Blog-Invasion nr 3

See Source here

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Countryside walks

This footpath starts about 100m from our house. When walking about 50m down this muddy, slushy footpath, you suddenly get a sight that punches you in your face! You would never expect it, especially after this walk that  literally feels like walking on the farm through a mix of cow pat and mud! Hmm…never mind, I grew up on a farm and that didn’t bother me at all, but we had to walk carefully, as this path is descending slightly and it was very slippery too.

This is the sight that pops-up into your face!  The one moment, you’re in town, the next moment…country side!

As far as you can see, there are little footpaths where you can walk. Many dog walkers walk these paths and you have to keep your eye on the path… I guess you know why!

Gates, all different sizes and types to pass through. I love gates. I love bridges too and mountains and trees and wild life and… but this is not wild life! This is only country life.

The yellow looks beautiful and even more while the sun is setting. I have thought it looks very much like our Kakiebos – Stinking Roger – in South Africa. On the next two images you can see what the Stinking Roger looks like and the name explains everything! You can see what the seed looks like on the next image.

Stinking Roger –  image: DK Images

The yellow flowers from nearby…now you can see why I say it reminds me of the Kakiebos. Have I said Kakie?…I wonder if you know about this word! Well, if you’re English…haha…I don’t have to say more…

Wow, this is a beautiful colour…and you’ve thought I would say something about the bees in the UK? They are massive!

Are you a good spotter? What’s in this image?

Second question…can you tell what’s happening in these two images!?

In South Africa it’s a public holiday as it’s Women’s Day today. Rush to Woollies and spoil yourself with some of these chocs! – and send me some too! If you’re a Saffa reading here..enjoy the day!

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Blog invasion

Chess pieces? Nope…Goblins invaded my blog…see them here.

I can’t remember where I got this picture from, but it’s been on my pc for quite a time and I loved it when I  saw it!

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What do you miss?

 

This image: the cable car…Cape Town…Table Mountain…Lion’s Head…is the head you can see

Images: south-africa-tours-and-travel.com

On this image you can see the beach …near George…Wildernis-area.

On the chess site I was asked by a Capetonian….”What do you miss about South Africa?” and I replied to him this afternoon…EVERYTHING! … enjoy this beautiful nature video about South Africa…fantastic song too..Afrikaans lyrics of the song…maybe I should try and translate this song ……it’s one of those beautiful Afrikaans songs…with a bit of a mix with Zulu/Xhosa…

Halala Afrika

Toe die wêreld hier nog jong was en die horison wyd en oop
Was dit groen hier in die halfrond, suid van die ewenaar
En in die skemer as die son sak en die beeste huis toe loop
Klink die roepstem van die vroue oor die heuwels van die land:
Halala, ewig is ons Afrika.
Tula tula mtanami, tula tula sanaboni, tula tula mtanami,
Ubab uzobuya sihlale naye, ubab uzobuya sihlale sonke, Hmmm-Hmmm

Toe kom die skepe uit die weste, wit seile oor die see
Om te vra vir koos en water en te bly vir so veel meer.
En die land wat een tyd oop was, die land het ons verruil
Vir die ghetto’s van die stede is ons koperdraad gegee.
Halala, ewig is ons Afrika
Halala, sasiphila, kamnandi, halala, mayibuye Afrika
Tula tula mtanami, tula tula sanaboni, tula tula mtanami,
Ubab uzobuya sihlale naye, ubab uzobuya sihlale sonke, Hmmm-Hmmm

Daar was rykdom in die maag van ons moeder Afrika
Diamante en ook steenkool, goud, edel metaal
En die mense word die slawe hier want die mense word betaal
Om te tonnel in die aarde elke greintjie uit te haal
En die groot en oop grasvlaktes span dit toe met doringdraad
En van die olifant tot die gemsbok al die diere moes kom buig
Voor die mag van die grootwildjagter voor die mag van sy groot geweer
Totdat net die stilte oorbly, totdat net die stilte heers.

