A Rhino in my Garden Read online

  The bush camps were the responsibility of someone who, up to that point, had been invisible and contented to remain so. On occasion visitors arriving in their heavily laden vehicles would come across a bush-weary Toyota Hilux that had pulled off the jeep-track to allow them to pass. The driver would exchange friendly waves and smiles with them. Many times, watching in her rear-view mirror, she would see a head suddenly whipping around to look back at her. She could guess why. The visitors would suspect, but not be quite sure, that the friendly little lady in her serviceable safari-wear and sunglasses behind the wheel of that Hilux must be the wife of the very much better known Clive Walker whose name was associated with the place.

  There was the public Clive Walker. The one who, as CEO and founder or co-founder of several conservation organisations, got called for press statements about wildlife crises, the one who wrote his books and donated his wildlife paintings to raise funds for wildlife conservation. And there was the private Clive – the family man; the wilderness lover who walked every inch of Lapalala, and together with Dale Parker in their headquarters on the Doornleegte verandah, planned and dreamed the reserve into being.

  Of Conita, the wife, there was only the private one. She shared those verandah dreams and managed the background logistics of family and homes and business. When she pulled off the jeep-track to allow the next intake of bush camp occupants to pass, it was because she had just finished checking that the water tanks, the beds, the gas fridges and freezers, the showers, the lamps, the first-aid box, the stacked firewood, the numerous other little attentions for their safety and comfort, were ready for them.

  You might describe mine as the classic mothering role. Mothering came naturally – my two sons, Renning and Anton, of course and, although he might protest, Clive. So when in June 1990 he announced that he and Dale Parker were going to attend the annual wildlife auction in KwaZulu-Natal, “just to have a look,” I agreed to hold the fort as usual and also as usual on similar occasions to pack the provisions, up to and including the beer ration they required per day.

  I suppose I should have seen it coming. Some time previously Clive had organised for officials from the then Natal Parks Board to visit the Waterberg. They assessed Lapalala as suitable habitat for black rhino. There weren’t any black rhino, nor any plans to bring them in, but a reserve large and ecologically sound enough for black rhino was a haven for myriad other fauna and flora. Good news therefore: an endorsement of the conservation work carried out by Clive and the reserve personnel, and a validation of Dale’s faith and investment in the enterprise.

  It so happened that that 1990 wildlife auction was rather a special one, the largest ever up to that point, drawing international as well as national buyers. For the first time in South Africa black rhino were to be offered for sale. But that was co-incidental – Clive and Dale were “just looking”. I believe that for Dale, at least, that was true.

  At Clive’s instigation they drove to the viewing bomas at the iMfolozi where the black rhinos were being held. Five magnificent specimens – two males, three females. As with the EWE trails and the Lapalala bush camps the same formula was in operation: facilitate exposure, let nature do the rest. Dale had never before encountered wild black rhino at such close range. He returned to the bomas again and again.

  Come auction day he and Clive, as mere non-buying members of the public, entered the auction room which was already abuzz with excitement. There was a massive media contingent – press, radio and television. After two hours the group of black rhino came up. The bidding stalled at one million rand. That didn’t seem right. Dale thought perhaps the bidding only required a bit of stimulation to really get going. He leaned over to Clive and whispered, “What do we do now?”

  Clive said: “Put up your hand.”

  Cameras and microphones scrambled to find the unknown, unregistered bidder. Someone rushed up with the required paperwork and a bidding disc. At the end of furious bidding the first black rhino to be offered on auction had gone into private hands. The press converged on Dale. But he, no less astounded than everyone else, had just paid 2.2 million rand for five animals – he slid out to recover in the parking lot. Their real prey having escaped, the media pounced on the remaining partner, the excited, slightly dazed managing director of a wilderness reserve who’d just seen a dream come true.

  And several hours away, his wife – completely oblivious of these happenings – is unaware of the fact that something had been set in motion which, three years later, would have her shivering in her shawl in a pre-dawn panic attack, waiting for a truckload of responsibility.

  After the auction there followed a busy and anxious two months for everyone at Lapalala. Permits, the design and construction of enclosures, additional specialised training of the reserve’s field rangers, the logistics of transportation. Black rhino relocation is never a small matter. One deals with insurance, with the hazards of gravel roads, and with the wellbeing of powerful, highly strung and unpredictable wild animals confined in a six-berth transporter.

  Fortunately it went well. But then, as the days passed, a small worry grew to a major concern: the veld was dry and the forecast was for late rains that year. Weather conditions, always a preoccupation, became the focus of conversations and very often the reason for them. Dale would phone from Cape Town: Has it rained? Does it look as if it might? Is the Palala still flowing? How soon after the rains started would the veld have recovered sufficiently for the release of the rhinos?

  Every day, after the lunchtime radio news, I listened to rainfall figures from areas further north or west of the Waterberg. To the east the Lowveld had had rain. So, further south, had the Free State. Scattered thunder showers even over the semi-desert Karoo of the Northern Cape. No mention of the Waterberg. Twice a day the rangers delivered freshly cut browse to Lapalala’s first black rhinos waiting in their bomas. The Palala slowed to a trickle.

  Meanwhile, in the other half of my life, our Johannesburg garden budded and flowered in its reliable, municipally watered spring and early summer. Then one afternoon the phone rang and I picked it up to hear Clive’s voice: “Listen.”

  Drumming on the tin roof at Doornleegte – rain.

  At the end of 1990 black rhino once again roamed a part of the Waterberg where for well over a century the only evidence that they had ever been there existed in ochre paintings on sandstone rocks.

