As we prepare to walk, ranger Etienne Larson stresses the most important point: “Whatever happens, don’t run…”
For the past two days he has been telling us that, in most encounters with animals in Africa, it is best to stand your ground.
As the wind whips across the grass-covered hilltop, promising a chilly evening later, you have to think that maybe he is correct. There are no trees for hundreds of metres. And running is not an option – when you consider the animal which may be chasing you is the fastest in the world.
Etienne’s radio-tracking antenna has narrowed down the location of the male cheetah, affectionately known as Beluga, to this high point in the Mount Camdeboo Private Game Reserve, which could be the roof of the Karoo.
It seems odd, to those of us used to days and days of fruitless dusty drives in the bushveld, that a cheetah should be out in the open in a place like this and, even more unusual, that we are going to walk up to it.
Beluga is one of a number of cheetah which have been reintroduced to the reserve – formerly a collection of sheep and angora goat farms. Unbeknown to Beluga which, like most other cats (lions are the exception) is a solitary animal, he is a father. A kloof or two away across the valley, he has five cubs. He and a female cheetah (also reintroduced) mated within days of his release and, since then, he has wanted nothing more to do with her, preferring his own territory.
We slowly make our way along the slope. We can see nothing – except tufts of tough grass.
“Stay behind me,” comes Etienne’s command as he leads us in a wide, circular meander.
It is soon apparent that his bush-tuned eyes are sharper than those used to the city. He points. To a tuft of grass. No, not a tuft… something else. There’s a low growl, audible over the 20m or so that we are away from it. It’s Beluga, giving us the message we should be careful. We are in his territory now. We are guests.
Etienne talks to the cat, softly, reassuringly. Beluga gazes lazily at us and then relaxes. For the next 10 minutes we are privileged to share the cheetah’s world – and to contemplate the vastness, peace and beauty of a place like this.
Perhaps the purists would frown at radio-tracking a cheetah which has, in some ways, become habituated to people. But, it is clear, this is still a wild animal and we have been gifted moments in its presence. It is not in a zoo, it is free and is living as naturally as possible in a world in which Man has already irreversibly altered Nature’s balance in so many ways.
The nearby Mountain Zebra National Park, run by SANParks, recently introduced a similar cheetah-tracking adventure – on foot or in a vehicle – as an additional tourist attraction.
Etienne is a ranger who has worked on properties in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and is passionate about conservation, but in a realistic way.
On Mount Camdeboo, for example, he runs a number of programmes involving endangered animals. He has already reintroduced a number of pure-bred African wild cats into the reserve and is hoping to do likewise with a pair of serval and caracals – the latter are despised by the area’s stock farmers and have been hunted almost to the edge of extinction.
Later, he shows us the pens where he keeps his cats in quarantine before reintroducing them. The wild cats hiss and spit and hide, and their fear of humans is evident. Next door, though, Shu-shu the caracal is the opposite. She arches her back with pleasure on seeing Etienne and close up you can hear her purr. She will probably never be released back into the wild. She was found as an orphan (after a farmer shot her mother) and hand-raised in a farm household. Sadly, she was fed human food and the result is that her growth was stunted.
Etienne says she will probably be used to breed other caracal which might later be released into the reserve – although border fences may have to be beefed up for this. In just under three days on the reserve, we learn plenty from him and have stimulating discussions about when humans should or should not interfere with nature.
An example is a partly crippled giraffe, which broke one of its back legs within weeks of its birth. Reserve management had to ponder whether to call in the vets. That would have been expensive and would have had a less than 50-50 chance of success… success being defined as the animal living.
If it had survived the operation to pin its leg together, it would never again have been able to lie down.
A decision was taken to let matters develop naturally. Two years later, the animal is keeping up with the herd and, although obviously lame, has what appears to be a decent quality of life.
There is plenty of other game to be seen on the reserve and we sighted eland, giraffe, black wildebeest, kudu, bushbuck, duiker, mountain reedbuck and klipspringer, as well as the reserve’s small group of white rhino. There was a fleeting glimpse of the resident pair of black eagles and we were able to peer down at the pair’s previous nest site, at a head-swimmingly situated place on the edge of a sheer rock cliff (no baboon, no matter how athletic, is going to be able to clamber down there to snatch a black eagle egg).
Mount Camdeboo is a game reserve experience like few others. In the high Karoo, about 40 minutes drive from Graaff-Reinet, the 14 000-hectare expanse sits between two other reserves – one a commercial property, the other private.
Animals which used to roam the area have been introduced as have others, like sable, which are kept in holding paddocks solely for breeding purposes and will not be released. Those breeding programmes provide the reserve with supplemental income throughout the year.
The spectacular mountains of the Camdeboo give the reserve a special flavour and early morning and evening game drives invariably include breathtaking vistas for coffee or sundowners. One of the location’s plus points is the lack of a malaria threat – and, for me at least, the real sense of being in the empty heart of South Africa. Perhaps that was because we flew in and out of the place (see accompanying story), and nothing gives you a sense of the vastness of our beautiful country more than flying over it in a small aircraft.
Accommodation, for a maximum of 24 guests, is in three luxurious manor houses, modelled on the Eastern Cape style, with no attempts to create a phony Bushveld safari experience. The decor isunderstated, classy and elegant.
Everything else – from superb food to attentive but subtle service – is as you’d expect from a top-drawer establishment. While the whole experience is not a stereotypical African safari, you do find echoes of a bygone era in the way you are treated.
And talking of treatments, you can indulge yourself in a number of different spa offerings.
In all, Mount Camdeboo offers something different from your normal South African game reserve experience. Whether it is the sense of remoteness or the vastness of the Karoo, or the small, intimate nature of the manor houses, you feel something special.
l Brendan Seery was a guest of The Incredible Journey, Mount Camdeboo Private Game Reserve and African Ramble Air Charters
l Contact: The Incredible Journey– www.jennygreeffmarketing.co.za; [email protected]; phone 083 454 6565
www.mountcamdeboo.com;e-mail – [email protected]; phone 049 891 0570. - Saturday Star