Yesterday...

Place: South Africa, Kwazulu-Natal, approximately 50km inland from the Indian ocean.
Date: Sometime in August 1991.
Time: 03h30

I came awake very slowly, savouring the strange feeling of a soft, warm feather duvet covering my body, the antique bed I was in smelling of old wood and the mattress and pillows seeming to rise up around me in my cocoon of warmth. Considering that it was the height of summer, which in my coastal experience meant a night of sweltering heat and humidity, the sheets sticking to ones body and the sting of mosquitoes attacking all that bare flesh throughout the night, this alone was a novel experience. I will always remember taking the time to savour the moment as I lay in that lovely big old bed, considering the adventure that was to begin in the hours to come.

I had the good fortune to know a wonderful girl during the last years of my school career. She was the daughter of a sugar cane farmer from inland (a term we coastal dwellers used to describe anyone who came from anywhere that didn't have immediate access to the sea and the tropical lifestyle that we were used to). I don't recall how we came to be friends, for we were two very different people, but our platonic relationship was of great pleasure to me. I do remember that we shared a love of playing the guitar and that she taught me that there is much more to the guitar than Eddie Cochrane, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry. She played some hauntingly beautiful melodies that were way beyond my level, and for that alone she earned my undying respect. She was a very intelligent person and her humour held a particular allure for me. We were always able to share a secret look and a private chuckle over particular classroom incidents. This was something that invariably went unnoticed by our peers and the teacher. Things like this do tend to bind people. Something else that we discovered was a mutual interest was horse-riding. Even though I had grown up in a regular town with a policeman for a father and a housewife for a mother, I had always managed to find ways to ride, camp, shoot and do all the things that a budding little pioneer likes to do. Unlike her, I never had any schooling in the ways of horses, but I was such a confident little bugger in those days that I could do anything, even if I didn't do it all that well.

It was her interest in horses and my interest in the way of life they represented that bound us the closest, I would say. Once my interest was known to her, she very kindly invited me to come up to the family farm one day for a day of riding. They owned a few horses and "kept" horses that belonged to other young girls from our school. My first trip to the farm saw me thrown violently from a retired grey racing thoroughbred as it raced home in panic after an incident with a snake in the road, but I managed to limp home to the farmhouse and treat my wounds (bare torso skidding down gravel road as horse thunders off into distance) before anyone could notice. This was an elemental lesson in horse-riding that I learned the hard way and which no amount of teaching could have given me so effectively: BE THE BOSS! I showed that horse my fear when I felt it's strength, and it did with me what it wanted to. Anyway, that single Saturday visit turned into a weekend and eventually, during the following school holidays, a week at a time. The parents were the most wonderful people and I remember them with absolute fondness. There is a particular brand of South African farmer of British extraction that exudes a sense of decency and grit, combined with culture and the determination to further the values fostered in them by their pioneering British ancestors that I find so attractive, and these were the sort of people I had the good fortune to be mixing with. Their accents alone were intriguing, and remain embedded in my memory to this day.

This girl (I hesitate to name her here, and any pseudonym I might give her would ruin the memory for me) had partaken in "game counts" in the nearest game reserve in previous years. This involved saddling up a horse and travelling for a day through the wilderness to the game reserve, where she would join the game ranger and his men for a count of the various game in the park on horseback. She mentioned this to me on one occasion, and I was immediately infected by the desire to take part in such an activity. She informed me that such a thing was not done anymore, and that the paths through the veldt and forests were now overgrown and the practice had been discontinued. I wasn't to be put off by this and badgered her and her father to allow us to try it once more. I don't remember how it was arranged, but somehow the new Afrikaans ranger in charge of the game reserve agreed to let us do a "game count" with him. The cultural differences between my friends father and the chief warden were vast, yet it must have been the English farmer who arranged things with the Afrikaans official.

