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Dear Bushwhacking friends
Well, as 2005 and our second year here at Tuli
Wilderness Trails comes to an end, we thought it
would be an ideal time to share some of our news and
experiences with you.
Firstly, we would sincerely like to thank each and
every one of you who have given us your support over
the last two years, we really appreciate it and sure
needed it, its not easy to get an operation like
this off the ground from scratch and you have all
been essential ingredient in the birth of TWT –
THANK YOU! For those of you who haven’t been able to
make it yet, please come up sometime and get a taste
of what real Africa is all about, we guarantee
you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
We completed the building of Musth camp in October
2004, which made us fully operational. The camp has
proven to be much more popular than we had expected,
and our camp occupancy has been good especially for
its first year. The waterhole in front of the camp
is really popular with guests and Game alike. In the
dry season, herds of Elephant (up to 100 at a time)
come and drink and bath, almost on a daily basis.
There aren’t many places in the world where you get
Elephant viewing like this. There are also always
Impala, Kudu, Bushbuck, and Warthog around the
waterhole during the day. The Game have also got
used to our floodlight which illuminates the
waterhole at night; Bush pig and Porcupine are often
seen and Leopard, Lion and spotted Hyena have also
been observed popping in for a drink on the odd
occasion.
Mohave, our ‘rustic bush camp’, is also very popular
with its wild and untamed atmosphere and charm. Its
remoteness and “living with nature” feeling is
extremely invigorating and exiting. When you hear a
Lion roar fifty meters away and the table vibrates,
and you know there are no fences between you and
this magnificent creature, you know you are in
Africa as it was a hundred years ago. The night
sounds here are phenomenal, as there are no
unnatural sounds to shield the sounds of the wild,
also there is only a Mopane pole wall separating you
and the African Night. Lion, Hyena, Leopard, Jackal
and Elephant are heard almost every night and
sometimes all within half an hour.
Our ever-present friends the Elephants have taught
us to be very good and quick plumbers. I don’t know
how many times they have trashed the outside
ablutions, I sometimes think they are trained by our
local plumbing supply shop in Bobonong to go for
15mm Galvanized pipe and 40mm plastic pipe, as it’s
the most expensive item in their shop.
We finally got Rutt camp up in May this year. This
is our tented fly camp that we use on our Four-day
Wilderness Trail, but also hire out if there are no
trails on the go. This camp is movable and will be
moved from time to time depending on the season,
movement of Game etc. The camp consists of four dome
tents each with 2 beds, a bedside table and portable
camp basin. It is fully contained, a camp Kitchen
also fully contained, and two camp showers and two
chemical camp toilets are available. It is also
fully serviced and a camp attendant stays with you
in his own tent. All you need bring is your food and
drink. If you do the Wilderness Trail, you are fully
catered and need only bring your drinks. It is a
charming camp and very comfortable. It is also on a
major Elephant route and Elephant are often to be
seen chilling out under the same Apple leaf trees in
the heat of the day as you are. It is a typical “
Out of Africa camp “ and gives you the feeling of
Africa in the days of Selous, Rhodes and Blixen.
We also did a few four-day Wilderness Trails this
year. The style and routine, i.e. spending one night
in Musth camp and then walking to Rutt camp the
following morning and spending two nights here
before walking or driving back to Musth camp for the
last night works well. It gives you three full days
walking and four nights, enough time to enjoy after
you’ve started relaxing rather than having to leave
just as you start relaxing. Going from luxury to
wild (but comfortable), and then back to luxury and
experiencing two completely different camps and many
different landscape types makes it a good recipe I
think. We need to do more trails next year, so come
on guys – come and have an adventure!
We also finally got a web site up and running this
year, its address is www.tulitrails.com.