Halala, ewig is ons Afrika.
Halala, sasiphila, kamnandi, halala, mayibuye Afrika
Sasidjapolutjoloythina
Halala, sasiphila, kamnandi, halala, mayibuye Afrika
Source: southafrica.com/forums/language/5041-zulu-translation-request.html

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Somewhere my love

Image:http://www.kwathabeng.co.za/limpopo-marulaneng-hoedspruit-gallery.html

Wat is a Tufa waterfall? and where can I find one in South Africa? and how can I get there…this post and this link here, give you all the answers! enjoy!
 https://chessaleeinlondon.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/what-is-a-tufa-waterfall/ The Link will open in a new window.

I hope you enjoy this “movie” about South Africa. The images are from the Eastern part of the country… the Mpumalanga province, previously called the Easern Transvaal. It was August…end of winter…and not holiday for South Africans, so we were lucky…. places were not crowded…. You will see mostly images about the third largest/deepest canyon in the world…the Blyde River Canyon. As it was the end of winter, the area wasn’t as green as it used to be during summer! The Grand Canyon is the largest, then the Fish River Canyon in Namibia… This canyon is the greenest canyon in the world. You will also see the potholes at Bourkes Luck. Then, in this canyon, there is a waterfall, called a Tufa waterfall. On one of the images I tell you in short what a tufa waterfall is… where other waterfalls wear away the soil…this kind of waterfall does the opposite! This tufal waterfall is called the “weeping tufa”, as it looks like a face with an eye…and the water flows from the “eye”…A Tufa waterfall is a waterfall where the calcium rich water builds the rock face over which it is flowing as the calcium and mud hardens in beautiful forms, that’s why it’s a “growing” waterfall. This link HERE has got a brilliant picture of the Tufa waterfall – the one you can see in my post too – in this canyon and awesome pictures and many links to places/resorts in that area. Here you can see the “face” of this waterfall…brilliant! The link will open in a new window.

You will see a cave, which can only be seen on the boat trip. You will also see some images from the Sudwala caves. You can put “Swadini” in my search box to find those fantastic links and to see more pictures of that area. I focused on this movie mostly on nature images …do enjoy! On THIS LINK you can see more pictures and links to sites to book a holiday! and on THIS LINK you can see pictures of Pilgrims Rest area and maps/info if you want to tour that are…really beautiful to visit!
If you have enjoyed this movie…Links will open in a new window. Click HERE to see another movie about South Africa which I posted a few days ago.

 

 

Somewhere my love…by the
Ray Coniff singers.

Somewhere, my love,
There will be songs to sing
Although the snow
Covers the hope of spring.

Somewhere a hill
Blossoms in green and gold
And there are dreams
All that your heart can hold.

Someday we’ll meet again, my love.
Someday whenever the spring breaks through.

You’ll come to me
Out of the long ago,
Warm as the wind,
Soft as the kiss of snow.

Till then, my sweet,
Think of me now and then.
God, speed my love
‘Til you are mine again.

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Wonderboom

This tree is really big! It’s the Wonderboom….it’s huge! We used to go to this nature reserve to have a picnic, sometimes with school children as well- as an outing. Read about this “wonder/miracle tree”…this is in Pretoria, on your way to the northern part of the city, depending which way  you go.

Wonderboom Nature Reserve

Situated in the northern part of the city, and straddling the Magaliesberg Mountains, is the Wonderboom Nature Reserve, a 200 hectare reserve famous for its magnificent specimen of the Wonderboom. The Wonder tree is a wild fig (Ficus salicifolia) that grows at the foot of the northern slope of the Magalies Mountain area.

The large Wonderboom fig tree at the Wonderboom Nature Reserve is more than 1 000 years old, and legend has it that it grew this big because the chief of an indigenous tribe lies buried beneath its roots. It is recorded that the tree was once big enough to shade 1 000 people at a time, or 22 ox-wagons with 20 oxen in front of each! Today, it is much smaller – probably because of the devastating fire in 1870 started by a hunting party or because of infestation by a parasite, which put it in quarantine for 20 years. Over the years the branches have grown longer, hanging lower and lower until they touched the ground, rooted and produced a circle of daughter trees. There are now three circles of daughter trees surrounding the original tree.