Once permission had been obtained, I began feverishly plotting this wonderful adventure. I had a friend at school who was my sworn buddy for life (and I'm proud to say still is). He was an extremely intelligent guy who always came top of the class, yet he managed to combine this with a healthy interest in hunting, drinking, braaing (South African term for barbecuing, pronounced "Bry-ing") and all things manly. In fact, even though we were only schoolkids, he and his brother were rebuilding a car in their mothers garage! This guy could speak fantabulous Afrikaans, knew how to make a tobacco pipe from a porcupine quill and a shotgun shell, and had stored the lore of the veldt along with his mothers milk sometime in his early years. He was my best buddy then, and over the intervening years he has proved himself to be a man of the very best calibre that South Africa has to offer. Of course, he was my first recruit for the adventure at hand. The next recruit was a girl from my hometown. A first class athlete and such a good sport that she almost belonged in the legion of men that we thought we were. We had to balance out the male/female ratio somehow, and what with her being such a hard case, she was a natural choice. Our most unlikely candidate was my girlfriend. She was an extremely feminine sort, never been on a horse, never had any outdoors experience, etc. However, she was my girlfriend and she was coming with, no arguments please. If my memory serves me correctly, our other notable candidate was a reprobrate of note that I had befriended sometime earlier during my childhood. He was a lanky, pale-skinned, dark-haired specimen that enjoyed all things rebellious, be that smoking marihuana (or "dagga", as it's known in SA), stealing whatever from whoever and generally causing problems wherever he appeared. He definitely came on one of the game counts with me, but whether it was this particular one or not eludes me at this point in time. I do know that there were a couple of others, but their faces and names elude me at this point.

Everybody was quite keyed up about the upcoming trip, and during the week leading up to the Friday on which we were all going to "head for the hills" there was a flurry of activity. In the manner of all teenagers heading off on a jaunt, we had to ensure that we had enough cigarettes, pipe tobacco, alcohol, and all the other less important things such as sleeping bags, food, cooking utensils, etc. My good buddy and I had drivers licences, and he had a car while I had my trusty old motorcycle. We couldn't all fit in the car, but if I took the bike then the rest could fit in with him, and so it was that on Friday after school the little old Mazda 323 was loaded with all manner of supplies and jubilant youngsters while I was revving up my outrageously loud old 500cc, clad like Davy Crockett and ready to hit the road leading up to the green hills and valleys above the coast.

The difference in climate between the coast and the remarkably close uplands of the foothills to the Drakensberg mountain range is not to be underestimated. We were all in top spirits and the trip up was interspersed with loud roaring overtaking of the car by me on the motorcyle, accompanied by jeers and gestures of beer bottles from the overloaded little Mazda, followed by a quiet pullover in the shade of a majestic tree near a rushing stream and a welcome smoke until they caught up to me again. About halfway there we stopped and changed positions. My bud owned a car and I didn't. I owned a wonderful motorcycle and he didn't. This left much to be desired, and though neither of us would have let anyone else drive our vehicles, we trusted each other enough to break our own rules. I asked him if he wanted to take the bike for the rest of the way (greater love hath no man....) and he, in his lovably humble way, indicated that this would mean that I would have to drive his car. We both knew that we would enjoy nothing better, and the deal was struck. Only now will I admit that my generosity in succumbing to his gleaming look of envy everytime I passed him on a long uphill was heavily influenced by the oncoming cold of the highlands and the evident camaraderie in the interior of the gallant little Mazda.

We eventually arrived at the farm in the last of the dusk and were whisked into the large lounge by the wonderful lady of the house. A large fire was roaring in the grate and it was easy to forget that we had come from the sweltering humidity of the coast. The contrast means a lot to me now, but at the time it simply belonged to the experience. After a round of hot tea, we were herded off to our very separate bedrooms to change and "freshen up". In the vicinity of each bedroom, and sometimes the only way to travel between rooms, were bathrooms of differing vintage. A distinctive feature of these old farmhouses (the world over, I'm sure) is that bedrooms, bathrooms, dining rooms, tack rooms and the like seem to be haphazardly strewn about within their ancient walls, with a bewildering lack of order. True to the nature of the hosts, boys and girls were well separated. What with the lovely farm fare for supper, the raucous, alcoholic trip up to the farm, and the exhilarating change of climate, we were all more than ready for bed and by nine o'clock that evening silence reigned within the house.

