No Stopping for Lions (3 page)

When we returned home we were on a tight budget and fell into the habit of driving out to Sydney's airport on weekends to watch planes come in and fly out. This free entertainment only stopped when we ourselves began to fly off to destinations new and far away on a regular basis. At first it was a Christmas in Noumea, then five days in Vanuatu, then a return visit to Italy one year kindled a great fondness for the country and we found ourselves making an annual pilgrimage there, bracketed by stopovers in Asia. We discovered that as soon as we were in the air we fell into the companionable state of mind forged in Europe and cemented in Africa on that first trip, and that in itself became an incentive to pack our bags and head off. On the canals in Venice, in the streets of Hanoi, it would all come together again and we'd experience the world from a world of our own. Kurt Vonnegut describes it as a nation of two, and that's how it often feels on our charmed journeys through foreign lands.

Now here we are in Africa, and the prospect of twelve months together in constant co-existence fills me with excitement and optimism.

We leave Cape Town after lunch, having squashed everything we possess into the Troopy. It's just an hour or two's easy drive to Paternoster, a Cape Coloured fishing village up on the west coast, and the contrast with Cape Town is dramatic. It's isolated and starkly attractive, with whitewashed low-lying buildings on a treeless inlet and flat blue surf stretching along the bay. The day is almost perfect as we walk along the beach to fishermen cleaning and salting their
snoek
, and I see more of those disconcerting very pale fox-green eyes I'd noticed in Coloureds on the boats in Cape Town. In fact, apart from a handful of white locals and a similar number of tourists, all we see are the distinctive flat, round faces of the Cape Coloureds.

The predominant population group in the Western Cape Province, Cape Coloureds have an ancestry originating in the mid to late 1700s when breeding and intermarrying existed between the local Khoisan peoples, the Dutch settlers and the slave labourers they brought to South Africa from places such as Madagascar, Malaya and Indonesia. From what I've seen they are a modest and hard-working people who enjoy life and keep to themselves, but under apartheid and then since independence they have become increasingly marginalised, and their rights and livelihoods are constantly being reviewed. Just before our arrival the South African government withdrew all fishing licences then re-issued them to blacks as part of Black Empowerment, a move that takes even more rights from the Cape Coloureds who have traditionally been the fishermen of the Cape. Adding to their woes, the crayfish season has officially ended and here in Paternoster they can be seen hanging around town trying to sell illegal catch for a bit of income.

At our little rented beachside house we sit on the verandah and watch the sun set over the natural rock breakwater with a glow bright with purples and pinks. Young children come to the door and ask shyly if we'd like to buy long chains of beachbleached shells, and dogs trot back from the water's edge, wet and sandy and looking pleased with themselves. We befriend a lean black dog we've watched on the beach; it's his beach, and he's been out there all day chasing off seagulls, moving long stems of kelp around and escorting other dogs along his stretch. Beach Blackie we call him and he only ever runs or trots. He belongs to everyone and no one, but for the time being he's ours.

Neil buys Beach Blackie a rissole at a Pick n Pay supermarket. It's eaten with surprising delicacy and in return we're given protection for the rest of the day. Things turn from cute to ugly in no time as he stations himself up on the front deck for maximum visibility and barks loudly at anyone, black, white or Coloured, walking past our door. He growls at cars driving past and when there's another dog in the backseat BB practically attacks the vehicle. One driver shouts and waves a fist in our direction. BB comes back to us jaunty and eager for praise, and we don't have the heart to reprimand him. But someone else must have taken the problem into their hands because BB suddenly disappears and we don't see him again, not even on the beach.

We don't need to say it but we're both totally relaxed and happy to be here, and tingling at the prospect of happening on a hundred more special places like this in the months to come. We rouse ourselves and wander down the beach for dinner in a converted old beach shed where the highlight is a commercial hash brown dead centre in my smoked salmon salad.

We head west to the Cederberg, an area of soaring rock formations and deep, fertile valleys where we've read mountain leopards still roam, protected by a conservancy of local farmers. On approach the road passes through Citrusdal and, not surprisingly, this pretty town in a lush valley is surrounded by green citrus orchards. At a stop in town to pick up diesel and provisions a white down-and-outer eyes the Troopy, approaches us and says, ‘Hello, welcome. From the United States?' When we say, ‘No, Australia,' he responds apologetically, ‘Oh forgive me. No offence.'

