Kruger’s Time Bomb: Rhino Poaching and Too Many Elephants

This coming Saturday, Johannesburg and London will be among 125 cities worldwide to host demonstrations demanding action to curb exploding levels of rhino and elephant poaching.

In a measure of just how emotive the issue is becoming in South Africa, between 10,000 and 20,000 protestors are expected to turn up for the Jozi march to call for harsher penalties against poachers and traffickers in ivory and rhino horn.

Petitions will also be handed to the embassies of 19 countries, including key end-destinations such as Vietnam and China, which are accused of failing to do enough to tackle the problem.

Each year, the African continent sees a massive 35,000 or so of its elephants slaughtered for their tusks. But between January and 6 August this year, South Africa alone had already lost 631 of its estimated 21,000 rhino to poaching, according to Environmental Affairs Minister, Edna Molewa.

A shocking 408 of the creatures were butchered in the world-famous Kruger National Park, a distressingly high percentage in an environment believed to house between 8,400 to 9,600 white rhino and about 2,000 or so critically endangered black ones (South Africa National (SAN)Parks).

But, sadly, this year’s death toll already compares unfavourably with 2013 when about 1,000 of the creatures – a scary three times the 2010 tally and 10 times the 2007 one – were killed in total.

Demand for their horn, believed by traditional medicine advocates to cure everything from fever to cancer, has continued to soar over the last seven years in line with noticeable standard of living increases in South East Asia.

As a result, the horn can now fetch as much as $65,000 per kilogram on the black market, making it more expensive than gold or cocaine.

Unfortunately for South Africa though, being home to 82% of the continent’s entire rhino population and 93% of the world’s white rhinos, it is now at the epicentre of a poaching time bomb.

In fact, the fear is that if such activity continues unabated at current rates, the animals will end up becoming extinct in the wild within 10 years. Therefore, a number of measures are now being introduced in a desperate attempt to address the situation without having a negative impact on tourism.

According to the SanParks Times magazine, a key initiative involves the creation of a so-called Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ) in the south of Kruger, where 60% of the Park’s rhino population lives.

Intensive Protection Zone

The 4,000km2 IPZ, which is equivalent to about a fifth of Kruger’s total landmass, is intended to concentrate the beasts in an area protected by the latest hi-tech gadgetry.

The goal is to make surveillance, early warning and detection easier and take pressure off the mere 400 or so rangers trying to safeguard vast swathes of territory.

For example, one aim is to fit boundary fences with motion sensors that can pick up movement. GPS coordinates will then be sent back to an operations centre so that rangers in either trucks or a helicopter can be deployed in the event of a security breach.

In particularly vulnerable areas such as the Park’s 220-mile eastern border with Mozambique though, fences will also likely be equipped with a new gunfire-detection system.

California-based SST’s “ShotSpotter” is currently being pilot-tested for the first time outside of troubled US urban neighbourhoods, where it has to date been used to alert police of firearms-related activity.

Instead microphones have now been planted in different spots in the Park in order to triangulate the origin of gunshots fired as far as two miles away, with coordinates being relayed to Kruger’s operations centre within 30 seconds.

As to how the IPZ came about, meanwhile, it was all made possible thanks to a ZAR255 million (£14 million) donation by the Howard G Buffet Foundation in March. Work is expected to commence this month (October) and take about two years to complete.

But these are not the only measures in the pipeline. According to Environmental Affairs Minister Molewa, there are also plans to transfer rhino to safe havens in lower risk parks and reserves both inside and outside South Africa. Discussions are already taking place with nearby countries such as Zambia and Botswana.

The only downside is that, at an estimated $45,000 per animal, the exercise could prove prohibitively expensive unless additional funding can be found.

But something has to be done, not least because an estimated 80% of all rhino poachers come from the impoverished villages of South Africa’s neighbour, Mozambique.

Hot pursuit

One of the world’s poorest countries with close ties to China, its Limpopo National Park has been linked to Kruger via the cross-border Giriyondo Access Facility since 2006. The two form the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which will also include Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou Game Reserve over time.

But there is now talk of erecting a fence along the Kruger-Mozambique border in a bid to prevent poachers entering the Park through the bush.

A ‘hot pursuit’ agreement signed by the two countries in May could also help. The aim is to allow police officers to pursue poachers across borders so that they do not simply disappear under village protection after committing a crime as is currently often the case.

Interestingly though, while the poaching of species such as antelope and wildebeest for bush-meat is not uncommon in Kruger, elephant poaching has not been an issue for the last 10 years – although with one incident in July and another three months before, there is concern that the problem may be starting to rear its ugly head again.

If anything though, the challenge in Kruger is simply having too many elephants. With numbers estimated at between 13,000 and 16,000, the population is around twice what it should ideally be – and growing.

And sadly, the situation is now causing considerable environmental damage. At the very least, elephants help to keep indigenous flora healthy by bumping into trees with their huge behinds, knocking them over and thereby thinning them out.

But once there are too many, they can end up just destroying the habitats of other Park dwellers. Southern ground hornbills, which build their nests in deep hollows in very old trees, for example, tend to breed successfully only once every three years and are now endangered in Kruger, largely due to elephant behaviour.

Although culling was banned by Park management in 1994, rumours are now circulating of possible moves to reverse the decision. But a key inhibitor is likely to be the international outcry, not least because it becomes necessary to kill entire family groups, including babies, due to the distress and dangerous aggression generated among survivors.

One possible way to try and alleviate pressure on the elephant population though would be to go ahead with a planned wildlife corridor. The goal is to connect Kruger and the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park with South Africa’s first ever World Heritage site, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in KwaZulu-Natal.

The Wetland Park itself is in the process of becoming part of a new Lubombo Transfrontier Conservation and Resource Area, which will include a number of reserves in Mozambique and Swaziland.

But the international border fences have yet to come down – and seem unlikely to do so any time soon until the rhino-poaching situation can be sorted out once and for all.

SA Brandy Goes International

I must admit that before I came to South Africa, I had absolutely no idea that the country had its own brandy industry – and an award-winning one at that.

Wine, yes, but brandy, no. Not that I’m a connoisseur, but I can’t say that I had ever particularly noticed the stuff in UK off-licences, or bottle stores as they’re known here, let alone in your average supermarket.

Admittedly though, in Europe, the market tends to be dominated at the high end by French Cognac with its global reputation for quality, while everything else tends to compete on price, making brand recognition relatively poor.

But this lack of visibility internationally could be about to change. South Africa may be the seventh largest producer of brandy in the world, but it has so far been very much a locally-consumed product, with a mere 8% being exported elsewhere.

A key issue at the moment though is that, beyond the growing premium segment, this domestic market is actually in quite steep decline.

