Cape Town and an Aardvark Quest

I'm on my way to the very remote island of Saint Helena, in the Atlantic Ocean, but to get there I have to fly via Johannesburg. So, I'm taking the opportunity to revisit Cape Town, one of my favourite cities (read about that under Cape Town), and then to go on a very different type of safari, in the Karoo. My aim here is to find an aardvark. I've been desperate to see one ever since the near misses in Chad. (It's 'ard work looking for aardvarks.)

Cape Town to Bloemfontein

It’s a comfortable flight from Cape Town to Bloemfontein, on Airlink, the planet red and dry beneath me. It's thankfully a very efficient and welcoming airline. The same can’t be said for Budget Car Hire. I’ve filled in all my details and paid online, to be reassured I now have a quick pass and can pick up my keys and go. No-one seems to have informed the solitary young man on duty. He eventually tells me that his computer is down. This compounds the fact that he operates at the speed of a snail.

And then I discover that the excess on the insurance is the equivalent of £1300, so I ask him to take out more cover. That takes another ten minutes and I still haven’t a clue how much extra I’m being charged. I daren’t ask for more details, as the queue at the counter lengthens and the weary would-be drivers groan and roll their eyes.

The good news is that I have been rented an almost brand new Polo. Huzzah! No more Toyotas. And the phone pairs instantly too, so I have full screen GPS. It would do, as I remembered my dashboard mount this time.

Introduction to Bloemfontein

Bloemfontein (or Bloem), is right in the centre of South Africa. It's the capital and largest city of the Free State province, in South Africa. Bloem has traditionally been referred to as the country's third capital, the judicial capital, alongside the legislative capital Cape Town and administrative capital Pretoria. This is despite the fact that the highest court in South Africa, the Constitutional Court, has been in Johannesburg since 1994. Bloem is still home to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Bloemfontein is 1,395 metres above sea level, on the southern edge of the Highveld. It is apparently popularly and aptly (Bloem means flower) known as 'The City of Roses', as these flowers are abundant and there's an annual rose festival held here.

Navigating Bloemfontein

Even more good news. It’s very straightforward driving around Bloem. The roads are very quiet (it’s Sunday I hope I’m not being lulled into a false sense of security). They’re also broad and leafy - it’s very rural all round the edges of the city. Very green, but I’m still looking for those flowers. Cows are wandering on the carriageway, as I leave the airport. That’s not the only obstacle. A man is standing right in the middle of the highway, waving a cardboard sign. I’m not sure if he’s after a lift, or work. I’m too busy trying not to hit him to read the message.

My car temperature gauge tells me it's 90 degrees Celsius. It’s very hot here, but I think that’s still unlikely. I’m assuming it’s got its temperature scales muddled up. I should also mention the fact that my car is white. So are nearly all the other cars in South Africa. I’ve had to learn the number plate quickly. The first time I parked it I couldn’t remember which one it was and had to wander round waving the remote key until one of the vehicles flashed at me.

La Belle Guesthouse

My B and B is delightful. Well the first B bit is. La Belle Guesthouse is built in a mock Dutch colonial style, with a swimming pool combined with fountain which beckons me over. The bed is mysteriously swaddled in several throws and a quilt. There’s even an electric blanket. It’s 30 degrees outside. I can only assume that sometimes it gets quite cold here.

But the other B is not provided. I can hardly complain. It's only £35 a night - things are astonishingly cheap here. And I’m not big on breakfast. But the restaurants and even shops are not that close in these verdant suburbs. I have to drive six miles, out of town, to find a restaurant which is open on a Sunday evening. Steak with plenty of add-ons for just £14.00.

Rather to my surprise, there’s a procession of dogs through the property, some on leads. I’m not sure what’s going on. I think only two are resident. They’re giant snow white poodles, who are rather too friendly. They gambol up to my sunbathing couch and slobber over me. Shortly afterwards the male returns to lick my toes and then try and crawl on top of me. He’s obviously very bored.

Exploring Bloemfontein

Hostess Melani tells me that I shouldn’t go into the centre of Bloemfontein. 'It’s not safe, you will get robbed'. That’s a little disconcerting. The internet tells me that it is safe IF I’m careful, that there is plenty of security. But there are also a lot of comments talking about safety in numbers and I’m only me - disadvantages of being a solo female traveller. So,I’m not going into the centre and the main museums. But there are several key sights around the edges, on my list. Melani says they’re fine and it’s easy to park.