It's a beautiful drive through the Cederberg Mountains, and the lodge we've booked is dwarfed by the folds of a valley of spectacular scenery. Already there's a feeling of isolation, that the land holds dominance over the scattered human population. In the evening we walk along a creek bed in the fading light accompanied by Stompy, a large floppy mastiff whose face is in a permanent smile after a run-in with a porcupine, and he's still with us at dinner where I'm served an avocado cocktail with a Jatz biscuit in the middle. At this rate I'll be off salads for the rest of the trip.

On the way out next morning we drive past the rockiest olive grove I've ever seen to look for the ancient San (Bushman) rock paintings said to be hiding in a sandstone alcove nearby. We walk along what's barely a path through scrubby vegetation and when it stops at a rocky overhang the paintings are right there before us, clear and unprotected. Animals and what appear to be hunting scenes are depicted, but what is remarkable is the clarity of the work. With few tourists to this private gallery, the drawings are so well preserved they could be the recent works of a homeless vagrant. Walking back to the Troopy we see in the dust large cat spoor, which I
know
must belong to a mountain leopard. Neil and I are debating whether this could be true or just fanciful — that we might be on a path that a leopard wandered along the night before — when it hits me that we're here. It's not a daydream or someone else's story anymore, it's us walking in the footsteps of leopards and living life large.

Still in the Cederberg, we check into a camping ground where we'll spend a couple of days before continuing northward towards Namibia. This is to be our first attempt at camping and we couldn't have chosen a better spot. A place called Algeria, it's in a valley between towering peaks, with a little river flowing through it and manicured grassy lawns. We have the whole camping ground to ourselves, which is just as well under the circumstances. The rangers in charge of the ground direct us to the best site under oak trees, and they offer to give us free of charge any provisions that we may be lacking, our being novices. The generosity of strangers here is so unexpected.

It takes us some time to erect the tent, an hour of laughter (and not always from us) interspersed with bouts of dissension and dispute, but by 5 p.m. it's stable, we've had a shower and are sitting around a roaring fire in the dark with a glass of wine, waiting until it's late enough to eat. We're going to have to think of something to do to fill in these chilly, dark hours before bedtime.

With our thermals on we climb into the sleeping capsule and pile blankets and sleeping bags on top of us. At every little noise we stir and whisper ‘What's that?' but it turns out to be just some sort of little beast scavenging in the dead oak leaves around the Troopy. The loudest noise, which gives Neil the biggest fright, is from the zipper when I open a peephole to check outside.

On the road out we pick up a local who's hitching a ride. He's a young Coloured man, jogging into the next town 15 kilometres away to visit his sister. When we ask him where he'd like to be dropped off he politely says ‘at the tree' and, sure enough, as we approach the town there is just one tree on the side of the road. Later on we pick up an old fella, another Coloured, who has a big backpack and two bags of oranges. He's a little under the weather and after he establishes that we can't speak Afrikaans he stops chattering, sings a bar or two then falls asleep. Just in case he's listening subliminally we play some Ladysmith Black Mambazo tracks. This male group has developed a style of performing which combines
a cappella
singing with choreographed dance steps, and their worldwide appeal lies in the primeval beat of Africa that permeates their music. If they don't get a reaction from our friend, nothing will. Well he doesn't move, so when we get to his turn-off we wake him up, bail him out and leave him on the side of the road looking dishevelled and dazed. But he rallies enough to give us the thumbs-up and he shouts out ‘Good ride!' as we drive off.

I'm impressed by the etiquette shown by drivers on country roads here and we've quickly become used to flashing our indicators in thanks when a car pulls over to the far left of the road as we overtake. In actuality it's most often us pulling over for vehicles which, as they draw close, flash their intention to pass us, travelling at a leisurely pace, then, once in front, flash again. Sometimes it goes to ridiculous lengths, when we then flash acknowledgement of their flash in return. Such a degree of consideration engenders a sense of camaraderie that I find infectious, and once or twice I've annoyed Neil by adding my own touch such as a double flash or a wave preceded by a flash then a quick beep.