According to Christelle Reade-Jahn, director of the South African Brandy Foundation (SABF), sales of this grape-based spirit have dropped by about a third from 48.5 million litres per year in 2006 to a mere 33 million last year (South African Liquor Brandowners’ Association).

But the industry, which is based in the Western Cape, has been hit by an “almost perfect storm”, she says. The eradication of local protectionism after the introduction of an excise tax rebate and the removal of import tariffs for EU spirits in 2006 certainly did not help matters.

But the decline had already set in a couple of years earlier, following the entry of huge multinationals such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard into the South African market, leading to a massive marketing push behind their Scotch whiskey brands.

The effect was “like a wave going over local industry”, Reade-Jahn explains, and had the same devastating impact on the local brandy market as it had on pisco in Chile and ouzo in Greece.

A question of image

The situation was also not helped by the apparent South African thirst for international brands, after being starved of them for so long due to anti-apartheid sanctions.

Local brandy, meanwhile, tends to have somewhat of an image problem, often being associated in popular consciousness with male Afrikaner rugby fans swilling “Klippies (short for Klipdrift, a popular local brand) and coke” during a match.

But interestingly, according to Nick Holdcroft, brandy ambassador at Distell, a huge wine and spirit company and the country’s largest brandy producer, it is Xhosa township dwellers who generally take a bottle of Viceroy home when they visit family in the Eastern Cape, that actually make up one of its biggest customer segments.

Commando brandy is likewise a traditional component of the tribe’s male post-initiation ceremonies.

But the SABF, which represents 95% of South African brandy producers, is trying hard to broaden the spirit’s appeal out. Over the last few years, it has introduced a “major premiumisation strategy” in a bid to transform its image into a more upmarket, youthful and female one domestically.

It has also been avidly entering international contests such as London’s International Wine & Spirit Competition in a bid to boost the product’s standing and image at home.

And although much fruitier than France’s more woody-flavoured Cognac, it has been winning too – in fact, South African offerings have been awarded Best Brandy in the world accolades no less than 12 times over the last 15 years.

But the Foundation has also been exploring how to play whiskey producers at their own game – even without their vast marketing budgets to work with.

In a bid to increase the spirit’s attractiveness, for instance, the industry has started hosting ‘Fine Brandy Fusion’ shows over the last two years in Cape Town and Johannesburg, which are similar in nature to the locally very popular ‘Whiskey Live’ festivals.

Among other things, it has also introduced a couple of Brandy Routes in the Cape Winelands to sit alongside the more traditional Wine ones as well as creating a so-called Urban Brandy Cocktail Route to target a younger, more metropolitan market.

New markets

The idea here is that, designated Route venues such as restaurants, bars and hotels located in South Africa’s major cities of Cape Town, Joburg and Durban, offer punters a choice of eight bespoke brandy cocktails based on their audience from a possible menu of 25.

But the only realistic way to increase South Africa’s current 2.9% share of the global market (Euromonitor, 2012) will be with the support of government and marketing activity from the Foundation to create a distinctive “category” like Cognac, which can act as an umbrella term for individual brands to slot into, Reade-Jahn believes.

Nowhere does this situation apply more than in the lucrative Chinese market, which is fast-developing a credible wine industry of its own, with brandy production likely to follow quickly behind.

“We’ve done the category analysis and strategy development, but it will take many years and much investment. So a lot of companies are going for low-hanging fruit in Africa,” Reade-Jahn says. “Brandy is already big in Nigeria, Ghana, Angola and Mozambique, which are all easily accessible without major development work.”

Distell, meanwhile, has just purchased a 26% stake in KWA Holding East Africa Ltd, Kenya’s leading spirits manufacturer and distributor, in a bid to establish a presence in East Africa, which has recently become more interesting due to recent oil and gas discoveries.

Last year, it also acquired a 60% stake in Chinese liquor distribution firm, CJ Wines & Spirits, which it has rebranded Distell China, in a bid to take advantage of the country’s surging brandy sales.

But as long ago as 2009, the firm had also started taking on arch-rival Cognac in its European heartlands by purchasing France’s Bisquit brand from Pernod Ricard for ZAR 390 million (£21.9 million) and exploiting its existing supply chain.

So although most people may not be aware of it, should they have a glass of Bisquit, they will actually be sampling a South African-owned, if not produced, brandy.

As to how I got to know all of this stuff, my interest was sparked after going on an excellent brandy-tasting course courtesy of Distell in my former home of Stellenbosch a couple of weeks back – and I can only say what a merry and spirited occasion it was.

Revisiting the Happening Cape

Sometimes you don’t realise how much you miss a place until you go back.

 

And so it was with our five-day jaunt to Cape Town last week, with me in my official capacity as hanger-on, and my Beloved working his socks off at a conference.

 

Because, although it undoubtedly depends on what you’re into and what your tastes are, Joburg, to me, simply isn’t a patch on the Cape.

 

Particularly at this time of year during the dry winter season when everything in Jozi is turning a parched, ugly brown, and bush fires, some laid as fire breaks and others just ignored, appear to be breaking out all over the place.

 

The Western Cape, by way of contrast though, is looking lush and green and gorgeous as ever – and just has so much more going on, even during the tourist low season.

 

Even the shopping’s better. For ages now, I’ve been looking all over Jozi for a nice ornamental bowl to act as a wedding present from my Beloved and drawn a complete blank, disheartened as I’ve been by either the pedestrian or the showy bling that a lot of shops seem to specialise in here.

 

But a couple of days in the Cape and that coveted bowl is mine – a beautifully simple Zulu izinkamba, or drinking pot, traditionally used to share beer around a camp fire – courtesy of the African Trading Port at the V&A Waterfront.

 

A truly intriguing and suitably musty-smelling store, it resides over four uneven rickety floors in the Old Port Captain’s Building. And it specialises in selling genuine African artefacts ranging from sculptures to ceramics sourced from rural villages all over the continent by 500 or so art scouts. It’s fabulous.

 

Keeping on the arty theme, I also took myself off at one point for a trip to the Cape Town suburb of Woodstock, initially to nose around an interior design exhibit at custom furniture producers, Leon at CCXIX.

 

World Design Capital

 

Created to celebrate Cape Town’s World Design Capital (WDC) status this year, the 12Rooms Exhibition showcased the work of a dozen local designers, including a Xhosa tribal-inspired living room and a French loft-style bedroom.

 

The WDC designation is awarded every couple of years by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design to those cities that demonstrate a desire to employ design as a tool for social and cultural change as well as economic development.

 

But Woodstock seems to have been doing it for itself over the last two or three years regardless – although the city’s WDC status certainly won’t do it any harm either.