Wonderboom Nature Reserve has a large number of Dassies (Rock Hyrax) living in caves overlooking the Apies River. They provide a food source for a breeding pair of Black Eagles that nest on a rocky ledge nearby and that can often be seen circling above the reserve.

At the top of the Wonderboom Hill are the ruins of the Wonderboom Fort, one of four forts built by the former Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek at the end of the 19th century to defend the city against the British. It was never used. It was blown up, probably on the instructions of Prime Minister Jan Smuts himself, in the early days of World War 2, lest it be used by anti-government dissidents as a springboard for an attack on the state. At the foot of the hill near the Wonderboom is an important iron age site and nearby is one of the best stone age sites in the area.

 Source: Click the link and it will open in a new window.http://www.sa-venues.com/game-reserves/ga_wonderboom.htm

Image: cybertonature.co.za

Steenbokkie
The Steenbokkie is one of our smaller antelope in SA and on THIS LINK on my blog you can see the smallest antelope in South Africa…the dik-dik! If you go to this nature reserve, you will see the Steenbokkie in its natural environment.

Image: sa-venues.com

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Bald Eagle

As it has for the past four years, an adult bald eagle returns to its nest that has been so diligently built, to feed and tend three new chicks. Enjoy the video!

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South Africa

Enjoy this movie about South Africa… I’ve compiled it from pictures which I’ve found on the internet…and it was also a practise with Photo Story 3, which is free to download from Microsoft!

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Chess saves Mother Earth

 I think this is great! Chess is a game not seen as a “sport” in some countries…sad hey? but hey…what’s Chess doing for Mother Earth? more than most other sports that I know of! Let’s all do our bit!

What’s one unique, creative way to draw attention to global warming and the issues surrounding it? Well, the folks at Global Inheritance recently came up with the idea of an ultimate chess match played on a life-sized board between the forces of good and evil. Yep, that means hummers vs. bikes, coal vs. solar, factories vs. trees… It all played out this weekend during the Virgin Festival in Toronto as a fun, great way to get people thinking about the better choices they can make to help slow the process of climate change that promises to “checkmate” all of us if we don’t get our act together.
Click HERE for the original article…

This SITE is really a great site about global warming for kids! Check it out!

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Dik-dik

A dik-dik, pronounced “dĭk’ dĭk”, and named for the sound it makes when alarmed, is a small antelope of the Genus Madoqua that lives in the bush of southern and eastern Africa and Southeast Asia. Dik-diks stand 30–40 cm at the shoulder and weigh 3–6 kg, making them the smallest of the ruminant suborder. They have an elongated snout and a soft coat that is grey or brownish above and white below. The hair on the crown forms an upright tuft that sometimes partially conceals the short, ringed horns of the male.

The Dik-dik is one of South Africa’s smallest antelope.   The Suni is the smallest. I haven’t seen both in their natural environment, I think they are too small!  On the links you can read more about these two small animals!

Read HERE more about the Dik-dik.

On the last picture you can see the Suni, the other two are the Dik-dik.

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Swadini..more

I think this pic is really great…the thorns….I like the focus here…just what I wanted….
And of course….the leaves and the colours were the focus here…I love Autumn, for all the changes during Autumn…
If any South African can leave me the name of this plant…I would appreciate it…I don’t know what it is called, I only know that it got seeds on the end of the branches….they make a lovely scence, though the colour looks a bit dull…
Waterfall sign post alongside the road from Swadini Forever Resort on your way to the Blyde River dam. This waterfall is about 20minutes’ walk into the forest…stunning!

And…as you can see…ET! When you arrive at the waterfall, ET meets you there…look at that eye!
I know these pics are not that great…if you are in a hurry, this is what you get! That’s the only pic I have with this rock tied-up in the tree…
And this little mini-beast!!! He wouldn’t let me photograph him properly, I tried everything to enhance the pic for you to see what I tried to capture…this little naughty spider, was a bit curious and even played dead! on the last pic…he suddenly turned over and aish! he thinks I’m dumb! He must have known that I know he plays dead…silly little creature…but I love them, I can watch them for hours! I wish it was my job to go out in nature to photograph these creatures or just to do research on them….I would love it…

Next pictures to blog…a Tufa waterfall…the third longest in the world, called the Crying Tufa…in the Blyde River Canyon and I’ve got some very good pictures on it! A tufa waterfall is formed when water running over dolomite rock absorbs calcium. Mosses which grow on the rocks in the stream extract carbon dioxide during photosynthesis which precipitates the calcium from the water to deposit it as layers of tufa on the surface of the waterfall – a process that takes millions of years. The waterfall continue to flow underneath this rock-hard outer shell. There are only a few active tufa waterfalls in the world – one of which is at the Blyderivierspoort Dam.