Some memorable moments from the past year:
Lion
Probably the most memorable Lion incident this year
happened in July, when my son Joshua and I were
spending a night in Rutt camp. We had shot an Impala
for rations for our staff in the late afternoon. Mr
wise guy (me) decided that it was too late to take
the carcass home and that it was cold enough to keep
the carcass in camp and take it home next morning
without it going off. We duly gutted the Impala and
hung it in a tree to keep it out of reach of
scavengers. At about three am. I was woken by a Lion
roaring quite close, I thought, but not as close as
it was, I was later to find out. I wasn’t perturbed
at all, as Lions are often heard here, so went back
to sleep. At around five am. I heard a loud thud in
the direction of the Impala (about 30 meters away).
I got up and looked through the gauze window of the
tent. It was full moon and there he was in all his
glory – a beautiful, huge adult male Lion standing
up on his hind legs trying to reach our staffs
rations. He heard me and in a very irritated
fashion, growling in frustration, ran off and
crouched down on his belly facing us from about
40meters off. By this time I had woken Josh up and
we had got out of the tent (Trusty rifle in hand of
course), and were trying to get a better view of the
Lion. He really got agro with us and gave us a few
short, loud mock charges. At this stage scenes of
the man-eaters of Tsavo were in the fore of my mind.
Discression got the better part of valor and we
hastily zipped ourselves up in our tent again. The
Lion was really serious about getting a free meal
and started stalking back towards the Impala in a
round about way. Unfortunately his new approach
route took him to within 1 meter of Johannes’s tent.
I wasn’t aware that Johannes had woken up and
thought Id best inform him of the cat just outside
his tent. I shouted a warning for him not to get out
of his tent. No reply, tried again, no reply. At
this stage with all my shouting and the dawn
breaking Mr Lion must have got a bit unnerved and
moved off into the bush. Turns out Johannes was well
aware of the Lion and was worried that if he replied
to my warning the Lion would have opted for a
starter seeing that he couldn’t get the main course.
In February this year, I was driving from home to
Mohave camp at about dawn to take some of our guests
for a walk. Close to Mohave, I found fresh Lion
tracks headed straight for the camp. The guests had
obviously been partying the night before and were
all still in their nests. The tracks had gone
straight into the camp and wondered around the camp
before heading for our staff quarters. It had been
extremely hot that night and Johannes (again – he
obviously has something that Lions like) had decided
to sleep outside to try and get cool. I followed two
Lion tracks to 1 meter from where Johannes had been
sleeping in his bed. They had, completely unaware to
Johannes, walked up to him in the darkness, smelled
him, stood there for a few moments contemplating
what to do with him, decided against eating him and
walked off again. Johannes went white when I showed
him the tracks – he, believe me will never sleep
outside again. The moral of the story is: never take
anything for granted in the bush. Johannes is one of
the few people ever to have come out of an
experience like that alive.
In general, the lion population over the last six
months has definitely got larger. A pride of 12 were
seen together at Mohave camp recently, up until then
the most anyone had seen here was 6 together.
8 Lions killed and ate an Impala at Mohave a few
weeks ago and about a week later 6 Lions killed a
Kudu at Mohave as well.
Leopard
Sitings have been fairly regular, but not as regular
as they should be judging by the amount of tracks we
see. I think they are still a bit shy of vehicles,
as we don’t have as many driving around as some of
the more up market lodges in the area. The siting of
the year was by a group of foreign students staying
in Mohave. It was full moon at about ten in the
evening when the students heard the Leopard grunting
close by. A few minutes later a large male was
spotted in the moonlight walking up the dry riverbed
towards the camp. He walked right past the group who
were all standing at the Lapa looking down at him,
he didn’t even flinch and gave them a siting of a
lifetime. Wow, some people get lucky!
Cheetah
Of all our predators, cheetah are seen the most, the
largest group I have seen were 6. an adult female
with 5 sub adult cubs.
Their population is doing very well, as most times
we see them, they have cubs, and just yesterday I
saw a female with 3 4-month-old cubs on an Impala
kill.
Hyena
The spotted Hyena population is definitely growing.
We have far more sitings now than before, we even
found a den with 2 pups in July, which were very
tame and gave some of our guests some great viewing.