The further north we go the straighter the road becomes and the sparser the vegetation. We're aiming for Springbok, 600 kilometres north of Cape Town and just 120 kilometres from the Namibian border. Springbok lies on the only main road between the two and it's the only town of note for hundreds of kilometres in this thinly inhabited corner of the Northern Cape. We book into a guesthouse and have dinner in a steakhouse off the main street. Being Saturday it's a big night out and the bar plays old Elvis and Stones tracks. There are kilo steaks on the menu and blond blue-eyed men in the bar. Here English is very much a second language and we get the feeling that we're being looked on as a curiosity, with our Australian accents and small appetites.

I've started a list of animals we've spotted and so far there have been plenty of ostriches, a mongoose and some wild donkeys, and today heading into Springbok we see a springbok. I don't plan on getting out of the Troopy when we get to the next big town on the map, Pofadder.

The plan is not to drive into Namibia at the nearest border but to veer north-east and visit two of South Africa's semi-arid national parks, Augrabies Falls and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The latter occupies an isthmus between Botswana and Namibia in the most northerly part of the Northern Cape and if we're lucky the proposed border post linking Kgalagadi directly with Namibia will be open for business and we won't have to backtrack down out of the park to enter Namibia.

Augrabies Falls National Park surrounds the waterfall of the same name and we find a surprising number of tourists in a place we'd thought would see few visitors. We've booked a SANParks (South African National Parks) cottage for the night and at dusk we sit out on the
stoep
, or porch, with a tumbler of cask wine, thinking about what we'll have for dinner. There's a flat metal disc on a stand embedded in the paving and a sneaked look at the other cottages reveals that this is used as a barbecue, known here as a
braai
. I notice that others down the row are already stoked up for the evening meals. Wives are slicing vegetables and wrapping potatoes in foil, and their partners are dragging out the esky and uncorking the beer and brandy. We look on in admiration and resolve to become this organised in future. By the time we get up the next morning the
braais
are already cleaned and scrubbed shiny by staff and I'm beginning to see why barbecuing is so popular here.

Unlike any waterfalls I've seen before, these ones are below ground level and are conveniently just a short walk past reception out into a rocky treeless terrain. Here the Orange River has cut a deep ravine through the desert and huge volumes of water are forced through a narrow s-bend, culminating in the final drop. Not particularly high, but powerful and magnificent, and this isn't even after rain. There are fall-proof viewing platforms built scarily out over the ravine and we stand back from the edge and the spray, mesmerised by the thick brown blanket of water below.

Early next morning we take the Troopy on an early morning game drive, our first, but the game is disappointing. Maybe we were expecting too much, hoping for the list to be overflowing with sightings after a couple of hours, but apart from a family of giraffe who materialise out of the red rocks then disappear again, and klipspringers, like baby dainty deer, picking their way through the early heat, the park appears empty. Driving along a track between ridges and shadows we find ourselves with the full moon of the previous night high and bright in the sky to one side, and the new day's pulsing sun rising large and hot on the other. I feel all at sea in this landscape of strange phenomena and unfamiliar sights and I am starting to see that there's a lot more to safariing than just animals.

Roughly 100 kilometres upstream on the Orange River lies Upington, an economic and traffic hub of the Northern Cape. It's said to be the hottest town in South Africa but it looks cool and green as we drive around the suburbs looking for accommodation. We soon discover that this is because of extensive irrigation, and the town sits in the middle of a narrow but long strip of fertile land of citrus orchards and vineyards. Driving in, we passed areas like large barren paved car parks where grapes are spread to dry to supply raisins for the European market, but beyond, the empty land stretches to merge with a rainless, cloudless sky.

Neil finds an electrical store and falls into conversation with a gentle, tall Coloured man who refuses payment after correcting a small problem with our laptop. He likes Australians. His younger brother was an Australian sports aficionado and followed every rugby, tennis and cricket match with such fanatical dedication that his family buried him with an Australian scarf around his neck after he was killed in a motor accident. This story is told to us with great tenderness and we leave the store sorry that we didn't have anything vaguely Australian that we could have handed on to be put on the grave.

Next Neil takes the satellite phone in for repairs to a shop around the corner and the proprietor, who's never worked on a satellite phone before, takes up the challenge. He pulls it apart, does a bit of re-soldering and, Bob's your uncle, the on/off switch now turns off. When Neil asks him how life has been since the end of apartheid, he answers that, for him, a Coloured, apartheid is just beginning. And by the way, he tells Neil, the roads aren't safe so don't ever give a lift to anyone.