Indholdsfortegnelse for Aug/Sept 2024 i go!

ED’S LETTER Just before sunrise, it stops raining for the first time in two days. It’s the break in the weather I’ve been waiting for – my chance to fetch firewood from behind the house and carry it in a wicker basket to stack on the stoep, under the roof. It’s bitingly cold and heavy rain is forecast for the rest of the week. I’m going to light a fire early today, to warm up the house. Yesterday in Stellenbosch, we had so much hail that Helshoogte Pass looked like a road in the Swiss Alps. I’m pretty sure there’s snow on Simonsberg under that blanket of clouds. Sopping wet Cape weavers chatter impatiently as they watch me from the gnarled wild olive tree in my garden. They’re probably wondering…

Every month our experts answer your questions about birds, bugs and beasts. Send your photos and queries to editor@gomag.co.za Neither trunk nor tail PHILNA DE VILLIERS from the Villiersdorp district writes: We saw this elephant calf without a trunk or tail in Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana, in April 2024. It appeared to be in a fairly good condition - we saw it eat its mother’s dung. Will the calf be able to survive without its trunk? Wildlife expert LD VAN ESSEN says: Based on the series of photos Philna sent in, I estimate the calf to be about three to four months old judging by its shoulder height compared to the cow’s elbow, and the fact that it can still walk underneath its mother’s stomach without touching it. The lack…

PIT STOP Is this the most scenic spot for a cement picnic table in the land? I think so! Just imagine sitting here on a clear autumn morning, with the Eastern Cape below you in greens and hazy blues. Out comes the Stanley flask, full of piping-hot coffee that you made at your guesthouse this morning. Maybe you stayed at Intaba Lodge ( intabalodge.co.za) at the foot of Barkly Pass, or at the Mountain Shadows Hotel ( mountainshadowshotel.co.za) at the summit of the pass. Both are about 30km east of here as the Cape vulture flies. Intaba Lodge and Mountain Shadows are both excellent bases to explore Otto du Plessis Pass. They’re both next to the R58 tar road that connects Khowa (formerly Elliot) with Barkly East. Simply follow the…

This is the place where you get to show off! Send your best nature, travel and wildlife photos to Toast Coetzer and you might be featured: takeyourpic@gomag.co.za CAROLINE ROWBOTTOM Canon EOS 90D Sigma 150–600mm IG: @caroline_rowbottom CAROLINE WRITES: I took this photo in June 2024 at the Diep River estuary, near Woodbridge Island in Milnerton, Cape Town. It was about 11 in the morning. It was an unusually calm winter’s day for Cape Town, with almost no wind. This lesser flamingo flew in and landed gracefully, tiptoeing over the smooth water surface. I took a whole series, which made it difficult to choose only one photo to send! My shutter speed was 1/1600 second at an aperture off8 and ISO 200. TOAST SAYS: What a cool shot! Flamingos are naturally…

A NEST TO CALL HOME They say if you can build a house together as husband and wife, your marriage will last. I don’t know how true that is, but building your dream house is indeed a massive undertaking. It’s fun drawing up plans and talking about decor, but the reality is a slog. And you pay for every square metre. My wife Ronél and I have been through this process once. Hopefully never again! Who do you think has the most impressive house in the bird world? No, it’s not those enormous sociable weaver nests that give Telkom so many problems in the Northern Cape. They don’t count - they’re more like apartment blocks. The title goes to the hamerkop. As a couple, these birds regularly build one of…

HAVE YOU SEEN SOMETHING AMAZING? Send your series of photos and a short description of the sighting to toast@gomag.co.za.You could win a Thule Subterra PowerShuttle bag! The Thule Subterra PowerShuttle bag is ideal for people who travel with a lot of tech. It’s a sturdy carrier made from durable materials and is perfectly sized (21 x 7 x 14,5cm) to organise everything from cables, earphones and adaptors to power banks and compact external hard drives. There’s also an easily accessible pass-through slot that allows you to charge your device in the exterior slip pocket from a power bank inside the bag. With the Subterra PowerShuttle, you’ll never have to search for a single cord again! For more information about this and other great gear for your active lifestyle, visit thulestore.co.za.…

The border official flipped through our passports, pushed them back and said, “You have 30 days left.” What? Two weeks before, after a complicated and frustrating process, we’d received Colombian visas that were valid for 56 days. (Standard visas are normally issued for 90 days, but in our case nothing seemed standard…) Now the official was saying that 26 of those days had already expired. We pleaded with him. We were at the border with Ecuador, in the city of Ipiales in the far south of Colombia. We explained in our best Spanish that we were overlanding and that 30 days were simply not enough to see his beautiful country. The response was resolute:“Nothing can be done.” What made matters worse was that we’d planned to ship our Land Rover…