The Naval Hill Planetarium

I head off to the Planetarium, on Naval Hill, in the Franklin Game Reserve. Naval Hill is a surprising soubriquet for a mound which overlooks a city in the centre of the country. But it’s named for the two naval guns which the British once kept here. Google has been relatively well behaved so far and the boulevards on a Monday are almost as quiet as on Sunday; there’s no-one else around on the hill at all. But I overrule my guide and follow the signage to the Planetarium. It’s a mistake, and I end up alongside an eight metre statue of Nelson Mandela. Admittedly that’s interesting. It’s the tallest one in the country and he’s looking out over the city (great view), to the church where he formed the ANC.

But I fear I’ve somehow driven into a pedestrian area, over some nasty looking car barricades. And I have to find a means of extricating myself. That accomplished, on a wing and a prayer( I don’t think the car has been damaged, thank God), I follow Google to the tinny domed Planetarium. But Google is back on form. It informs me that the Planetarium is open till 4.30, but that’s is not as busy as usual at the moment. That’s an understatement. It’s closed. And the only occupants of the car park are two scraggy female ostriches. An attendant pokes her head out of a hatch to tell me that it only opens on Saturdays.

So, I’m left with the wildlife. This is marked as a game reserve. Too scruffy to be a proper park and too orderly to be a proper reserve. I chug round the circuit, on top of the hill, watching for wildlife. But there’s nothing doing. The ostriches, a few antelope and a couple of distant giraffe are all gathered right by the Planetarium Car Park. I’m forbidden to tread on the actual veldt and only the ostriches are foolhardy enough to come close. But they can thunder away fast enough, when they want to.

Oliewenhuis Art Museum

Down the hill, to the Oliewenhuis Art Museum, an offshoot of the National Gallery. It’s a very worthwhile visit, a collection of mainly modern, thought provoking paintings and sculpture. Astonishing to think that wildlife roams two minutes drive away.
The gardens, a tranquil escape with a fountain and more 3D work. I’m heading for the terrace café, but I’m thwarted again. It’s closed on Mondays.

Middle Class South Africa

Time to join Middle Class South Africa. I head for Woolworths. The malls here are small, discreet affairs and as every South African will hurry to tell you Woolworths stores are the equivalent of Marks and Spencer in England. I would go so far as to say the café is better. Table service.

The food hall is equally glorious with tempting technicolour produce piled high and I have to remind myself I just need snacks. It’s roasting hot and anything else is going to perish very quickly in the car.

I should have bought got more than the snacks. Late afternoon finds me trundling what feels like way out of town again, through fields, to a recommended seafood restaurant. I’m skipping lunch and having early dinner, to try and avoid driving in the dark. Which I’ve been told to avoid.

But Clear Restaurant is laid out for a private function. They direct me to the Italian across the way and tell me I can order their food from there. So now I’m waiting to see if my seafood platter for one turns up. The sky is black and there is lightening. I’m going to be driving back to base in the dark anyway.

Heading for the Karoo

There are a couple of reserves, in South Africa, where, I've read, there is a very strong chance of seeing the elusive aardvarks (and indeed, the rest of The Shy Five). However, they are extraordinarily expensive. I've been recommended Khoisan Karoo Private Nature Reserve as an alternative. It seems to be much more reasonably priced. I hope so. I've been booked in for Shy Five and Birding Safaris.

Driving in South Africa

I’m very apprehensive about driving out of town, in the heart of South Africa. The story of Africa’s inherent violence persists and I’ve been warned to keep windows shut. All valuables out of sight and to watch out for the truck drivers - ‘Stay in the inside lane’. But at least I reassure myself, I have driven in South Africa before and survived.

Google maintains its reputation for perversity and takes me through the centre of Bloemfontein , to reach the N1 Highway. It’s not too frightening – just a whole line of robots (traffic lights) and people walking in the road, by the kerb. I’m sure round the edge would have been quicker.

The N1 is the national highway of Africa, Cape Town to Cairo. The signs tell me I’m already exactly 1000 kilometres from Cape Town. Its two lanes fairly soon meld into one. It’s not the truck drivers who are the problem, chuntering along in their double trailer pantechnicons, it’s the fact that they’re limited to 80 kilometres per hour. The road limit for cars is 120 kph. And none of the car drivers is very happy to be held up by the queues of trucks.

Overtaking is a little fraught. I can see why this is one of the worst accident back spots in South Africa. Double white lines in the centre of the carriageway are an added incentive to overtake, it appears. The drivers are not above overtaking someone who is already overtaking either. It all adds to the excitement. Time passes very slowly. It literally goes backwards as Google tacks on minutes, as it realises it has underestimated the challenges I am facing. South through The Free State and across The Orange River into North Cape Province.