 

Woodstock is, you might say, the equivalent of East London’s Hoxton about 20 years ago – an area that you’d now describe as being down-at-heel but was once quite dangerous, with an eccentric mix of car repair shops, tatty hardware stores, ultra-trendy art galleries and foodie hang-outs all sitting cheek-by-jowl.

 

It’s also home to what you can only describe as ‘retail spaces’ such as the upmarket and extremely pricey Bromwell Boutique Mall [http://www.thebromwell.co.za], and the Old Biscuit Mill office and shopping complex, which holds a popular food and craft market every Saturday.

 

So while Woodstock’s regeneration may still be very much a work in progress, you can definitely see that it’s a neighbourhood on the up.

 

Another suburb that’s also starting to see gradual change is the infamous District Six. Unlike Woodstock, which was one of the few multi-racial areas to escape forced resettlement during apartheid, District Six was decimated.

 

Renowned at one time for having some of the best music and nightlife in the city, after it was declared a ‘white-only’ area in 1966, the bulldozers moved in, flattening homes and evicting a vast 60,000 people to the barren wastelands of the Cape Flats.

 

Cultural zone

 

While some have since managed to reclaim their land and rebuild with the help of a Trust set up for the purpose, another 800 or so claims are still on-going. But one of the few buildings to survive the devastation was the 1860 church hall of the now disappeared Congregational Church in Buitenkant Street.

 

This beautiful red brick space reopened its doors in February 2010 as the entrance hall and downstairs bar area of the Fugard Theatre, which is meant to act as the centrepiece for a new cultural zone in a bid to breath life back into the area.

 

The theatre itself, meanwhile, was named in honour of Athol Fugard, arguably South Africa’s most significant and internationally-acclaimed playwright. Perhaps best known for the 2005 Academy Award-winning film of his novel Tsotsi (Sesotho for ‘thug’), he also won a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre in 2011.

 

Anyway, I wish I’d known about the place when we lived in Stellenbosch as I’d have been there every five minutes. While last week, I treated myself to the former Broadway romantic comedy classic ‘Same Time Next Year’, the future repertoire seemed to cover everything from Shakespeare to good, old Fugard himself. A lovely, intimate space seating just 335 souls, I’d highly recommend it.

 

And then finally for the trip’s foodie piece de resistance, there was Nobu at the One&Only hotel close to the V&A Waterfront.

 

The first restaurant in Africa to be set up by celebrity chef, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, the décor was tastefully modern and the cuisine classically Japanese with a bit of a twist – my favourite.

 

Out of a six-course tasting menu though, my pet dishes simply had to be the smoked salmon sashimi and yellowtail California roll – gorgeous. The only bum-note to the proceedings, in fact, was the coffee-flavoured desert, which not only seemed out-of-keeping but also didn’t suit my caffeine intolerance.

 

Nonetheless, seeing as it was all kindly paid for by my parents who’d left us money for a culinary treat ages ago while on holiday in the Cape, I couldn’t complain too much.

 

Which means that, all in all, it truly was a good few days well spent.

 

 

 

 

 

Indulging in the Unusual: an Urban Circus and L. Ron Hubbard’s place

It’s always refreshing to see people using their skills and talents to full advantage – and loving what they do as a result.

 

And that definitely seems to be the case for Natalie and Orlando Vargas, the husband-and-wife team who set up Sircusynergy, a performing arts company based in Joburg that we happened to see doing their thing last Saturday night.

 

Located for two evenings at the Crossfit 360 Vida gym in the suburb of Craigavon, the troupe of 14 or so wowed the audience with everything from beautifully choreographed and imaginatively scored dance routines to eye-watering acrobatics and death-defying aerial stunts using a range of trapeze, silks and nets.

 

My favourites though had to be the guy seemingly using every bit of his upper body to juggle a huge cube that changed colour with the light, and a punky-looking pole dancer who climbed, slid and plunged her way up and down her equipment in a fashion that managed to be both sensual and seriously acrobatic at the same time.

 

Anyway, the idea behind the show entitled ‘Urban Circus’ was to portray ordinary city people living ordinary city lives who, with a bit of imagination, could end up doing extraordinary, fairy tale things.

 

And nowhere is this concept more pertinent than in Joburg, Natalie believes, where a lot of people don’t seem to do much beyond having a few drinks on a Friday night, braai-ing and shopping.

 

And I would tend to agree. When we moved up to Jozi from the Cape, one of the things that I’d been looking forward to most in the ‘big city’ was indulging in a bit more culture, particularly the theatre and performing arts, which I love.

 

But so far, I must admit I’ve been sadly disappointed. It may be that I’m just looking in the wrong places, which is always a possibility, or maybe it’s a demand thing, but there just doesn’t seem to be that much going on.

 

Culture

 

And what there is appears to lurch from one extreme to the other – either light entertainment a la Disney on Ice or stuff that’s really pretty dour. Whether you’re talking about plays, photography exhibitions or even novels, a lot of culture here seems to be focused on apartheid, what it was like during apartheid, the after-effects of apartheid etc etc.

 

Which is understandable seeing as the regime only collapsed a generation ago leaving deep societal scars that in many cases have yet to be healed. It’s just that it seems so ubiquitous and ending up traumatised isn’t necessarily what you always want on a Saturday night.

 

Anyway, one of the lovely things about Urban Circus was that it was lively, sassy and upbeat – and much more raw than South Africa’s current Cirque legend, Madame Zingara, where Natalie and Orlando worked in the early days, before leaving the Cape for Johannesburg to set up Sircusynergy.

 

They now earn their crust putting on corporate events and offering circus training to both kids and adults, many of whom are part-time artistes and form a pool of talent that can be accessed for shows.

 

But they also do their bit for the community, teaching performance skills to children from disadvantaged backgrounds in a bid to help boost their confidence and provide them with tools for self-expression – or even start out on a possible career path. It’s great.

 

Another idea that I really liked though was using the CrossFit 360Vida gym, where many of the performers train, as a kind of pop-up venue.

 

Not only did it look suitably urban with its high ceilings and steel pipes everywhere, but it’s a great use of space outside of working hours – and one that the UK, given its crippling cuts to arts budgets outside of London, could perhaps learn a trick or two from, if it hasn’t already, that is.

 

A further unusual spot that we found ourselves at this weekend, meanwhile, was L. Ron Hubbard’s former residence, sited on Linksfield Ridge near the Chinese neighbourhood of Cyrildene, where we decided to go for a spot of lunch before our by-appointment-only tour.

 

Linksfield Ridge House

 

For those of us who don’t know who L. Ron Hubbard is, he was the controversial founder of the Church of Scientology and a prolific writer of science- and pulp fiction.