How does Nieuwoudtville change during flower season? If you don’t visit during flower season, it’s so quiet it’s almost as if no one lives there. But I like that – you get to experience the small-town vibe. It’s the opposite in season, when there are more visitors than locals. Two months of hustle and bustle, then things quieten down again. Are we in for a good season this year? I visited Nieuwoudtville in June and the Bokkeveld Plateau was experiencing unseasonally warm weather. At the time of going to print, the winter rains were still (hopefully) on their way. Rain later in winter means that the flowers will bloom deeper into August. That said, Nieuwoudtville has a wide variety of wildflowers and there’s always something in bloom, like proteas and…

This sculpture, made from stone and metal, is one of more than 30 scattered across the Kaokoveld in Namibia. Some of the sculptures are seated under shepherd’s trees, some stare out over the landscape, and there is even one doing a yoga pose. Rumour has it that the artworks, known as the Lone Men, were created by the artist Trevor Nott. There’s an unwritten rule not to share the GPS waypoints of their locations - keeping a secret is a wonderful thing in this age of abundant information.…

IN BRIEF Leopards are extremely elusive and prefer to remain unseen. So, how do you tell if one has been somewhere? Here are the signs to look out for. The first and probably most obvious sign is spoor. The imprint left behind when an animal steps on a soft substrate can tell a whole story if you know how to read it. A leopard’s claws are fully retracted into the sheaths when walking, so no nail marks are usually visible in the spoor. This helps to distinguish cat tracks from those of dogs, which typically have clear nail imprints in front of the toe pads. The presence of three lobes at the back of the footpad is another characteristic that distinguishes cat spoor from dogs. In the Cape mountains, leopards…

WHY? We publish a selection of reader pictures in every issue. Don’t be shy, haul out those shots you’ve been hoarding on your computer and send them to us! We like just about anything: wildlife, landscapes, portraits, holiday snaps or bugs in your garden. HOW? Send your photos to takeyourpic@gomag.co.za Submit only your three best shots each month. Don’t send files bigger than 4MB – if we need a bigger version, we’ll ask for it. Give the name, surname, home town and contact number of the photographer. Also include info about where and how the shot was taken, and what equipment was used. If you manipulated your photo in any way, tell us what you did. THE FINE PRINT We reserve the right to use your photos elsewhere in the…

Custard tart Serves 10 Preparation time 30 minutes Baking time 40 minutes You need • ½ cup butter, melted • 10 sheets of phyllo pastry • 2 eggs • 1 tin (385g) condensed milk • full-cream milk (1 condensed milk tin full) • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon • 1ml almond essence (optional) • cinnamon sugar, to serve Here's how 1 Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a deep, round oven dish (25cm) with melted butter – I used a castiron pan. 2 To prepare the pastry sheets: Baste one sheet at a time with butter and fold it into zigzags lengthwise like a paper fan of about 2cm wide. Roll up the long strip to form a rose. Arrange the roses in the oven dish, tightly together. 3 Bake for…

WHEELS There are few vehicles in this bakkie-crazy country of ours that will turn as many heads as the new Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster. The Grenadier station wagon has been available locally for a few months now; the bakkie is the latest addition to a family of Grenadiers that will soon get a three-door sibling, too. That the Grenadier is strongly reminiscent of the original Land Rover Defender is no accident. When Land Rover decided to kill off its toughas-nails 4x4 in 2016 and focus on the luxury side of the market, Ineos boss Sir Jim Ratcliffe saw an opportunity. A year later, he and a group of friends put their heads together in their favourite pub in London and decided to build a car. The name of the pub: The…

It’s already 13 korhaan calls after seven, but I was up before sunrise at Nata Bird Sanctuary in Botswana to pack my tent in the campsite. From the campsite, it’s about 7 km to where I am now – under a thatched roof at a picnic site overlooking Sowa Pan, the eastern section of the Makgadikgadi Pans complex. I photographed wildebeest and ostrich on the way here, and also northern black korhaan, which is providing the current soundtrack along the seam of the pans. My new kettle, which I bought at an outdoor shop in Modimolle when I left South Africa two weeks ago, has also already sung its own song on the Cadac gas bottle; now I’m sipping coffee that a friend got for me in Vietnam. I dip…

LETTERS Where have you been? What have you seen? Write to editor@gomag.co.za WINNING LETTER Marooned in Gamkaskloof On Monday 8 April 2024, my wife Annette and I travelled to Gamkaskloof, also known as Die Hel. We’d booked a night’s stay at Fontein Guest Farm. The Swartberg Pass was shrouded in fog and we made slow progress. I took this rainbow photo about 20 km from the turn-off to Gamkaskloof. Later, I’d look back at it as evidence of the calm before the storm. We arrived at Fontein three hours later and received a warm welcome. After a braai, we went to bed. A heavy thunderstorm woke us during the night and it rained until the next morning. The rain gauge measured 101 mm. The Gamka River burst its banks and…