Here is a fantastic link to keep your mind busy while I’m sorting my pictures…

Here are two links to spider websites, South African spiders and I’ve sent an email to Norman on the one site to identify the spider on this pic for me!

This one is Science magabout spiders

Bio Museums about spiders with Norman.

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

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Eugene Marais

 

His book translated into Flemish here.

 

Read ON THIS LINK about Marais.Have you read….”The soul of the white Ant”…or…”Die siel van die Mier!” by Eugene Marais… if not….you have a gap in your culture…:))….get “The soul of the white ant..” and read it…

And……on THIS LINK you can read his poem…”Dans van die reen”…which I translated into English for my blogreaders….”Dance of the rain”…enjoy!

Where is the soul of a termite, or the soul of man?

“Someone once said that all behaviourism in nature could be referred to as hunger. This saying has been repeated thousands of times yet is false. Hunger itself is pain – the most severe pain in its later stages that the body knows except thirst, which is even worse. Love may be regarded as a hunger, but it is not pain.

“What protects animals, what enables them to continue living, what assures the propagation of race? A certain attribute of organic matter. As soon as one finds life, one finds this attribute. It is inherent in life; like most natural phenomena it is polarised, there is a negative and a positive pole. The negative pole is pain; the positive pole is sex. This attribute may be called the saving attribute of life; and it is here where one comes closest to what appears like a common purpose beyond nature.” (Eugène Marais, The Soul of the White Ant, 1989:261)

Eugène Nielen Marais[1] (1871-1936) was a South African lawyer, naturalist, poet, and writer. Although Marais is remembered by South Africans more for his contribution to Afrikaans literature than for science, he has been described as being a scientist far ahead of his time.

He began life after leaving college as a journalist, then studied medicine for four years, but eventually took up law and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple. He was a scholar and a man of culture.

However, it was not only as jurist that Marais distinguished himself as a brilliant (yet eccentric) character in South African history. He has been described as “… a human community in one man. He was a poet, an advocate, a journalist, a story-teller, a drug-addict, a psychologist, a natural scientist.”

In 1910, he abandoned his law practice and retreated to the remote Waterberg (‘Water Mountain) – the mountain area north-west of Pretoria. Here he studied two creatures – termites and baboons that, on the face of it, had nothing in common. Both fascinated him, as did all wild creatures.

Settling near a large group of chacma baboons, he became the first man to conduct a prolonged study of primates in the wild. It was in this period that he produced My Friends the Baboons and provided the major inspiration for The Soul of the Ape.

His studies of termites led him to the conclusion that the colony should be considered as a single organism. Although Marais could not have known it, he was anticipating some of the ideas of Richard Dawkins (1941— ). He also observed chacma baboons at length and he was the father of the scientific study of the behaviour of primates. Because Marais refused to translate his works into English, they remained almost unknown outside of southern Africa, which is the only place in the world where Afrikaans is spoken to any degree.

Termites are social insects and are most closely related to the cockroaches with which they share a close common ancestor (?). They are among the most important groups of animals on land because they play a vital role in breaking down dead plant material. They have symbiotic flagellates or bacteria in their hindguts that are able to break down plant cellulose to a digestible form and in the subfamily Macrotermitinae the termites culture and eat fungi in their nests using dead plant material.

Ants (order: Hymenoptera; family: Formicidae) are often confused with termites because they are also social, and termites are sometimes called ‘white ants’ (a confusing term). Ants, like wasps (from which they evolved (?)), have a constriction half way down their body whereas in termites the body is uniformly broad. The prominent mounds you see in the South African countryside are made by termites not ants. Whereas ant workers are all females, in termites, workers can be both male and female. In ants, mating occurs before the nest is founded and the male dies after mating – he does not become a king, and live and mate with the queen in the new colony, as in termites.

