to the horizon. Bananas and avos are sold next to the road. Hibberdene, Port Shepstone, Shelly Beach, Margate... I’m going even further south, to Port Edward, on the border with the Eastern Cape. The town was established in 1925 and named after Edward, the son of King George V. The young royal went on to become King Edward VIII in 1936, after his father passed away, and controversially abdicated the throne later that year after he proposed…

Animal fun in Madagascar Madagascar has always been on our bucket list. Your article “ Mora mora in Madagascar” in go! #129 gave us the final push. We contacted Madagascar Island Safaris and off we went on a week-long paddling trip. We slept in a different location each night, snorkelling with turtles and eating fish we’d caught off the kayaks. We extended our trip with Malagasy Tours for 10 days to see the rest of the north of Madagascar. One day we felt like we were on a National Geographic film set. We were leaving Amber Mountain National Park heading over to the Tsingy Rouge (jaw-dropping limestone formations) when a panther chameleon (inset) was rather hurriedly crossing the road.…

The Blyderivierspoort Hiking Trail has been reopened – once again, you can explore this scenic corner of Mpumalanga on foot. The trail was closed in 2015 for renovations. The three-day trail runs from Paradise Camp on the God’s Window loop (R534) near Graskop, to the Bourke’s Luck Potholes, where you’ll stay on day three. You’ll hike about 30 km in total – 3 km on the first day, 13,5 km on the second day, 13,6 km on the third day – in the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve and on private property. Keep your camera ready for photos of mountain grassland, quartzite rocks, the Treur River Valley, indigenous forests and the confluence of the Treur and Blyde rivers. Bring your swimming trunks: There are lots of places to take a…

Have you been lucky enough to see a Sharpe’s grysbok in the wild? Are you sure it was a grysbok and not the more common steenbok? These small antelope are easily confused. Here are a few ways to tell them apart: The first distinction you should be able to make is between the two species of grysbok found in South Africa: Cape grysbok and Sharpe’s grysbok. It’s simple: You can tell which grysbok it is based on where you are – their distribution ranges don’t overlap. Sharpe’s grysbok is slightly more common and confined to the dry regions north of the Soutpansberg and within the Kruger Park north of the Olifants River. Note the word “slightly”– it’s still a rare sighting. I always get excited when…

Where does your love of the underwater world come from? My dad used to take my two brothers and me down to the rock pools at low tide at Pearly Beach near Gansbaai to explore. We would poke the anemones and let them suck our fingers, collect starfish and follow grumpy klipfish from pool to pool with our home-made fishing rods. Those rock pools were like a window to another world full of brilliant aquatic life. How did you end up as a freshwater biologist? I was drawn to water, rivers in particular, early on in life. I had an obsession with fly-fishing for trout and spent hours in the upper Berg, Eerste and Molenaars rivers in the mountains north of Cape Town. I saw the water teeming with crabs,…

LIONS VS BUFFALO, KRUGER PARK Having just hiked the Sweni Wilderness Trail, we treated ourselves to a couple of nights at Hamilton’s Tented Camp south of Satara. On the day of our departure, we decided to get an early start as we had a long journey back to our home in Somerset West. Our last stop in the park was Shimangwaneni Dam, where we watched the waterbirds as they fussed around on the banks. But this wasn’t to be our farewell scene. After about 20 minutes, a young male lion sauntered out of the bush, stretching languidly in the morning sun. The rest of the pride soon emerged to assemble on the dam wall 1 . These were the first lions we’d seen on the trip and we were surprised…

It’s time for a safety briefing. “Three animals charge us – elephant, buffalo and gorilla,” says our guide Jean-Alain Pambo, armed with a panga. “For elephant and buffalo, we go behind a tree. For gorilla, we look down. Okay? We go!” With that, he tramps off into the forest in Loango National Park. When you tell someone that you’re going to Gabon, their response is usually: “Oh, that’s nice,” followed by a pause. “Where is Gabon?” Gabon is one of those African countries that has somehow managed to remain below the international radar. Indeed, many people have never even heard of it. It’s a francophone country and finding a guidebook in English is difficult. It’s not easy to get to either; it’s difficult to travel around and it’s relatively expensive.…

DAVID MCINROY Canon EOS 1Dx Mark II 600 mm Canon lens with 1.4x converter DAVID WRITES: We stayed at Biyamiti Bushveld Camp in the Kruger Park for 10 days. One day we drove to Lower Sabie where my wife purchased the September 2018 issue of go! Back at Biyamiti, I browsed through the magazine and came across a letter written by reader Rian Boshoff (p 12, go! #147). Rian had seen a leopard cub in the Kruger, and he remarked that it was the kind of sighting you’d expect from a place like Sabi Sand, yet the Kruger Park had delivered. Full of inspiration, we went for a drive that afternoon along the stretch of sandy road next to the Biyamiti River,…

Tentco Junior Safari Bow Tent A canvas tent might be heavier and more bulky than a nylon tent, but it’s also more durable, it offers better insulation, it’s darker inside, and it’s easier to repair if it gets torn. Look after it and it should last forever. You can feel the quality when you set up this dome tent: The ground sheet is thick, the poles are high tensile steel, and the canvas feels like a real shelter, not something flimsy. The Junior can theoretically sleep four people, but it’s better for two people who are looking for some camping luxury. (Check out the Tentco Senior Safari if you want more space.) A nice added benefit is the flysheet, which makes a neat awning for extra shade. Packed weight (tent…

A palm-covered coastline, warm water, coral reefs, mangrove forest and some interesting sand driving await you on this 10-day tour, which starts in the Kruger Park. We’ll travel east across the lush lowlands of Mozambique, crossing the Limpopo River, to the coastal floodplains. Our route takes us to the village of St Jorge do Limpopo and onto Machaila. We have a light picnic lunch en route before we set up camp on the banks of the Chefu River for our first night. The next morning after breakfast, we continue eastwards until we get to the town of Mabote, and then turn north to Vilanculos. Travelling overland, we drive through savannah woodlands before the landscape changes to a narrow, palm-studded strip of beach at the fishing village of Inhassoro, opposite the…