A heatwave had engulfed Tsitsikamma Village all day but late that afternoon, as if someone had clicked a switch, a gale erupted, bending trees nearly double, whooshing through a champagne draft of cool damp air and throwing up a space station of white cloud against the pitch black western horizon, just visible from the tranquil courtyard of the village inn.
I don’t usually bother with showering on hikes when there’s plenty of swimming but some members of our group, Pastor Mark Scholtz and his boys, had fired up the donkey boiler, and I thought I had to try it out. The pressure was very light but just the dribble of hot water felt like five-star luxury a reminder once again that less is more.
I don’t usually bother with showering on hikes when there’s plenty of swimming but some members of our group, Pastor Mark Scholtz and his boys, had fired up the donkey boiler, and I thought I had to try it out. The pressure was very light but just the dribble of hot water felt like five-star luxury a reminder once again that less is more.
There is an apocryphal Nature’s Valley story that tells of a large troop of baboons that swaggered down the Groot River Pass one day bent on some suburban plundering, only to be headed off at the bridge by the baboon monitors. A resident described the episode to me with wry amusement. “The troop sat on one side of the bridge and stared at the monitors, and the monitors stared back at them.
Evolution, Adam and Eve or both? In truth, I would have preferred silence to enjoy the vast wash of stars above us, the caressing mountain breeze and the blessing of rest after a sweltering day hiking in the Tsitsikammas. But who was I to stifle such an important conversation?