Marais published his conclusions about termites as a series of speculative articles, written entirely in Afrikaans and appearing only in local newspapers, as The Soul of the White Ant. While observing the natural behaviour of these creatures, he noticed that firstly, the whole termitary (a termite nest) had to be considered as a single organism whose organs work like those of a human being.

Termitaries, as one sees them so frequently in Central and Southern Africa, are tall, compacted columns of earth sometimes four to five metres high. Within the terminary lives the society, with its castes and its ranks, in countless numbers.

Marais concluded that all members of the colony and the terminary itself form what is essentially a single living organism. The terminary itself is the body. The various castes in the society have the functions of the body’s organs, with fungus gardens contributing the digestive tract, soldiers and workers the cells of the blood stream, the queen the brain as well as the reproductive organs, and even the sexual flight executing the function of sperm and eggs. How all communicate (pheromones, telepathy?) we do not know, but the ‘soul’ of the termite – the psyche, we should say – is the property of the entire society. He concluded secondly that the actions within the termitary were completely, instinctive.

His work on termites led him to a series of stunning discoveries. He developed a fresh and radically different view of how a termite colony works, and indeed, of what a termite colony is. This was far in advance of any contemporary work. In 1923, he began writing a series of popular articles on termites for the Afrikaans press and in 1925; he published a major article summing up his work in the Afrikaans magazine Die Huisgenoot.

He published The Soul of the White Ant (1937) and then My Friends the Baboons (1939) which was posthumously published after he had taken his life.

His book Die Siel van die Mier (The Soul of the Ant, but usually given in English as The Soul of the White Ant) was plagiarised by Nobel Laureate Maurice Maeterlinck, who published The Life of the White Ant in 1926, falsely claiming many of Marais’ revolutionary ideas as his own. Maeterlinck was able to do this because he was Flemish and therefore understood Dutch, from which Afrikaans was derived. Maeterlinck was as a consequence one of the few people in Europe who had read Marais’ original texts.

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a leading literary figure of the time. In 1911, he won the Nobel Prize for literature following the success of his play The Bluebird. In 1901, he had written The Life of the Bee, a mixture of natural history and philosophy, but he was a dramatist and a poet, not a scientist.

In 1926, one year after Die Huisgenoot published Marais’ article, Maeterlinck stole Marais’ work and published it under his own name, without acknowledgement, in a book titled The Life of the White Ant, first published in French and soon afterwards in English and several other languages.

Maeterlinck’s book was met with outrage in South Africa. Later, in 1935, Marais wrote to Dr Winifred de Kok in London. She was beginning her English translation of The Soul of the White Ant, “You must understand that it was a theory which was not only new to science but which no man born of woman could have arrived at without a knowledge of all the facts on which it was based; and these Maeterlinck quite obviously did not possess. He even committed the faux pas of taking certain Latin scientific words invented by me to be current and generally accepted Latin terms.

“The publishers in South Africa started crying to high heaven and endeavoured to induce me to take legal action in Europe, a step for which I possessed neither the means nor inclination. The press in South Africa, however, quite valorously waved the cudgels in my behalf. The Johannesburg Star [South Africa’s biggest English-speaking daily newspaper] published plagiarised portions that left nothing to the imagination of readers.

“The Afrikaans publishers of the original articles communicated the facts to one of our ambassadorial representatives in Europe and suggested that Maeterlinck be approached. Whether or not this was done, I never ascertained. In any case, Maeterlinck, like other great ones on Olympus, maintained a mighty and dignified silence.”

Marais took legal action against Maeterlinck but gained little satisfaction.

Marais began writing Soul of the Ape in 1916, but never finished it. It was published posthumously years later. His theory was that, unlike termites, baboons – and by extension all primates – had the ability to memorise the relationship between cause and effect. They could therefore vary their behaviour voluntarily. While termites were instinctive, the mind of baboons was based on ‘causal memory’.

