So if my blogging has been exceptionally slow lately, it’s because I’m on holiday. As I write this, I’m sitting on my campsite at Skukuza in the Kruger National Park, just about as far removed from Cape Town as you can possibly imagine. Nothing is cosmopolitan here, there is no mountain and buildings – just the bushveld, in many ways a home for me.
My family have lived in the bushveld for many generations and it’s in our blood. I was raised learning to spot the differences between a Sharpe’s Grysbok and a Bushbuck, being able to tell a white-cross eagle and a vulture apart simply by looking at the pattern of their flight, why a koorsboom (fever tree) is called that and the sound of hippos blowing a stream of water into the air.
In what remains one of the greatest national parks in the world, I feel a sense of wholeness and completeness that I cannot find in any city. Cape Town is a wonderful place, but this little natural refuge is indescribable and speaks to a side of my soul that would otherwise be unfed, thus my return to this part of South Africa usually at least once every two to three years.
Personally, I would be quite unconcerned if I never saw a single lion (though of course I respect my family’s wishes to find them) or leopard… I was feeling contentment when I saw my first Steenbok – even if it took only seconds before it disappeared into the bushes in the characteristic way of this shy little antelope.
By Sunday evening, I will be back in the big city. Back to dealing with work and customers and traffic, and back to regular blogging, I’ll upload some of my better pictures and maybe the rather nice video I took of a bufallo up close – but all that is for later. For now, this is the first time I’ve logged into my laptop and it will be the last for as long as i can possibly postpone it.