 

In fact, he was entered into the Guinness Book of Records an amazing three times for his pains – as the world’s most published and translated author and the author with the most audio books under his belt.

 

Anyway, it seems that Hubbard moved to Johannesburg for six months or so in the early 1960s in order to sort out the underperformance of his organisation there.

 

And during his time in the city, he rented the lovely Linksfield Ridge House. Thought to have been designed by an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright, it was built by a Greek timber merchant about a decade before and has stunning teak parquet flooring in the living room to prove it.

 

The place has since been purchased by the Church of Scientology – along with four other residences in the US and UK – and restored to its original glory following a series of insensitive alterations, based on film footage taken by Hubbard using a Bolex 16mm movie camera.

 

And it’s been made into a museum to his memory, preserved just how it was when he lived there and full of tasteful and very collectable 1960s furniture – with the addition of various cabinets of memorabilia in what were the bedrooms, of course.

 

A fine example of an affluent Joburg home of the period, in fact, and one of the few left in the city apparently. But one greatly enhanced by the glorious views from the French-door-fronted living room and enormous balcony overlooking downtown Johannesburg, perched as the house is on the side of a reasonably substantial hill.

 

For those interested in such matters, there are also insights aplenty into the workings of Scientology as well as a go on an “E-Meter”, which, like a lie detector, appears to measure physiological responses and apparently lets you know whether you’re suffering from spiritual blockages caused by past experiences.

 

Not really my thing, I must confess, so I can’t imagine converting any time soon. Still, exactly who was it that said there was nothing to do in Joburg?

 

 

 

 

Getting Arty in Downtown Jozi

I’ve never been a huge fan of art galleries – or museums for that matter.

 

Although I know lots of people disagree with me and are horrified by my philistine notions, I find them a bit sterile, full of too many pictures or artefacts stuck on walls or in cabinets with no real context and very little explanation.

 

Because I’m a big story girl – I really do like my narratives. Tell a story around something and you can make even the most boring facts or abstracted objects d’art seem interesting.

 

The thing is that, to me, art is all about communication. Which means that to get it beyond a simple, gut-instinct-based ‘I like it or don’t like it’ thing, you need to understand the context, the ideas behind it and where things fit together. Otherwise you’re just gawping at random things with arbitrary values assigned to them by often capricious ‘experts’.

 

So, with that in mind, I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by the story-telling nature of the ‘Migrant Journeys’ exhibition held at Wits – short for the University of Witwatersrand – Art Museum in Joburg’s trendy downtown area of Braamfontein this National Youth Day (16 June) weekend.

 

Youth Day, which like so many of South Africa’s public holidays is Struggle-related, happens to be particularly poignant in that it marks the start of the Soweto Riots in 1976. The uprising was sparked by an edict from the apartheid government that all teaching in black schools had to be undertaken in Afrikaans.

 

But it ended up in international condemnation of the regime after an iconic picture of 13-year-old Hector Pieterson, who was shot dead by police during a peaceful protest march, was beamed all around the world.

 

Although 16 June was associated with resistance for many years, the message has now thankfully been turned into something more positive, with the holiday meant to remind South Africa of the importance of its youth.

 

Decidedly bite-sized

 

Anyway, given all that, the multimedia-based exhibition at Wits Art Museum about the lives of migrant workers who built the country’s economy from the sweat of their brows, seemed strangely appropriate.

 

Because, it seems that the whole thing came about through social engineering anyway. The colonial authorities, on deciding they needed cheap labour to extract the gold and diamonds discovered across southern Africa, imposed a so-called ‘hut tax’ on black communities.

 

The tax not only raised revenues to fund colonial activities, but also forced people to leave their rural homesteads and move to urban centres to find work in order to pay it – a migration that still continues to this day.

 

But what struck me most about the exhibition was just how, despite the ugly treatment metered out to them, people still found it within themselves to create beautiful things.

 

In fact, the geometric patterns of Zulu and Xhosa beadwork laced into everything from pipes and necklaces to jackets and belts, reminded me very much of the designs found in Native American Navaho arts and crafts. Amazing really when you consider the distance between the two continents.

 

As for the gallery itself, being billed as the “leading Museum of African art on the African continent”, I’d expected it to be massive. But, refreshingly, it was decidedly bite-sized. So doable and relatively petite, in fact, that we thought we’d missed something.

 

We even came back next day to see if we had, but were reliably informed by the guy on the door that the decidedly white-coloured, three-storey space was definitely all there was. So we took his word for it.

 

Our second cultural experience of the weekend, meanwhile, took place at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Again grandly pitched as “the biggest gallery on the sub-continent”, my Beloved and I were expecting the equivalent of the Tate in London or the Louvre in Paris.

 

Instead what we found was a lovely neo-classical building designed by British architect, Edward Lutyens, which seemed at once both remarkably empty and distinctly marooned.

 

Downtown art

 

Built in 1915 when downtown Joburg was at its peak, the beautiful building now appears abandoned to its fate in the middle of rundown Joubert Park – despite the security gates surrounding it.

 

The Park, established in 1887, is the largest and oldest in the city and was once home to an open-air theatre, little lakes full of fish and a Christmas theme park. But the theatre is now abandoned, the fishponds empty and the grass covered with poor inner city residents, sleeping it off in the sun.

 

It doesn’t feel particularly safe, with the whole dodgy neighbourhood in distressingly marked contrast to the grandeur of the sandstone cultural edifice only a few steps away, a place where even the rather dowdy paintings seem careworn. I wouldn’t recommend it.

 

Much less depressing though is the site of our new, favourite market and lunch spot. Market on Main at the Arts on Main centre is located in another downtown regeneration spot, the Maboneng Precinct, a stone’s throw from Braamfontein.

 

Formerly a bunch of dilapidated warehouses and offices dating back to the 1900s, Arts on Main has now been transformed into an airy complex, housing everything from art galleries and private studios to boutique-y shops selling designer gear and homeware.

 

It’s even got its own microbrewery called Smack! Republic and plays host to German cultural organisation, The Goethe Institute, which puts on different plays there.

 

And of course, there’s Sunday’s Market on Main, with its ground floor food extravaganza and upstairs clothes and hand-made jewellery stalls.

 

It’s fab. Lively and buzzy and quirky and bright. Definitely a case of urban culture by the living rather than art by the dead.

 

 

 

 

 

Conservation: South Africa’s Last Stand

South Africa really does have some stunning birdlife.

 

Since arriving here, we’ve been lucky enough to spot everything from pretty, yellow weaver birds of elaborate, woven nest fame; a rarely-viewed African goshawk and eye-catching pin-tailed whydahs with their striking black-and-white plumage and red bills.

 

And then, of course, you also can‘t fail to notice the seemingly ubiquitous hadehas, a type of ibis with a penetrating squawk that would wake the dead.