The reason for this difference, according to Marais, was natural selection. According to him, natural selection was not, as Darwin had insisted, ‘the survival of the fittest’, but rather ‘the line of least resistance’. Those species best able to adapt to their specific environment survived, while those not able to, would become extinct. Natural selection, therefore, had the tendency to both localise and specialise species.

The conclusions to which he came were new and radical and might well have had an influence in Europe. However, Marais was half a hemisphere away, half a century too soon and writing in a language no one could understand.

The Soul of the White Ant was brought under the attention of the world only by being seemingly plagiarised by a Belgian Nobel prize laureate, Maurice Maeterlinck. The Soul of the Ape was incomplete and originally only published in South Africa.

Maeterlinck’s The Life of the White Ant, in which he describes the organic unity of the termitary and compares it with the human body. This theory aroused great interest at the time and was generally accepted as an original one formulated by Maeterlinck. The fact that an unknown South African observer had developed the theory after many years of indefatigable labour was not generally known in Europe.

The 1927 files at The Star to which Marais referred were checked and confirmed by American author and social anthropologist Robert Ardrey (1908-1980) forty years later. “Maeterlinck’s guilt is clear”, Ardrey wrote. It is easily confirmed by a comparison of the two books. Marais’ point is indisputable: his picture of the termitary is startlingly original, it could not possibly have been hypothesised or inferred without a great deal of original research, at the very least – and yet there it is in Maeterlinck’s book.

Yet it is impossible to ignore the fact that Marais’ work is revolutionary, especially if one takes into account the time and place in which it was written. Robert Ardrey says in his introduction to Marais’ work on ants and baboons published in 1973, “As a scientist he was unique, supreme in his time, yet a worker in a science unborn.”

He was master of a science that was only invented fifty years later (ethology). It was sixty years before anyone else attempted to study what he had studied (ape societies in the wild). He described natural mechanisms and systems that were not identified by mainstream science until forty years later (pheromones), and neither science nor society has yet caught up with many of his findings and conclusions. Marais made no direct contribution to entomology, but his ghost continues to haunt the discipline.

His fourth book, The Soul of the Ape, completed in 1919, might just have made him world famous if it had been published then, but in fact half a century was to pass before it appeared in book form in 1969, thirty-three years after his death.

Their observations and the insights Marais gained from them formed the basis of a serious work later to be called The Soul of the Ape.

They also led to a more popular work, Burgers van die Berge (Citizens of the Mountains, translated as My Friends the Baboons), first published in book form in 1938, two years after Marais’ death.

In 1948, twelve years after Marais’ death, Nikolaas Tinbergen[2] (1907-1988) reformulated Marais’ extremely important concept of the phyletic (inborn) and causal (acquired) memory.

Thirteen years later, in 1961, Washburn and De Vore[3] published a lengthy article, ‘The Social Life of Baboons’, in the Scientific American. Though some of their observations were contested, they were seen as the first serious observers of baboons in the wild (meaning not in captivity), a title which surely Marais had earned fifty years before. His notes on baboon behaviour in The Soul of the Ape are regarded as honest and reliable by modern ethologists.

When The Soul of the Ape was finally published in 1969, it was too late.

Read the rest of the article….HERE on Authorsden. The link will open in a new window.

Winter’s Night

Oh the small wind is frigid and spare
and bright in the dim-light and bare
as wide as God’s merciful boon
the veld lies in starlight and gloom
and on the high lands
spread through burnt bands
the grass-seed, astir, like beckoning hands.

Oh East-wind gives mournful measure to song
Like the lilt of a lovelorn lass who’s been wronged
In every grass fold
bright dewdrop takes hold
and promptly pales to frost in the cold!

Translated by J.W. Marchant

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Drakensberg Movie

I love the Drakensberg mountains….did a few hiking trips there….my first was when I was 15…with a school trip….and I made it to the top of Mount Aux Sources…the highest peak in South Africa…I think it is about 4300m……there was a hut…but the roof was down!  The highest peak of the whole range is in Lesotho.