The scenery is blue green veldt, interspersed with yellow stone flecked mesas and kopjes adorned with bobble shaped bushes. It’s pretty but doesn’t change much. It just gets slightly browner. Grazing sheep alternate with cattle. And there is nowhere to stop for a toilet. Just one on road filling station at Coleberg, over two thirds of the way there. Otherwise, nothing, just a few laybys with trees and benches. But no buildings. What do folk do? I eventually head off the highway to a town. There’s a small hotel on the outskirts. I scoot in, a guy says, 'Morning ma’am', and I hop into the washroom. It’s all a little seedy, like a wild west joint. When I emerge there’s no-one around, so I just disappear again quickly. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a drink. I may not find another stop.

Four hours later ( Google said three and a quarter), I’ve arrived and am chuntering up a gravel track. Steenbok prance ahead of me, the other side of the fence. Well that wasn’t too bad.

The Karoo

'The Karoo?' you ask. Well, The Karoo is fairly well known as a semi-desert region of South Africa, but no-one can provide an exact definition of what or where it is. I've managed to glean that it has low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and typical desert extremes of heat and cold. Historically, it formed an almost impenetrable barrier for explorers trying to get to the interior, from Cape Town. The Karoo is divided into the Great Karoo and the Klein Karoo, to the south.

The vegetation is limited to plants which have adapted to arid climates (known as xerophytic): aloes, mesembryanthemums, crassulas, euphorbias, stapelias, and desert ephemerals, with grasslands in the east. The latter supports the large game herds. The Karoo is also a good hunting ground for fossils; it hosted a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago.

Khoisan Karoo Private Nature Reserve

My accommodation at Khoisan Karoo Reserve, is in New Holme, 'Where angels rest under tall trees'. Marisca, PC (after General Piet Cronje) and their four daughters are the owners and managers. And it’s tranquil and lovely here. PC and Marisca are extraordinarily welcoming and I can see the river from my vine clad cottage. Brightly coloured birds, a veritable pick'n'mix assortment, are hopping around the grounds.

Here. they offer the possibility of The Karoo Shy Five - aardwolf, aardvark, black-footed cat (very rare and substituting here for the meerkat, though I’m not sure why as meerkats are apparently available), porcupine and bat-eared fox, as well as Cape fox, African wildcat, striped polecat, African striped weasel, both small and large spotted genet, honey badger and plenty more.

PC had also introduced hippos, but he explains that he’s sadly now down to just one. The main bull was killing all the babies, so they had to dispose of him. When the last female died, they imported another one and then she died almost immediately after arriving. They’re saving up for another one. Rhinos are on the agenda too; PC has the permits. Now he’s waiting for the opportunity. There are also merino sheep and cattle - this is a mixed agricultural farm. I drive in past a pen of lambs and calves - the woolly babies bleating hopefully. They’re orphans or problem feeders being bottle fed in safety. The bottles are repurposed vodka and beer containers and the lambs headbutt each other and anyone or anything in their way, to get their mouths round the teats.

The reserve has an airstrip and it's a regular stoppling off point for small plane pilots, on their way across country.

The food is amazing. I had expected basic country fare, but I’m being served up gourmet cuisine, beautifully presented. Salads, pastries, eland, lamb chops, cute bowls of spicy vegetables and a sublime malva pudding. For some reason they’re also making cheese and tomato toasties on a roaring open fire and one of those is deposited on my table half way through my first meal. I’m not complaining, but it is a big mistake to eat it. I can hardly walk afterwards.

In Search of the Shy Five

The Shy Five are virtually nocturnal, so it’s three night safaris, in one of the safari trucks.. The first and third are relatively tame nights. I’m in luck on each occasion, as the usually elusive aardvark are spotted fairly swiftly. However, they wandering away and are not in the mood for posing. Spring hares bounce around, boing boing, their green eyes easy to spot in PC's powerful torchlight; they’re not actually hares, but rodents, with bodies like a small kangaroo. They're hard to photograph without blurring. Baby boks blink and leap away. Proper hares lollop along, ears waggling.

It's breezy and balmy. Twice, a stripy aardwolf (an insect eating mammal of the hyena family) sneaks across our eyeline, vanishing swiftly into the distance. Two frustratingly far distant sightings of bat eared fox also. Gone almost before we can swivel our eyes, tail bobbing. A genet, also a dark blob on the horizon. Porcupines are more cooperative. At one point, a large male stops right in front of us.

Aardvark Alert

The middle day brings the anniversary of my birth and appropriate rewards. This time an aardvark, after some deliberation, crosses the track, wandering peacefully along. Aardvarks aren't rare. They are found over much of the southern two-thirds of the African continent. But they are incredibly hard to spot (as I've said before 'aardvarks are 'ard work'), because they are nocturnal feeders, subsisting on ants and termites. This is where their sharp spade like claws and powerful legs come in handy, to dig the insects out of their hills. Aardvarks also shovel to create burrows in which to live and rear their young. An amazing opportunity to observe the long quivering ears, oddly pinkish arched body, sparsely covered in hair and tapered snout. This is why they invented the phrase 'weird and wonderful'.