Namibia Self-Drive Guide: Edition 3 by Tracks4Africa R595 in bookstores, at Outdoor Warehouse and tracks4africa.co.za If you want to tackle a long road trip through Namibia, Zambia or Botswana, you can’t go wrong with the maps, GPS software and comprehensive guides from Tracks4Africa – in addition to your go! Namibia and Botswana guides, of course! The ever-popular Tracks4Africa guide to Namibia is now available in its third edition. It’s a 400-page tome that’s divided into three sections. The first section gives an overview of the country, as well as practical information about border posts, medical precautions, veterinary control points, packing lists, vehicle preparation and suggested routes. The second section covers 15 regions in the country, including their major tourist attractions and accommodation options. The third section consists of 33 pages of…

What do we have here? The X-T5 takes the place of the X-T4, making it the fifth generation of Fujifilm’s X-series of cameras. It continues the company’s exploration of a very particular niche in the mirrorless camera sector – a niche that Fujifilm has made its own: beautiful cameras that offer an “old school” look and feel, with tactile control dials. I used the X-T5 paired with the formidable Fujifilm XF 100–400mm lens on a trip through Botswana in February. I’ve always loved using Fujifilm’s film simulation modes (the X-T5 offers 19 different modes) since they allow the nostalgic stills shooter (that’s me) to pick a familiar look and feel and stick with it throughout a trip, or for a particular situation. Shooting wildlife in summer along the Chobe River,…

GEAR CAMP MASTER BREAD POT There are few things as delicious as warm bread made on the coals. In fact, any warm bread spread with farm butter, even straight out of the oven, is a treat. When the children were still living at home, I always used my Dutch oven to bake bread, but these days it’s simply too much bread and it feels like a waste. That’s why I love this little guy. Made from cast iron, with its own lid to ensure an even distribution of heat, it’s just the right size for two people or a small family. You can experiment with your own dough, or take a shortcut with shop-bought dough to make bread within an hour – low over the heat with coals on the…

Climbing the Amphitheatre is already one of South Africa’s most spectacular hikes, now you can dial up the adrenaline and summit Beacon Buttress via a thrilling new via ferrata called Dragon’s Tale. Via ferrata means “iron way” in Italian and refers to a protected route on a mountain featuring permanent cables, rungs or ladders bolted into the rock. Via ferratas are popular in the mountainous regions of Europe; some date from World War I when they were used by troops needing to traverse the Alps and Dolomites. Before you can get to the Amphitheatre’s own via ferrata, you have to navigate the bumpy 4x4-only road from Witsieshoek Mountain Lodge to the Sentinel car park - the trailhead for the classic hike that goes up to the plateau. From there, follow…

Seeing a pennant-winged nightjar is any birdwatcher’s dream. To see one in South Africa requires detailed planning, a November booking for a night drive from Punda Maria rest camp in the Kruger Park (the north of the park is the best place to see one), and a good dose of luck. Actually, it’s mostly luck. One night the nightjar will be there, the next night it will be gone. What are those“pennants”? They’re the male’s extra-long primary feathers – he develops two of them (62cm on average) every year for display flights to attract females during the nightjar’s mating season in early summer. In 2023, my friend and I did the Kruger Bird Challenge – the aim is to photograph 400 specific species in South Africa within 400 days. We…

HENNIE VAN DEVENTER from Melkbosstrand writes: In 1976, I took a sabbatical and I travelled to the USA with my family for a year. We wanted to explore the country as cheaply as possible. We bought a 1972 Toyota Corona Mark II station wagon for US$1500. On dozens of occasions, my wife Tokkie and I would fold down the back seat, unroll a mattress and sleep like sardines with our kids, Johan and Marisa, who were five and three years old at the time. There were so many snowstorms that year – the newspapers dubbed the winter of 1976 the “Big Freeze”. For snow novices from Randburg, this was a big challenge! One time, in Canada, we had to drive across a 60km snowfield at 40km/h. Along the way we…

go! West Coast (R135) is available in shops or online from media24shop.com. Looking for a quick weekend away within two hours’ drive from Cape Town? The seaside village of Paternoster is the place! It offers plenty of self-catering accommodation, and there’s a restaurant for every taste and budget. Be sure to go for a late afternoon stroll on the beach as the last light settles on the horizon – and then sit down for a meal at a beachfront restaurant like Voorstrandt or Gaaitjie. Read more about Paternoster and other coastal destinations in go! West Coast, our new travel guide about this region and the adjacent interior, including Namaqualand. The guide can also help you plan your next flower-viewing route – whether you want to do a day outing to Darling…