The African Bush

 

 

 

A walk in the back garden takes on a new significance as I  found out after going on a 6 hour trek through the bush, we literally stepped out of the back door and started walking, I was escorted by a local Zulu  man called Vovo, he spoke no English which was actually very nice as the whole walk was in silence apart from the noise of the birds and the scurrying of animals as they heard us approaching. Communication was by a walking stick pointing in the direction of anything interesting.

 

  

We climbed what I thought at the time was a large hill little did I know what was round the corner miles and miles of what seemed to somebody who is only 5ft tall like the Himalayas. The scenery was breathtaking and I was grateful for the walking stick I had been advised to bring and also the sun hat, as the weather was extremely hot.

The Cacti are enormous and everywhere, the other plant that grows in abundance  and also is extremely large in size is the aloe vera plant.

 

Our first mission was to look for Giraffe and we found them but only as a blob in the horizon but once we had spotted them we just followed that direction, there were about 10 Giraffe and how magnificent they look in their wild state. They were quite comfortable with us as long as we kept our distance, and we followed them until they were out of sight.

  

 

Our next encounter was with a Kudu,it looks like a large antelope browny grey with pale stripes, they are rarely seen around here and we saw two, they crossed our path and hastily after seeing us lost  themselves in a herd of cows.

 

Zebra tracks were all along the path we were walking and we followed some very fresh tracks but to no avail, the best we were however able to see  was them in the distance.

Every now and again an animal would shoot across the path in front of us and  Duaker and bush buck were encountered this way.

Two troops of monkey were observed one in the trees one group happily playing and the other group fighting over some dispute.

After many stops because of the heat we eventually saw home (the ranch) and wildebeeste  were grazing on the hill just above the house.

 

    

This area is in the process of being made into a game park and many animals including the big 5 eventually will be bought here.

If anybody can better that walk in their back garden I would love to hear about it.