One adult Hyena got very bold in the winter and
after having a few forages in Musth camp at night
got tired of this and decided to come into our
garden and see what was available there. After
destroying a few hosepipes over a period of about a
week, he finally got very brave, came into a
courtyard outside where our Bull Terrier Tessa is
chained up at night and tried to catch her.
Fortunately Tess came out of it unscathed, but the
Hyena got away with the basket Tess had been
sleeping in.
An interesting thing about Hyena in this area is
that we have a lot of Brown Hyena on this side of
the Tuli Block whereas on the Eastern side they
haven’t been seen for years. I believe that on the
eastern side they are out competed by a huge
population of spotted Hyena and seek refuge on our
side. I also think that the increase in our Lion
population is also due to the competition with
spotted Hyena on the Eastern side- the lions are
trying to get away from the large number of Hyena on
that side. This is just a personal observation, but
think it is the case.
Elephant
These Pachyderms, as you all know are overabundant
in the Tuli Block. But it is fantastic to have them
around, they provide our guests and us, with hours
of entertainment, often get the adrenalin going and
sometimes cause long detours and climbing of koppies
on walks and trails.
Sandy and I were sitting on the deck at Musth camp
late one afternoon watching a herd drinking at the
waterhole when a huge bull in Musth (get the pun),
came down the driveway from behind us on his way to
the waterhole. We just sat dead still, hoping that
he would just carry on walking past us. Not to be.
He walked up to the deck as though he deliberately
wanted to show us who was really boss, stopped 7
meters from where we were sitting on the floor of
the deck and started trying to pluck some leaves off
the Mashatu tree we were sitting under. It was an
awesome experience, he knew we were there, but was
not at all fazed by us. To see a huge Elephant bull
from that angle and distance was something else.
Once again the Eles have trashed our garden, I think
every plant and tree Sandy has planted over the last
two years is gone. They literally sneak in just
after dark and cause absolute havoc without you even
knowing they are there. Even if you catch them red
handed and chase them out, within half an hour they
are back.
The last straw was about a month ago. I got up in
the middle of the night to go to the loo. Whilst on
my way to the loo along a verandah closed in with
shade cloth, in my sleepy state, I looked through
the gauze – or tried to and noticed that it was very
dark. Reality struck, I woke up. Three Elephant
bulls standing against the shade cloth eating pot
plants. They took quite a while to respond to my
cursing and then arrogantly and slowly moved off,
but didn’t even leave the garden.
We now have a brand new electric fence around our
garden, and I take great pleasure in hearing the
screeches of surprised Elephants as they try to
enter our garden now. Sandys planning a new garden
already – lets hope the big boys don’t discover how
to destroy electric fences.
Folks, Iam getting carried away with all these
stories, so will stop now – there are just so many
to tell, but I wont bore you anymore – besides I
have writers cramp, stiff shoulders and my eyes are
going blurry and I’m getting all my grammar and
spelling wrong.
The conditions here, at the moment are extremely
dry, we need rain badly, but I think it’s on its
way. Once the rains come everything will breathe a
huge sigh of relief, and we can start birding again.
In summer the birdings really good, probably our
best so far was an adult and sub- adult Pels fishing
owl, which were resident at a pool in the Limpopo
from October 2004, until the pool dried up in May
this year.
On a more personal note, its been quite a hectic
year with TWT being really busy from March to
October, also our Daughter Natasha has been in
Matric and is writing finals presently. Of course
the Matric year is also a year of Drivers licences,
cars, Matric dances, plans for next year and
countless other things that happen when your
Daughter is about to fly the nest. Next year is
Joshua’s turn – another year of the above, anyway, I
guess that’s life.
Our old Boerbul dog “Johnny “, some of you may have
met her died of old age (14 years old) last month,
she was the first dog we ever had, and we sure miss
her.
That’s about it for now folks. Thanks again for all
the support and hope to see you up here soon.
Have a peaceful, blessed and safe festive season and
a fantastic 2006.
Our fondest regards
The Beatons
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