I lay there that early morning in my bed, listening to the creaking of the timbers in the roof and enjoying the anticipation of the day to come. The knocking and rude remarks issuing from the other side of the door had woken me, but not disturbed me in the least. In fact, it was a verification of those values that most endeared me to my good friend, the Mazda driver. He found it necessary to let me know that, unlike him, I was a lazy good-for-nothing not in the least suited to frontier life, and yet he was old fashioned and polite enough not to enter my bedroom. That is perhaps hard to understand for most people today, but it has always meant a lot to me. Once my appreciation of the moment was satisfied, I leapt out of bed with the fervour of youth and yanked the door open. "F--- off! I was awake anyway!" With much laughter and rousting of sleeping companions we began the day. After a huge breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, fried tomatoes, etc, we were ready to get going. The wonderful old farmer and his wife had risen even earlier than normal to get this crowd of youngsters properly on their way, and after their daughter had checked all the members of the expeditions horses and packs to ensure that everything was correctly done, we saddled up as the first tints of dawn were beginning to show above the hills that surrounded the farmhouse. Such a feeling of adventure! I had by this stage become the de facto owner of a rather wild horse that others preferred not to ride. Her owner had, over the years, neglected to pay for her maintenance or to ride her, and she had become rather incalcitrant. Til the day she died she remained extremely hard to catch and very strong-willed, but that was many years later. There was a strong rivalry between her and the farmers daughters horse, a white mare of very determined and strong character. The minute we set off, the two horses began what we had, over the intervening months, begun to foster in them, namely a competitive push to be the leading horse in the party. As I didn't know the way, I had to forcibly restrain my lovely American Saddler, Tulsa, and get her to accept second place.

I'll never forget setting off into the darkness on that morning. I had my 10-inch-blade hunting knife (a gift from my fathers knife collection) strapped to my thigh, a water bottle on my belt and a rucksack on my back. My sleeping bag and a small cooking pot were tied behind the saddle. My good buddy, if memory serves, had his nine millimetre pistol instead of a knife and was otherwise similarly equipped. Everyone had to carry their own clothing, toiletries, food (for contribution to the communal evening meals) and water. Your tobacco and alcohol were your own problem, though it was basically only my good bud and I who were concerned with such things. I don't think the other guy I mentioned had the balls to bring any dope along as long as Mr. Mazda was around.

We travelled for twelve hours that day, and it was the experience of a lifetime to be young, free, alone and independant. As the birds came to life around us and we began to leave the sugar cane fields and enter the true bush, so the sun came creeping over the rims of the hills and the instant heat of a Natal morning made itself known. My female friend, whose expedition it was, had to rack her brains for forgotten memories of where the old route to the distant game reserve went, and we would spend hours battling through dense, overgrown forest before coming upon some lonely, forgotten rockpool in a sunny glade, which she would then recognise and thereby confirm that we weren't yet lost. If I think of this adventure in todays context, I can hardly imagine that parents could allow their youngsters to simply set off into the wild blue yonder without a thought of safety, insurance, medical emergencies, riding helmets, etc, yet I thank my lucky stars that I was born in a time and place that allowed me to have such experiences. Absolutely incomparable with the experiences of my contempories in this land that I now live in. The day wore on, and from time to time we would encounter a relatively open stretch of veldt which allowed the riders to bunch up together and share jibes and jokes for a while. Invariably, my buddy and I would haul out a cigarette and act like John Wayne for a while, till the route closed up again and we were forced back into single file and steady concentration.

That trip forced me into being a true rider, for there was no way in hell that I was going to allow my macho image, carefully nurtured through five years of high school, to suffer any degradations. I simply had to be the man I thought I was. As we wound our way through a particularly dense ravine, dismounted and leading our horses by the bits, I remember hacking branches and literally cutting a path through the thick undergrowth that had overgrown the old path. My female friend had taken the second position behind me, and she confided quietly that she was now uncertain whether we were still heading in the right direction. We were following the contours of the hilly slopes on what I imagined to be the remnants of an old track (judging by the growth around us and the fact that it seemed to always remain on the same contour, a certain indication of a horse path) but suddenly the path dropped precipitously to a roaring stream about two and a half metres across. I stopped and asked her if this was to be expected. With our halt, everyone down the line was forced to come to a stop, and in what we imagined to be true military style, my buddy and I had agreed that if I took the lead, he needed to be the last in the line, to ensure that everyone was safe and warn us of any problems in the rear. Now came the shout from the somewhere in the bush behind us. "Hey! What's the bloody problem up there in the front? Come on, get a move on!" Such a cheerful chap! No minor happening such as getting lost in the african bush can keep such a good man down! I love that guy. I ignored his jibes and listened while she explained that as far as she could remember, once we crossed this stream there would come a place known as "zig-zag mountain", but she admitted that this time she was really worried that we had gotten ourselves lost. I got her to explain that the name referred to the fact that the path could be seen from the bottom of a small hill, zig-zagging its way up the steep face in such a manner that horses could negotiate it. With this info I forced my way back down the way we had come, pushing past the sweating horses and giving my terrified-looking girlfriend a reassuring smile as I made my way back to where my compadrè was standing swigging his water. I told him that we may have to attempt an about face and go back the way we had come, which would be extremely difficult, as the path was so tight that it was almost impossible to turn a horse on it, and in which case he would have to take the lead while myself and the real leader remained in the rear till we reached open veldt again. He was far braver than I and assured me that, if I couldn't find the zig-zag mountain, this would be no problem. I made my way back to the front of the column and slipped and slid over the slippery, moss-covered rocks of the treacherous little stream to the other side. After hacking my way through thick riverine bush for a short way, I suddenly found myself in bright sunlight and there in front of me, as clear as day, were the bright green slopes of a steep hillside standing high above the surrounding forest. As I stood there blinking, I became aware of a narrow, winding path that literally zig-zagged its way up the steep slope, and I grinned and gave a yell of triumph.