The Khoisan Karoo Story

The reserve is quiet now. And I’m the only punter on the daytime drives. Endless grassland and huge cloud spotted skies. Turner would have been jealous. We’re ostensibly bird spotting, but I know little about birds and our ornithology is punctuated by PC's back story.

First the birds, many of which are gaudily eye catching. Tiny yellow canaries and red and black bishops. Spoonbill and sacred ibis strut round the wetland areas. Swallows have made it here from England, and small brown fowl: ruffs and others, have flown all the way from Siberia. Migration is astonishing.

PC's tale is no less engaging. This is a family farm passed on by his father and expanded through rough times and smooth as the economics of agriculture fluctuate. His ancestors were Portuguese colonists. The land here was once the domain of the San peoples, who were shot, along with the hippos, if they weren’t actually driven off their land. Today, they live in the towns with little means of making a living. PC's family bought the land from the original pioneering owners. He has turned it into a nature reserve around the river and is determined to persuade other farms to join in, creating one huge Karoo Reserve. This would be designed to employ locals with skills training and preserve the land. These are huge projects, but so admirably worthwhile.

Compare the Meerkat

I’ve accomplished four out of the original Shy Five. And a 5.30 alarm on the third morning brings rich rewards in the form of Number Five: meerkats. Also weird and wonderful and impossibly cute. The tall lanky patriarch of the mob (amazing collective noun) stands guard, whilst his family alternately sun themselves or forage around in the soil, by the burrows. He’s solemn and concentrating hard, while she is industrious and the little ones, naughty children, scavenging, playing and burrowing. Their heads pivot constantly from side to side almost in unison and I find I’m imagining them with clothes on. ComparetheMarket.com has it spot on. They steal the Shy Five Show. Then they disappear. Their 30 minutes of daily fun is over.

In the Steps of David Attenborough

Day Three also brings adventure, as some of the game are being moved - great excitement. This involves a helicopter and a vet firing tranquilliser darts, from a gun. I’m allowed to tag along, in the front seat of the helicopter. The doors have been removed for easy firing. We swoop along, close to the ground and up and down the river, a bird's eye view of the dams, the vegetation here emerald against the grey blue speckled veldt.

The roan antelope we are seeking has gone to ground. There’s concern he’s wandered onto a neighbour's land and this particular individual has a propensity to shoot (and keep the meat). Three circuits of the river and the roan is not to be found. So we turn our attention to a saddleback blesbok, who has joined up with some recalcitrant individuals. He is to be placed with a small herd of eight or so females. He’s fairly easily tracked down and presents a straight running target for the vet’s shot. He crumples and is transported off to meet his new harem.

The third specimen is a black impala. A similar delight is planned to that of the blesbok, but the impala is to be taken to Milliefontein, 20 minutes drive further away. The impala is spotted without difficulty, but is determined to turn this into an epic hunt. He weaves in and out, two startled warthogs thundering along gulleys in front of him. Alongside fences, under bushes. He utilises every trick in the book, as the helicopter dives and zig zags in pursuit, before a dart finally secures his literal down fall. I’m terrified and exhilarated all at the same time.

Milliefontein

Once back on land, we trundle the impala over to PC's ancestral home, in a horse box. He’s released in to an enclosure thankfully still alive, but staggering out, somewhat astonished. It's a 'What the Fuck?' moment. He trots off, away from the herd he has yet to encounter. PC is happy about that. The impala can drink and recover his strength before he has to face the resident young ram. A small herd of male Cape buffalo arrive, keen to see what’s happening and in the hope of extra rations. They’re being reared as potential stud bulls. Their horns have to grow to 45 cm width before they can even be considered.

PC's childhood home has an amazing garden. Roses, fountains, arbours, lawns, islands and topiary. Again, astonishing in this arid landscape.

Farewell to Khoisan Karoo

Sundowners finish the days. Either on top of the little grey flat topped kopje, with views across to the meandering river, or on the reed lined jetty, by the hippo pool. On cue, he pops up to see what’s going on, great mouth yawning and a gentle grunt.

This place is magical. A surprise round every corner. But all good things come to an end. I pay my bill. An astonishingly reasonable £235 for all of that. I’ve told them it’s too cheap – after I had paid my bill.

Johannesburg and Onwards

Now I have to face the N1 again. It’s less daunting this time. Perhaps I’ve got accustomed to it. Time flies past. Even though Google tries to liven things up by disappearing my map every five minutes. And then directing me through litter strewn townships, roads riddled with potholes, on my return to Bloem Airport.

Johannesburg Airport, after a very bumpy 40 minute flight, round a thunderstorm, and then I'm off to St Helena.

(And read more about South Africa here.)