 

But in fact, these avian gems are only really the tip of the iceberg. It turns out that South Africa, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, has a huge 846 species of birds either on shore or out at sea, about 8% of the world’s total.

 

Sadly though, about 133 of them – the equivalent of about 15% – are threatened by extinction, with the main problem, as ever, being habitat loss.

 

Grasslands, which make up a mere 16.5% of the country’s landmass but act as home to 350 of its bird species, are particularly important but also particularly threatened due to widespread agricultural and mining activity. To make matters worse, only 2.8% of such habitats, mostly in the Drakensberg mountain region, are currently protected.

 

As a result of all of this, Daniel Marnewick, manager of Important Birds and Biodiversity Areas Programmes for conservation charity, BirdLife South Africa, believes that the country is approaching its “last stand” in conservation terms.

 

“Habitats are so fragmented or lost now and so few remain pristine that we can’t afford to lose any more,” he explained at the Sasol Bird Fair organised by the charity last weekend. “We can do species-specific work, but the issue is that if we’re not protecting habitats, it won’t do any good long-term.”

 

But so far only about six per cent of the country’s total land surface is actually receiving the protection required – although the government has promised to up this figure to 10% at some unspecified point in the future in line with the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s recommendations.

 

One of the problems is that the necessary resources to create formal national parks and nature reserves are scarce in developing countries such as South Africa.

 

Biodiversity stewardship

 

Therefore, BirdLife SA focuses mainly on promoting “biodiversity stewardship” these days in collaboration with provincial governments and other non-governmental organisations such as WWF and the Endangered Wildlife Trust.

 

To this end, some 122 ‘Important Bird Areas (IBAs)’ – protected areas recognised as being globally important bird conservation habitats – have already been created across the country, with another in the shape of Greater Lakenvlei in Mpumalanga expected to come online within the next six months.

 

Three IBAs have also recently been assigned priority status in a bid to try and protect endangered specis: Memel in the Free State, and Chrissiesmeer and Steenkampsberg in Mpumalanga, a poor rural province to the east of Johannesburg where 70% of the land is deemed to have mining potential.

 

As for the actual Bird Fair itself, meanwhile, this was held against the lovely backdrop of the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens in Roodepoort, about 30km to the west of downtown Johannesburg.

 

The 300-hectare reserve is one of the youngest of South Africa’s eight national botanic gardens, having only formally been established in 1982, but it is a deservedly popular local walking and picnic spot for those keen to indulge in a bit of nature.

 

Rather appropriately, it also happens to be home to a pair of Verreaux’s or Black Eagles, which we spotted soaring above us while eating our lunch at the well-attended restaurant.

 

These beautiful raptors are simply immense with a vast wingspan of up to 2.8 metres and they nest on the cliffs of the Garden’s centrepiece Witpoortjie (‘White Gate’ in Afrikaans) Waterfall, which was remarkably full seeing as we’re in the dry winter season.

 

Speaking of water though, another interesting talk that my Beloved and I attended, this one by WWF volunteer and sustainability manager at Standard Bank, Emily Adair, related to ‘Sustainable Fish Choices’ – the rather obscure link being, I think, that the Fair’s theme this year was seabirds.

 

Anyway, it appears that South African waters are home to 16% of the globe’s marine fish species and 15% of its coastal plant and animal species, with about 12% being found nowhere else in the world.

 

Sustainable seafood

 

As elsewhere though, overfishing is a huge problem, with almost half of the country’s marine resources now being fully exploited and a further 15% overexploited, including important commercial species such as rock lobster and yellowfin tuna.

 

To try to manage the problem, WWF set up the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) in 2004 with a range of partners including the Save our Seas charity.

 

SASSI’s aim was, and is, to promote awareness of, and support for, marine conservation among all members of the seafood supply chain from wholesalers and retailers to restaurants and consumers in a bid to make the fishing industry more sustainable.

 

And its sterling work to date has meant that 80% of the South African seafood industry, which includes supermarkets such as Woolworths and national restaurant chain John Dory’s, now offer at least some Marine Stewardship Council-certified products as options.

 

To its credit, supermarket giant Pick ‘n Pay has also just become Africa’s first retailer to guarantee that all of its seafood will be sourced sustainably by 2015.

 

Another important programme that will soon start making its presence felt both locally and globally, however, is the Acquaculture Stewardship Council’s certification and labelling scheme.

 

The not-for-profit organisation was set up by WWF and the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative in 2010 to try to encourage the industry to farm seafood in a more responsible manner and, while it may have had a low profile to date, this situation is scheduled to change over the year ahead.

 

Despite these worthy initiatives though, an inevitable lack of resources means that safeguarding South Africa’s marine life from illegal activity is likely to remain an uphill struggle.

 

While the country has more than 3,000 square miles of coastline to protect, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has a mere four patrol boats to help it do so, only two of which are out-and-about at any one time. And with odds like that, it certainly won’t be easy.

 

 

What’s On Johannesburg?

One of the things that I’ve discovered about living in Johannesburg is that it’s not always that easy to unearth what’s going on.

 

Take the charity world, for example. Despite the huge need in this country, there don’t seem to be any volunteer bureaus, of either the online or walk-in variety, that can match up people willing to give of their time and energy with NGOs happy to receive it.

 

It could simply be that there’s not as much need for such things because, unlike the largely secular UK, lots of local people still go to church and presumably get involved in any potential good works that way.

 

But it’s a great shame for the rest of us. You can always do a Google search, but that just throws up lists of charities with very little information attached, including whether or not they actually want to be pestered by possible volunteers.

 

Or you can join one of the local www.Meetup.com groups, but they tend to offer one-off options rather than anything that requires a regular commitment.

 

So unless you have a specific burning ambition in a particular direction, it’s all a bit tricky really. And even if you do, it doesn’t always work out.

 

For instance, I emailed a women’s shelter in Sandton directly, a couple of times actually, when I first arrived here in order to offer my services. But they didn’t even do me the courtesy of responding.

 

And I’m not the only one to hit a brick wall. The issue of where to go is raised continually on online ex-pat forums, which are stocked full of people like me, all professing willingness to do a bit voluntary work, not only for genuinely altruistic reasons, but also as a way of meeting new people.

 

So if I did have that elusive work visa, I’d definitely think about setting up some kind of local, or ideally national, match-making service as there does appear to be an unfulfilled need.

 

That’s entertainment

 

Another even more surprising area in which information doesn’t seem to be as forthcoming as it might be is in the entertainment field.

 

While Time Out was my going-out oracle when living in London and http://www.capetownmagazine.com my bible in Stellenbosch, I haven’t managed to hit upon anything as broad-based and entertaining in Jozi, sadly – despite signing up to a goodly number of email newsletters and Twitter feeds.