If you’re the kind of outdoor-type of person and like to go on hiking trips….you MUST go there….!! You will not regret it…be careful….you get snow in October in the Mountains and you musn’t go by yourself! On any hiking trip…always at least 3 people….I also did a couple with children…my library monitors back home…three times…good old times….In the UK I would never dream of taking children on a trip like that…”health and safety” always a big issue….what a shame, this country has really brought some problems upon themself with “health and safety”… I wonder what it is like in other parts of the world…I think that’s why our kids from SA is much more “tougher”…they can handle a lot more and cope with much more than kids in the UK….you feel like pampering them all the time…Read in English here what I’m going to write in Afrikaans…you can also see  a movie on that link.

Toe ek ‘n student was, was ek met ‘n staptoer saam met Oom Mauritz…van Centurion…hy was die hoofingenieur van die Hoogland waterskema in die Transkei en hy het die Transkei soos die palm van sy hand geken. Ons was ‘n groep van so 36 wat vanaf Port St Johns gestap het, noord na Port Edward se kant. Daar was ‘ n paar kindertjies ook van so 10-11 wat die trip bietjie moeilik gevind het, daarom het ons by Mkambati Natuurreservaat opgehou. Oom Mauritz het die bus van Margate laat kom om ons daar te kry en ons het regdeur na Margate geskiet en daar by ‘n hotel ordentlik gebad en ‘n dag daar deurgebring. Dit was heerlik!! Die roete wat ons gestap het was fantasties….soms op die strand gestap en soms op die rantjies….lees hier (gaan net af met die slider wanneer jy by die link uitgekom het) oor die roete en stappie daar… by Port St Johns het ons beeste op die strand gekry…en natuurlik anderskleuriges wat in onderklere swem…wonder hoe dit deesdae daar lyk….Oom Mauritz het ons na teeplantasies geneem…die Magwa Falle ook gaan wys….’n waterval gewys wat die enigste in SA is wat DIREK in die see val!…allerhande pragtige plekke…ek wonder of hy nog leef! Dit was regtig ‘n belewenis om saam met hom te stap…ek het dagboek gehou van letterlik alles, waar ons gestap het, hoe laat ons waar geeet het, waar ons geslaap het…een nag het ons onder ‘n oorhangende rots geslaap…genoeg slaapplek vir almal van ons!

 

Hy het ons in kookspanne in gedeel en almal het vir almal gekook, jy het jou beurt gekry om “aan diens” te wees en die gees onder die groep was fantasties…daar was twee uitruilstudente wat hulle by ons groep geskaar het, met die gevolg dit was heeltyd Engels praat terwille van hulle. Die eerste nag was nogal ‘n koue nag, ons was veronderstel om in hutte te slaap wat oom Mauritz gereel het met plaaslike bevolking wat hy geken het by Lusikisiki…hierdie spelling…weet nie meer of dit die regte spelling is nie, maar toemaar, ons weet min of meer…en toe was die hutte se dakke af en hy kon nie die mense daar kry nie. Ons het toe maar in die oopte geslaap en dit was koud…Oktober…maar die wind het gewaai! Oom Mauritz het in Hans Strydomlaan gewoon, spoor hom op en kry hom op ‘n staptoer in die Transkei!

The Chainladder that takes you to the top of the mountain…
 

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

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Lion Whisperer

The king of the jungle doesn’t frighten the lion whisperer.

Animal behaviourist Kevin Richardson has such an intimate bond with big cats that he can spend the night curled up with them without the slightest fear of attack.
Richardson, 32, who is based in a wildlife conservation area near Johannesburg in South Africa, works his unusual magic on other species too. Cheetahs, leopards and even unpredictable hyenas hold no threats for him.
So instinctively in tune is he with these beasts, whose teeth are sharp enough to bite through thick steel, that mother hyenas even allow him to hold their newborn cubs without pouncing to the rescue. But lions are his favourite. He lavishes them with unconditional love, he says, treating each individual differently, speaking to them, caressing them and, above all, treating them with respect.
A former student of human physiology who once worked with pre and post-operative human patients, Kevin turned to animals ten years ago when he came to the conclusion that he could trust a lion over one of his own kind every time – well, nearly every time.A close encounter with an aggressive four-year-old male in the early days taught him a lesson he has not forgotten. The animal pinned him to the ground and started biting him until something about Kevin’s passive attitude stopped him in his tracks.
Kevin says he is most confident with animals he has known since birth, but claims he can become close friends with any lion less than a year old, when it is still flexible enough to accept him as part of its own pride.

