Innehållsförteckning för June- July 2021 från go!

I recently had the privilege of travelling across the country from Lambert’s Bay on the West Coast to Morgan Bay on the East Coast. And then I went west again, along different roads back home to Stellenbosch. My fellow explorers and I chose gravel roads where possible, taking our time over mountain passes and picking our way through all the villages and hamlets sown across South Africa’s interior, covering 3 700 km in total. A story about this journey will appear in go! later in the year, but for now I’ll mention a few of the things that struck me: Since you’re a reader of this magazine, you’ll know this already, but wow – our country is splendid! The variety of landscapes and the diversity of its people are glorious…

It was autumn in 2018 – at the height of a terrible drought – and Haffie Strauss was eyeballing a sparse rooibos plantation through the windscreen of her Land Cruiser. “In terms of agriculture, this is one of the weakest regions in South Africa,” she said. “Take the Free State – you put a plough down and watch the tractor disappear over the horizon. Here we only have small patches of arable land. Sometimes it’s stone, sometimes it’s clay, and summers are incredibly hot. “Before the drought we had about 400 hectares of rooibos, now there’s only about a hundred left. Last year, natural springs farmers had been using their whole lives dried up. The groundwater is depleted. “Rooibos grows wild in the mountains but nobody farmed with it before…

Tell us about The Forgotten Scientist. It’s about a pioneering black scientist who made a great contribution to the fields of anthropology and ornithology in South Africa. Saul Sithole worked at the Transvaal Museum (now the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History) from 1928 to 1990. He gave six decades of his life to the scientific world and even apartheid did not stop him. I was inspired by his dedication to his profession. Whether he was doing taxidermy or working with fossils, he gave his all. Yet he never received the official recognition he deserved. How did you approach your research? It was important for me to speak to Sithole’s family, former colleagues and acquaintances to get a full picture of him so as to bring his story to life.…

DIRK HEYNS Canon EOS 5D Mark III Canon 100 mm macro lens DIRK WRITES: When dragonflies land near water, they always seem to look down. If you want a close-up where you can see their eyes, you need to get yourself into a really low position. I jumped into our swimming pool to get this photo, which meant I was pretty much at eye-level with the insect. My shutter speed was 1/500 second, aperture f7.1 and ISO 250. TOAST SAYS: A macro lens is a good arrow to add to your quiver. Save up and buy one when you feel like trying something new – a lens like Dirk’s costs about R10 000. Think of your garden as a miniature wilderness and approach it as such when you’re out with…

Pulled pork pie with cornbread crust Serves 4 Preparation time 30 minutes Cooking time 3 hours You need • 1,2 kg pork shoulder, deboned and in 3 cm cubes • 1 tablespoon brown sugar • 1 teaspoon each braai salt and smoked paprika • 1 chilli, chopped • 1 clove of garlic, chopped • ¼ cup brown vinegar • 1 cup beer (we used lager) • ¼ cup braai sauce of your choice For the crust •2/3 cups milk • 1 tablespoon vinegar • ½ cup fine polenta • ½ cup self-raising flour • 1 egg • 1 tablespoon melted butter • ¼ cup finely grated cheddar • 1 preserved jalapeño chilli, chopped (optional) Here’s how 1 Preheat the oven to 160° C. Add all the ingredients for the filling except the braai sauce to an ovenproof pot and roast for about two hours with…

The Knysna Forest will forever be remembered in the narratives of Dalene Matthee, one of South Africa’s most beloved authors. On this adventure with the Bhejane Adventures team, you’ll experience the places depicted in books like Fiela’s Child, Circles in a Forest and Drea-forest. The tour links many of the sites featured in the stories, including the Langkloof where Fiela farmed with ostriches, the overgrown paths of Diepwalle where Saul Barnard swung his axe, and the original church of the doomed Italian silk farmers who inspired The Mulberry Forest. This is a self-drive tour and although a 4x4 is not essential, we recommend a vehicle with decent ground clearance and off-road tyres. Unfortunately no trailers are allowed. Accommodation is at Louvain in the Langkloof and a little slice of heaven…