 

Possibly the best find so far though would be the Johannesburg version of www.whatson.co.za. Although it covers a pretty wide range of activities and its articles are generally well-written, the main downside is its lack of comprehensiveness.

 

Www.Joburg.co.za’s subscription-based newsletter is another fairly good option, but unfortunately it doesn’t cover higher culture such as theatre, opera, or even cinema for that matter. It also tends to be a tad family-oriented, which is fine if that’s your bent, but not so good if it’s not.

 

Another email newsletter that I actually really like as I think it publishes some great articles is http://www.JHBLive.com. But it’s very much oriented to the youth market in general, and house music fans in particular, neither of which are my thing. So I couldn’t, in all honesty, describe it as my leisure bible either.

 

Nonetheless, if you consult all three together, you can generally come up with something to do. And last weekend, we excelled ourselves and found two.

 

The first one, dubbed ‘Joe Parker’s Comedy Bar’, took place on the Friday night at the Globe Theatre in Gold Reef City’s Casino complex, near Soweto.

 

Although now reduced to a rather plastic-y-looking replica, the original downtown version of the theatre was well known in the early 1900s as a venue for Mahatma Gandhi and his speeches against racial prejudice during the 21 years he lived in South Africa.

 

And our night at the Globe was certainly one to remember. I hadn’t realised that there were any extant survivors of the 1970s UK working men’s club scene until I saw MC, Tony de King, do his thing.

 

Although he’d never get away with it these days in the UK, this son of Rochdale regurgitated every clichéd racist, sexist and homophobic gag that you’re ever likely to have heard over the last 50 years, while grabbing his crotch continually in a manner most unbecoming to a man his age.

 

Dreams

 

But, bizarrely, the mixed ethnicity audience seemed to love it and proceeded to laugh like drains all the way through as my Beloved and I just looked at each other in bewilderment.

 

As for the rest of the line-up, you could say that the quality was somewhat varied. By far the best though was a guy called Chris Forrest, who has apparently been on the South African comedy circuit since the late 1990s.

 

And it showed. Unlike the other three acts, he was witty and confident enough to ad lib and interact with the audience – and, much to our gratification, wasn’t so localised in his humour that, as a foreigner, you couldn’t get the references.

 

Our second adventure of the weekend, meanwhile, took us to the Fringe at Braamfontein’s Joburg Theatre complex, formerly known as The Civic and somewhat reminiscent of South Bank’s theatre area in London.

 

Here we went to see a show entitled Dreams, performed by illusionist and magician, Ilan Smith, a man with possibly one of the nicest, smiliest faces that you’re ever likely to see.

 

Although I could have done without the cheesy dialogue about sandmen, red umbrellas and magic dust, which, to be fair, was probably aimed more at the kids in the audience than the likes of us, he actually had some great tricks up his sleeve.

 

The most ingenious involved asking different individuals for input in order to graffiti details of a concert reminder for local music success story, the Parlotones, onto a moveable wall in a variety of colours.

 

And, dah-dah, when Smith opened a pre-sealed envelope at the end of it all, what should it contain but a large poster with the exactly same info written in exactly the same colours as the original. All very clever.

 

I still don’t know how he did it, but fair play to the man. He enjoyed it, we enjoyed it, and a harmless night’s fun was had by all.

 

 

Playing to South African Youth: Eminem, Jack Parow and Kwaito

I don’t really think Eminem is a stadium performer. I’m sure his zillions of fans out there will probably hate me for saying it, but to me he seems to be more of a dingy, smoky backroom-of-a-club kind of guy.

 

And that’s not meant as a put-down. It’s just that I think we’re all better off playing to our strengths. And his, in my opinion, are his cleverly crafted lyrics and ability to share the often very personal details of his troubled life without descending into the mawkish or maudlin.

 

In fact, I’d say he’s a true wordsmith. A Bard of our times. But Bards don’t play stadiums – their performances are too intimate for that.

 

Another thing in my Eminem-not-being-suited-to-stadiums-view is that he’s simply not got the stage presence of, say, a Bob Marley or a Freddy Mercury. His apparent reserve denies him that.

 

But he still puts on a good show, complete with plenty of stalking around the stage, overt tattoo-displaying and desolate-atmosphere-creation courtesy of a video backdrop showing lots of burning buildings, presumably in his home state of Michigan somewhere.

 

But my reservations notwithstanding, the Saturday night crowd of 60,000 packed into iconic rugby stadium, Ellis Park in Doornfontein, downtown Jozi, simply loved him. Which just goes to show what little I know.

 

But I must confess that the crowd wasn’t quite what I’d expected either. In my day, which admittedly is a while ago now, you showed your allegiance to whichever subculture you were embroiled with by dressing in a certain, dare-I-say-it, rebellious fashion.

 

Whether you were into punk, Goth or Northern Soul, everyone could tell what your thing was by the way you dressed.

 

Not so with the concert-going youth of Johannesburg today though. While one or two deigned to attire themselves in time-honoured hip-hop fashion, most appeared tediously respectable in the careful homogeneity of well-cut jeans and freshly-laundered T-shirts.

 

Looking old

 

But it seems that they were just as nonplussed by us. While admittedly we were probably twice the age of most of the souls there, my Beloved found himself accosted by young guys congratulating him on being old – not once, but twice.

 

“It’s really great to see old people here,” said the first without the tiniest hint of embarrassment as he muscled in at the bar and gave my Beloved a high-five. “It’s really great to see old people out enjoying themselves.”

 

The second bounced up to us just after the first support act in the shape of Afrikaner rapper, Jack Parow, had done his thing. “Great to see you here, man. You must be my parents’ age. They’d never come to something like this – respect.”

 

Never mind the irony that, with Eminem now hitting the grand old age of 41, we were probably closer to him in years than they were. But it must be said that, despite the prescription drugs and alcohol abuse, Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem) looked in much better nick that Mr Parow, also known as Zander Tyler to his mum.

 

A mere pup at the age of 32, Parow – so-called in honour of his working-class birthplace in the Western Cape – looked decidedly middle-aged, with his unclean-shaven fizog and beer belly pulling at his black T-shirt sporting the immortal words, ‘Bitches Don’t Know’.

 

Renowned for wearing baseball caps with ridiculously long peaks, Parow burst onto the South African music scene in 2009, rapping initially in English before riding the resurgent wave of interest in Afrikaans music and starting to perform in his native language.

 

His rough-and-ready image and catchy tunes, meanwhile, are associated with a style of music known locally here as ‘zef’. Roughly translated as ‘common’ in Afrikaans, the term is a shortened version of ‘Ford Zephyr’, which refers to a type of car popular among working-class South Africans for 20 years or so from the 1950s onwards.