I have to rely on my own instincts to gauge an animal or a situation, and I will not approach a creature if something doesn’t feel right, he says. I don’t use sticks, whips or chains, just patience. It may be dangerous, but this is a passion for me, not a job.

Read and see more pictures HERE ….– links will open in a new window.

Another “lion”-site…
http://www.rhinolion.co.za/newsite/default.asp?st_ID=1

Lion swims with Kevin!

This next news report is about White Lions in South Africa, the only White Lions in the world that live in the wild without anyone feeding them. The link will open in a new window and it’s in Afrikaans only. These white Lions are from the Sanbona Wild Reserve in the Klein Karoo – Little Karoo…this is their link which will open in a new window.

http://www.sanbona.com/properties/?MicroSiteID=3

http://www.news24.com/Rapport/Suid-Afrika/0,,752-2460_2438433,00.html

“White Lions king of the jungle”

Wit Leeus kraai koning
Montagu

Met net sowat 300 witleeus wat wêreldwyd nog voorkom, is die Witleeu-projek in die Sanbona-wildreservaat in die Klein-Karoo ‘n suksesverhaal wat ook vir ‘n wêreld-eerste gesorg het.

Die witleeus wat op dié reservaat van 54 000 ha tussen Montagu en Barrydale voorkom, is die enigstes ter wêreld wat nie in aanhouding is nie en self vir hul kos jag.

Die oorspronklike witleeus het in Timbavati, ‘n private natuurreservaat teenaan die Krugerwildtuin, voorgekom, maar is daar verwyder.

Witleeus is nie albino’s nie. Dit is ‘n eiesoortige en baie skaars leeuspesie wat draers van wit gene is en dus ‘n kleurvariasie van die gewone bruin leeu is.

Die eerste witleeus – ‘n mannetjie en ‘n wyfie – is in 2003 in die reservaat losgelaat om die eerste selfonderhoudende witleeus te wees sedert dié spesie in die 1970’s uit die Timbavati-gebied verwyder is.

Die leeus het saam met gewone bruin leeus geleef om sodoende te leer jag. Hoewel die twee witleeus gereeld ‘n bok platgetrek het, is hul vermoëns onderdruk deur hul vroeëre kontak met mense.

Die broeipaar is uit die veld onttrek en in ‘n kleiner kamp aangehou. Hul drie welpies is in 2006 saam met bruin leeus vrygelaat. Ná enkele weke het die leeus as ‘n trop gefunksioneer.

In 2007 is nóg drie welpies van die oorspronklike paar – een mannetjie en twee wyfies – gebore en dadelik in die reservaat vrygelaat met so min moontlik menslike kontak.

Die langtermyndoel van dié projek, wat sover R35 miljoen kos, is om ‘n hele trop van wit- en bruin leeus te vestig.

Volgens mnr. Andrew Slater, wildbewaarder van Sanbona, dra hulle geen kennis van enige witleeus wat die afgelope 30 jaar wild in die veld gebore is en oorleef het nie.

” ‘n Leeu het ongeveer 7 kg vleis per dag nodig, en met die 5 000 diere op Sanbona behoort hulle darem nie honger te ly nie,” sê hy.

Die witleeus in die reservaat dra almal bande met ‘n opsporingstoestel om die nek. “Dis sodat ons kan weet die diere beweeg rond en dat hulle gesondheid nie verswak nie,” sê Slater.
For those people constantly thinking I have Lions on my blog mating…here is now a link for you guys!! I get it often that people get directed to my blog via a search with search terms like: “lions mating” or “lions having sex”…hahaha..now you have a link to follow! I don’t know why they’ve thought I’ve had that info here, I was getting tired for those searches..ok, help yourself now and see how they do it in nature! The link will open in a new window.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/984860/amazing_footage_of_male_lion_talking_while_mating/

http://www.africa-nature-photography.com

Drakenstein Lion Park, South Africa
Copyright © Dries Cronje

African Lion …click on the images for a larger view. Image: Wikipedia

Lion cubs playing : Wikipedia

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

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