The KZN Midlands is a canvas upon which the seasons are painted. In winter, the brittle grass is burnt by frost and dampened by mist that lingers in the valleys. Black firebreaks mar the land beneath a pale sky. And then, as if remembering itself, the landscape explodes into a dazzling summer. The sun awakens Christmas beetles that call the thunderstorms and herald the green world that surrounds me now. I’m driving on the R103 towards Nottingham Road, a small town I haven’t visited since playing hockey matches there as a girl. (I grew up in Hilton.) “Notties” is about 20 km north-west of Pietermaritzburg and 25 km south of Mooi River. Before the N3 was built, this was the main route to Johannesburg. It has so many twists and…

1.The bee flies around from early in the morning, looking for flowers with nectar and pollen. 2. Nectar is the sweet liquid inside a flower. Bees love it. To reach the nectar, the bee has to climb into the flower and it gets covered in pollen. 3. The bee uses its front legs to comb all the pollen on its body into cavities on its back legs, called “pollen baskets”. 4. The bee returns to the hive to drop off the nectar and pollen. It does a little dance to tell the other bees where to find the flowers. Now all the bees can go harvest nectar and pollen. 5. The bee stores the nectar in honeycombs. It sits on the nectar and fans it with its wings until a…

Avian Architects, Flying Mammals & Skullduggery by Chris & Mathilde Stuart, Struik Nature R90 each in bookstores Chris and Mathilde Stuart are prolific writers of best-selling field guides and other books on wildlife and conservation. Their guides are packed with information but written in an engaging style – you don’t feel like you’re reading a textbook. Their latest offering includes three pocket-sized identification guides: nests and eggs of southern African birds; bats of Africa; and mammal skulls of southern and East Africa. Each 40-page guide is sold separately. Avian architects: With this guide in your back pocket, you’ll be able to distinguish the domed nest of a hamerkop from the communal nest of a colony of sociable weavers. The guide features multiple species and includes colour photographs of each bird,…

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 4 MB – 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…

ONE-PERSON TENTS 1 First Ascent Stamina This is the smallest tent from South African company First Ascent, and it’s our favourite among the “official” one-man tents that we tested. It might weigh an energy bar or two more than the other tiny tents, but the quality of the aluminium poles, the solid zips and the ripstop material of the flysheet compensate for the extra grams. Both sides of the tent can be zipped open into O-shaped entrances, and it feels reasonably roomy inside. The tent has been designed to be packed into a bag that fits comfortably on the handlebars of your bicycle, in the bottom compartment of your hiking backpack, or in the top box of your motorcycle. Weight: 2,04 kg Dimensions (pitched): 230 cm (L), 105 cm (W),…

HOUSE ON SUIKERBOSSIE, VANDERKLOOF Vanderkloof in the Northern Cape was never meant to be a town. In the 1970s, the Department of Water Affairs build prefab houses for the workers constructing the PK le Roux Dam (now Vanderkloof Dam). When the dam wall – the highest in South Africa at 108 m – was finally completed in 1977, many of the employees were close to retirement age. They had come to love the place so much they didn’t want to leave. The government sold the houses to them and over time new houses, buildings and shops were added. Today, Vanderkloof is a popular – if remote – retirement and holiday town. House on Suikerbossie is one of the original prefab buildings that has been restored by owners Robert and Sandy…

My partner Steph Perrin and I spent almost the whole of February 2020 in the Kruger Park. We were camping at Satara and left camp early to start our usual dawn drive to see what the bush had to offer. Just outside the gate, we came across a pride of lions doing what they do best: sleeping. With about 10 cars already jostling to get a glimpse, we decided to smile, wave and squeeze past in hopes of a better sighting. We headed south on the Satara-Tshokwane road. Just a few kilometres further, we stopped on the bridge over the Nwanedzi River. We always stop at water crossings as you never know what animal might be having a quick drink. The only thing we could see was a lone waterbuck…

Colourful next to the Kruger These lilac-breasted rollers were feasting on insects next to the Olifants River in the Struwig Eco Reserve about 40 km from Hoedspruit. We spent a week at Struwig in March – it’s right next to the Kruger Park and one of my favourite wild places. MIKE VAN DYK, Springs Lost connection found The article about Barrydale in go! #175 – specifically Bob Wolf and his coal stoves – took me way back to 1967. That’s the year I got married and my husband and I toured the coast in our Volkswagen Beetle for our honeymoon. At Port St Johns, we set up camp with only a two-man tent, a small camping mattress and a torch. Our neighbour in the campsite soon popped around to offer…