 

Although calling someone ‘zef’ was initially an insult, the term has since been reclaimed. Which means that, unlike the British word ‘chav’, the term is used by members of the mostly white, lower-middle class subculture – who tend to be into souped-up cars and bling – with pride.

 

Kwaito

 

Another more widespread South African subculture that wasn’t represented at the Eminem gig, however, was kwaito.

 

The most popular sound among the vast youth of the country’s townships, kwaito was born in Johannesburg in the late 1980s when local DJs started remixing international house music tracks by slowing the tempo down and adding African rhythms and melodic percussion.

 

These rhythms included the marabi beats of the 1920’s shebeen; the pennywhistle-based jives or kwela of the 1950s and the bubblegum disco sounds of the 1980s. Other influences include Jamaican dancehall, jazz and hip-hop, all coming together in a unique fusion.

 

However, things only really took off when self-professed ‘king of kwaito’, Arthur Mafokate, released his 1993 hit, ‘Don’t call Me Kaffir’ – a degrading word for black Africans commonly used under the country’s then crumbling apartheid regime.

 

Catching the mood of the time, it became the first song officially aired on the radio and kick-started a movement into the mainstream, which now sees kwaito being played all over the place.

 

Ironically however, unlike its equally male-dominated cousin hip-hop, kwaito is a mainly – but not exclusively – apolitical style of dance music based on rhythmic speech – rather than rap – and tends not to have the same gangster-ish edge.

 

Although both genres reflect life in their respective ghettos, comprising both a fashion statement and lifestyle, it’s as if the youth in South Africa just got sick of the intensity associated with the liberation struggle and decided to go down the let’s-have-fun route instead.

 

One thing that’s worth noting though is that, as the voice of modern urban life in the townships, kwaito isn’t usually performed much in English. Instead it’s based around Zulu, Sesotho and the local Sowetan street creole, Isicamtho, or Ringas, spoken by an estimated 500,000 young people as their primary tongue.

 

Zola, Boom Shaka and Mapaputsi remain major players in the scene, while more recent additions include Mandoza and the controversial Brickz.

 

Given kwaito’s status as South Africa’s second most popular type of music behind its world-renowned gospel choirs though, it just goes to show that playing to large stadiums isn’t the only way to make it big.

 

 

Who Took the Sin out of Sun City?

Sun City wasn’t quite what I’d expected. After hearing so much about it and its wayward reputation, I’d envisaged a mini-Las Vegas-style extravaganza that just happened to be plonked in the middle of the South African bushveld rather than the Mojave desert.

 

I love Vegas – for a couple of days and nights, that is, and then I start hitting my limits. But for a short time at least – and despite its dark underbelly – I really enjoy its ridiculously kitsch over-the-topness, its lively anything-goes ethos and its brash, shameless hedonism.

 

So on deciding to spend a long weekend at the Pilanesberg game reserve for my Beloved’s birthday treat, I was really keen to make a little side-trip to South Africa’s very own Sin City.

 

Only it was anything but. OK, we went there on a Sunday afternoon, which possibly isn’t the best time to see it at its iniquitous best, but even so. “South Africa’s Kingdom of Pleasure” as it calls itself is definitely after the family rand.

 

For starters, there are only two casinos – the Sun City Hotel Casino and the Jungle Casino in the Cascades Hotel Entertainment Center – as opposed to the 100 plus that you’ll find in Vegas.

 

And they’re mostly rammed full of incredibly complex fruit machines that you usually have to purchase a smartcard to operate – it’s a far cry from my day when you put 10 pence in a slot, pulled the arm on the side and three reels went round. It was all so scarily high-tech, in fact, that my Beloved and I gave up before we’d even begun.

 

Distressingly though, we also couldn’t work out how to master the bafflingly sophisticated American Roulette game, and there didn’t seem that much else on offer apart from the odd Poker and Punto Banco (baccarat) table, neither of which we knew how to play. So we gave up and went out for a walk instead.

 

Once outside though, the veritable dearth of dodgy-looking bars and strip joints was noticeable. In fact, the whole place seemed remarkably wholesome. Much more ‘Valley of the Waves’ water park for the kids than making any waves by offending delicate local sensibilities.

 

Infamy and outcry

 

Even more disappointingly, the decidedly opulent ‘Palace of the Lost City’ notwithstanding, which was essentially a large European mansion with vaguely north African-style minarets stuck on it, there was nothing really to compare with the fabulously vulgar themed hotels of Vegas. Among my favourites there are the Paris, which houses a French restaurant in its own half-sized version of the Eifel Tower.

 

Equally disappointing was the veritable dearth of Bellagio-style son-et-lumiere fountain displays or Circus Circus-like acrobatics and contortionist-based spectaculars – although the elephant-lined Bridge of Time leading from the Entertainment Center to the Lost City amusement park does have an hourly volcanic eruption, complete with sound effects and billowing smoke, which is something.

 

But it was all rather pedestrian really – although I’ve heard that the golf courses are among the best in the world, if that’s your thing.

 

In reality, the most interesting thing about Sun City is possibly its history. Billionaire South African hotel magnate Sol Kerzner set the place up in 1979, in the middle of apartheid, by negotiating an exclusive gambling licence with Lucas Mangope, the despotic president of Bophuthatswana.

 

At that time, Bophuthatswana was a Bantustan, or autonomous homeland, which housed the local Tswana people. Although its independence was not recognised internationally, the fact that the apartheid government viewed so-called ‘Bop’ as a separate state allowed Kerzner to get around the regime’s strict morality laws.

 

As a result, he was able to provide entertainment such as gambling, strip shows and prostitution, which was otherwise banned by the Calvinistic National Party, ensuring that Sun City became a poster child for the hypocrisy of the state.

 

And this infamy was to spread worldwide when performers ranging from Frank Sinatra, Elton John and Status Quo chose to flout the anti-apartheid cultural boycott imposed on South Africa by the United Nations in 1968. The concerts that they played at its Superbowl auditorium pulled in huge crowds from the nearby cities of Joburg and Pretoria, causing a massive outcry.

 

After Bop imploded at the end of apartheid due to fighting between Mangope’s Bophuthatswana Defence Force and Eugene Terre’Blanche’s white supremaciest AWB, however, it was officially incorporated back into South Africa.

 

But Sun City has since managed to reinvent itself and even continued to grow, now employing about 7,000 workers, many of whom are local Tswana people.

 

African Rungu massage

 

Another local speciality that I had the good fortune to sample at the weekend, meanwhile, was an African Rungu massage. After dragging my dishevelled carcass out of bed at 4.30am for a wonderful game drive an hour later, I definitely felt in need of a bit of pampering.