Back at the stream I found myself in the role of "catcher". It may have been only a stream, but the huge rocks between the deep channels were extremely dangerous for horses, and the precarious slope down to the crossing were hard enough for the animals, let alone their inexperienced human companions. We decided to get the horses down to the banks, one by one, and then force them over the stream, after which the riders could lead them on again out of the bush. Our expedition leader, as most experienced horse-person, would give them a slap or a kick in the rump and exhort them to attempt the crossing, while I, as the stronger of the two, would position myself in the middle of the stream and haul on the bridle. This worked ok until that bitch of a grey that threw me many months before was due to cross. She was a docile creature, but immensely strong, and she just didn't want to cross that stream. The farmers daughter was screaming at her and slapping her vigourously about the rump, I was braced against a rock and hauling with all my strength on her bridle, and all the while she was rolling her eyes and digging her heels in. All of a sudden she must have realised that she was fighting a lost cause, for she gave a mighty leap and cleared the two and a half metres of rushing water in one great bound. Of course this meant she caught me completely off guard and besides the numbing pain of a flying hoof clipping me in the thigh, I was yanked bodily through the air to land with a grunt on the sharp rocks of the far side of the stream.

My heroic actions were accompanied by much laughter and ribaldry from all, and as we led our horses out into the sunshine even the thought of the scary-looking zig-zag mountain couldn't lower our spirits. I don't know how the others dealt with it, but my philosophy has always been "if there's no other way to do it, and you can't change anything, then go with the flow and trust in those who have done it before". After all, I always say that if I can do it then so can you, ergo I must apply this to myself as well! I sat tight and followed the advice of our intrepid leader. "Make sure your saddle's tight, lean forward, and let the horse have it's way.". Good advice. The horses knew exactly what to do. As steep as the climb was, all I had to do was give my horse free reign and not interfere. At each sharp bend Tulsa would do a little hop and suddenly be facing the opposite direction. At times it was so steep that my face would be pressing against her sweaty mane, but in the end we reached the top.

The view that awaited us took our breath away. The waving veldt grass swept away in all directions, the hills undulating before us, hiding groves of wild forest and then leaping away into the distance only to butt up against a faraway stretch of sheer rock before continuing its flight to the horizon. Scattered about before us were small herds of zebra, wildebeest and assorted buck. Over in the middle of this panorama, clustered amid tall trees, were a scattering of buildings that we knew immediately were the park headquarters. The long ride was over, and we were filled with jubilation at successfully reaching our goal. There ensued a wild ride through the wind-rippled grass that reached our stirrups, with much yelling and slapping of backs as we reached across the galloping hooves and bunched muscles of the excited horses beneath us. They too must have sensed the nearing of a well-earned watering place after the long days ride, for we tore into the improvised pasture that had been set up for us at a tremendous pace, the warden and his family laughing and cheering us on from the verandah of their stone cottage that overlooked the pasture.

That was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life, and I look back on it fondly, very fondly indeed.

I have promised a story from the past, and though it's taken a while to get written down here, I have enjoyed the telling immensely. Once begun, the memories begin to take on a life of their own, and the wonderful events of the past become real for a short while again. I have so enjoyed the retelling of this fine experience that I've forgotten that this is a blog. There is more to this tale, but I'm afraid it's going to have to wait for another day.

I wish you all sweet dreams of Africa...