Indaba Is by Various Artists, Brownswood Recordings £8 from indaba-is.bandcamp.com This spirited collective effort, pulled together by pianist Bokani Dyer and songwriter Siyabonga Mthembu, showcases some of South Africa’s finest young musicians. The eight (long) tracks expand and contract at just the right pace to show off a smattering of different views: a silhouetted roost of egrets, a chunk of sunset wedged between city buildings… Genres are hopped between like a late-night finger rolling an FM dial, searching for signal somewhere between Bloemfontein and Beaufort West: jazz to rock, rhythmic beats, back again. Thematically, there’s love and politics, place and person. “Ke Nako” by Dyer feels like a call to arms, then “Umthandazo Wamagenge” by The Brother Moves On soothes, whistles in the dusk and eases an arm around your…

Zanzibar might be part of Tanzania politically, but in reality, it’s a world of its own – a slice of coral and palm trees caught in the current of history that has swept up the East Coast of Africa for hundreds of years. Stone Town – the old half of the capital, Zanzibar City – is the cultural epicentre of the island, a labyrinth of alleyways, crumbling Arabian architecture and sad echoes of slavery. The rest of the island is ringed by holiday resorts, the fanciest of which are in the north-west around the town of Nungwi. On the opposite side of the island, life is humble and more rural – visitors can experience Zanzibar at a gentle pace. In the fishing villages of Jambiani, Paje and Bwejuu on the…

I’ve lived in Cape Town for many years, but I only recently heard about this hike. I was excited: The trails on Table Mountain are so packed over weekends, by the time you’re halfway up, you start wishing you’d stayed at home. Good morning, goeiemôre, you say as you pass one hiking group after another, sidestepping into the fynbos to make space for runners and dogs to pass. Don’t get me wrong: I want everyone to enjoy the outdoors, but when I head into the mountains, it’s to get away from people. I want to be surrounded by the silence of the stone. So when friends invited me to try the lesser-known Swartkop Trail above Simon’s Town, I said yes right away. The trail starts on a fire road above…

Our northern Botswana tour begins at the community-based Khama Rhino Sanctuary in central Botswana, where we spend our first night before moving on to the spectacular Kubu Island, a granite rock outcrop on the Makgadikgadi Pans, for a night under the stars. The next morning after enjoying coffee and rusks against a backdrop of the iconic baobabs, we head north along the edge of the empty salt pans, testing our 4x4 driving on the sandy terrain. We have a light picnic lunch en route to our next campsite. We spend two days on the banks of the Boteti River, 30 km from Maun. There will be an opportunity to do a flight over the Okavango Delta (own expense), explore the local markets or simply chill in camp before a late…

We left Croatia in August 2018 and arrived in tiny Slovenia – about the size of the Kruger Park – where our first impression was that it was extremely tidy. We drove through pristine-looking villages full of traditional Alpine chalets and bright flower boxes. Our first destination was Postojna Cave, where a mini train took us underground for 3,7 km through lit-up halls and galleries. We even saw the famous “Baby Dragon”, a type of aquatic salamander called an olm. Olms, we were told, can live up to 10 years without food and have a lifespan of 100 years! Our admission ticket also included a visit to the beautiful Predjama Castle, which is perched halfway up a towering cliff and partially built into a cave. Slovenia only has one national…

It’s a Saturday morning at Rietvlei and my mother and I drive to a camp called Waterkloof, where we find Drakensberger cattle at the salt lick, each one black as an oil slick. A lone gemsbok – of the fancy, golden colour variant – is also there, but it’s further back, between the bushes, showing off its spectacular horns. It jumped over the fence from the neighbouring farm a couple of years ago and seems to have settled in. My mother has been a farmer all her life. She can tell at a glance that there are a couple of calves missing from the herd. She farms on feel, on instinct, rather than in a scientific way. We walk a short distance up the stony jeep track to see if…