 

So I decided to trot along to the Amani Spa in the upmarket Shepherd’s Tree Game Lodge, where we were staying, to see what delights they had to offer. And seeing as I’d never even heard of an African Rungu massage before, I decided to give it a go.

 

To be honest, I didn’t even know that massage was something traditionally used in African culture, but apparently its been employed both by midwives and within families for generations, particularly by mothers for their babies.

 

And despite my ignorance, African Rungu massage is allegedly becoming increasingly trendy in South Africa, and has even starting popping up in spas in the UK.

 

As to what it actually comprises, it’s essentially a long-stroke, deep-tissue massage that includes the use of a Rungu, or baton of eucalyptus wood with different sized balls on each end.

 

Originally a throwing club used by Masaai males in southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania, Rungu are about 20 inches long and are actually an important emblem of warrior status.

 

In this context though, they help massage therapists to penetrate more deeply into your muscles, with the aim of improving circulation, lymph drainage and muscle tone in order to release all of that nasty stress.

 

And I must say that it was one of the best, most relaxing massages I’ve ever had. Despite expectations, it comes much more highly recommended than a trip to Sun City.

 

 

Water sports and snake-spotting at the Haartbeespoort Dam

It’s always nice to get away from the hustle-and-bustle of city life for a while – even if that city happens to be as green and tree-lined as Johannesburg, in its northern suburbs anyway.

 

Hence the popularity of Hartbeespoort Dam or ‘Harties’ as it’s known locally, which is about an hour’s drive north-west and has become a day-trip and weekend get-away haven for Joburgers and Pretorians alike.

 

In fact, it’s the main water sports spot for northern Gauteng, which means that you’re always likely to come across a bunch of intrepid visitors busy sailing, wind-surfing, jet-skiing or hang-gliding on or around its waters.

 

Either that or stuffing themselves silly over Sunday lunch in one of the many and varied restaurants dotted around its rather built-up, holiday home and B&B-lined shores.

 

And this all on the slopes of the ancient, and protected, Magaliesberg mountain range – which, amazingly, is one of the oldest in the world coming in at about three billion years old, give or take a millennium or two.

 

But throwing yourself into the Dam for a pre-prandial swim without a wet suit, sadly, appears to be a bit of a foolhardy thing to do. For years apparently, its waters have suffered from a heavy algae build-up due to high levels of sewage being pumped into it from its main feeder, the Crocodile River.

 

Although the Department of Water Affairs’ ‘Integrated Biological Remediation Programme’ seems to have improved things recently, and even won it international recognition [http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/hartbeespoort-dam-remedial-programme-succeeding-2013-11-01], the Dam still goes through phases of not being quite as clean as it could be.

 

Which is all a bit worrying really seeing as it irrigates vast expanses of local farmland, on which wheat, fruit, alfalfa for cattle fodder, and even tobacco, are grown. No wonder so much fruit and veg packaging in this country comes with warnings to wash before use.

 

One place that you don’t have to worry about the food quality though is at ‘Tan Malie se Winkel’, or ‘Aunt Malie’s shop’ in Afrikaans.

 

Aunt Malie’s

 

Located on the Old Rustenburg Road not far from a bridge spanning the Dam boasting its own incongruous version of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, it is a veritable local institution.

 

Built in a traditional tin-roofed, Afrikaner trading post-style during the 1920s in order to service the construction of the Dam, the vintage yellow bakkie (small truck) outside has become just as famous a landmark.

 

Upstairs at Tant Malie’s itself, meanwhile, is the eponymous shop, complete with a selection of fresh breads, boerebeskuit (rusks) and brightly coloured sweets.

 

A rustic café in the next room also spills out onto the veranda at the back, where you can treat yourself to a nice cup of coffee and a slice of traditional ‘melktart’ (custard tart) or old-fashioned lemon meringue pie.

 

Venture down the steep wooden stairs that lead from the stoep however, and you reach a pleasant tree-shaded restaurant area, in a garden that slopes at least halfway down the hill.

 

Here they’ve come up with the great idea of letting people braai (or BBQ) their own lunches during weekends and public holidays. All you have to do is select your desired cut from the charming Oom Jannie’s extensive range of steaks laid out in trays on the counter.

 

Or, if they don’t suit, you can always opt for a herb and lemon marinaded chicken sosatie (kebab) or a chunk of one of his home-made boerewors (farmers’ sausages), made from pure beef and his own carefully-selected mix of spices, which knock any of the others I’ve had into a cocked hat.

 

Lovely, but certainly not for the vegetarians amongst us – although they could, no doubt, get by on the freshly-baked bread, pap (a traditional Zulu mielie meal or ground maize staple) en sous (a spicy tomato sauce) and somewhat basic selection of salads.

 

Anyway, once you’ve made your selection, glowing coals are delivered to the brick braai facility located right next to your table. And because the fire is lit and stoked for you in advance, even your average Brit would be hard pushed to get it wrong. It was by far our most successful braai ever, in fact, which just goes to show that it’s all about the heat.

 

Snakes

 

Next on the itinerary though was the Snake and Animal Park. This involved spanning the bridge next to the Dam wall again and driving through a single lane tunnel that, despite the lovely views on either side, always takes an eternity to cross.

 

Although my Beloved was keen to catch a glimpse of a black mamba, one of the most poisonous snakes in Africa, I can’t say that either of us thought the trip was really worth it.

 

If you want to spot wildlife, give me a game reserve any day. I’ve never got on with the distressingly tiny enclosures in these establishments, particularly for your big cats and raptors, whether conservation is involved or not.

 

Nonetheless, the serpents were magnificent. Although most of them are kept firmly behind glass, we were privy to a snake-handling demonstration, the first of which involved a puff adder.

 

Although most snakes will move away long before you get anywhere near them, these daft three metre-long creatures rely on their camouflage markings to keep them safe when they venture out, mainly at dusk, and so lie still if approached.

 

As a result, humans have a habit of standing on them to deadly effect when out for a nice walk in the bush. In fact, if you’re going to get killed by any snake in South Africa, it’s most likely to be one of these as they’re also the most widespread.

 

The country’s most feared snake though has to be my Beloved’s favourite – the black mamba. Which isn’t actually black at all, but is in fact more brown-y if anything. However, if you’re unlucky enough to glimpse the inside of its mouth, black is the colour that you’ll see.

 

Mostly active during the day, these rural beasties pack enough venom to kill up to 40 grown men. Which means that if their fangs hit a major vein or artery, it’ll be curtains within about 20 minutes.

 

So, with that in mind and with all things being equal, maybe life in the big city isn’t quite so bad after all….