  TWO

  Bwana

  THE CLASSIC APPROACH to the Waterberg is from the south. From the tiny “tamed” tip of Africa explorers, vagabonds and fugitives looked north. On horseback or by 16-span ox-wagon they risked all on blind faith or bloody-mindedness and forged a way through trackless bush country until, after weeks or months, sometimes even years, of danger and hardship, there it was, the lovely southern arc of a 200-kilometre-long escarpment curving away further north, further into the hinterland. Day after day they watched those sandstone and conglomerate ramparts inching up from the distant trembling horizon, and named them The Seven Sisters. Beyond them they were to discover a wild, game-rich, water-rich country: the Waterberg. Some came to hunt and trade, others to hide, everyone chasing a dream – freedom, adventure, a fortune, a place to settle amid peace and plenty.

  Today they still come, in ever-increasing numbers now and ever-decreasing discomfort – all it takes is a quick fly-in to any number of private airstrips, or less than half a day’s drive on good roads. And we who are fortunate enough to live here know why they come and why many of them, like us, will find it impossible to leave again.

  We don’t have malaria – that trumps most other wildlife areas in South Africa. We have clean free-running rivers – that trumps all of South Africa and much of the world. We have vast swathes of true wilderness and, in a geological rarity known as the Waterberg Red Beds, the oldest geological evidence on earth of enough free oxygen in the atmosphere to support life. The archaeological record places man in these valleys and gorges for at least three million years. Our long history has lef
t us with a polyglot society: Northern Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, English, Afrikaans, even German. Side by side with the modern tourism draw-cards of 5-star lodges, art routes and big game hunting, indigenous cultures of the Bapedi, Tswana and Ndebele live on in more than two dozen rural villages. But it isn’t the least of the Waterberg’s attractions that, unlike far too many places in this country, the natural landscape still holds its own against the imprint of human enterprise.

  Early in the 20th century the South African Prime Minister, General Jan Smuts, had been so struck by the unique ecological importance of the Waterberg, he advocated the preservation of most of it in a great national park stretching all the way up to the Limpopo – a treasure in perpetuity for all South Africans. As history records, that plan was short-circuited: in 1948 he was voted out, and the architects of apartheid voted in. The Waterberg wilderness lost a champion for its cause.

  Many decades later, however, in a welcome reversal of fortunes, the area is gradually moving closer to Smuts’s vision. At the time of writing, almost two million hectares are already managed according to conservation principles, a large percentage of it in private hands. Together with governmental agencies, individual landowners like Dale Parker have become the modern champions of the Waterberg wilderness. It is their patronage, their drive and passion that now protects much that is most in need of protection.

  With Dale’s 1990 purchase of black rhino Lapalala became a sanctuary for this highly endangered species. Two years later I heard from Clive that he and Dale were again discussing a trip down to the Natal Parks Board’s wildlife auction. This time Elizabeth and I thought it wise to go along.

  There were the usual offerings: eland, blue wildebeest, giraffe, kudu, some nyala, tsessebe, waterbuck. There were also, again, black rhino. They’d been captured in the iMfolozi Game Reserve, flown in by helicopter to the reserve’s holding pens, and had already settled down well. They’d be ready for transportation immediately after the auction.

  2.3 million rand later Lapalala had acquired another five black rhino. One of them was pregnant. That was a surprise, as was the fact that she was considerably older than had been estimated prior to capture. The Zulu rangers called her “Makoko” (Granny).

  Her name followed her to Lapalala, and I soon discovered that, as the oldest (human) female at the reserve, I’d also become “Makoko”, customised to “Magog”. But that old rhino cow was responsible for more than just my nickname.

  On 31 March 1993 there was a convoy approaching the Seven Sisters. I was at Doornleegte. I knew they were coming. They knew I was waiting. All of us hoped I’d be ready. A few days earlier, driving that same road to the Waterberg, I had grave doubts on that score. A thousand times before I’d headed into the gap of Sandrivierspoort, but this time it was different. From that day on, the Waterberg would be my permanent base. I would have no other home but Doornleegte. A different life altogether. To say that I had no misgivings would be tampering with the truth.

  I comforted myself with the fact that I’d had misgivings before, and been proven wrong. In 1981 when Clive returned from Knysna with the news of his discussion with Dale, he was inspired. This might be an opportunity to do something extraordinary, he said, something real for conservation. Meaningful and fulfilling work. A purpose larger than ourselves. It felt petty to question and object; petty to worry. I would take that leap of faith with him.

  Ten years on I wasn’t sorry. I’d toughened up. I’d become used to the regular commute between the two poles of our lives up to that point. I had a home and an office to run in Johannesburg, and a home and a wilderness school in Lapalala. Our initial dream was on track: busloads of young people were regularly being transported to and from the environmental school, beautifully laid out along the banks of the Palala. The bush camps too were thriving, booked up for at least a year in advance. A lodge had been added to the accommodation options: Kolobe Lodge had all the mod cons and hosted private guests as well as conferences.

  The restoration of the veld, especially, was a source of satisfaction. Literally tonnes of garbage and farming debris had been removed, anti-erosion measures taken where necessary, game was again plentiful, including white rhino in the sour-veld areas, and of course there was now also black rhino in the rockier and densely thicketed sections.

  Then came 11 June 1992. A group of Kolobe guests was enjoying a game drive. After the traditional starched-linen-and-crystal champagne breakfast at a jaw-dropping view site, the lodge manager, doubling as game ranger for his guests that morning, chose a circuitous scenic return route. Whatever the game scout spotted from his seat on the bonnet, the happily mellowed guests were delighted to investigate. Halfway down an incline he pointed to something close to the jeep track. They’d already seen warthogs on their drive that morning, and there was another one, squealing and shining in the morning sun.

  The Land Rover pulled up, binoculars lifted, the excitement grew. That particular warthog was shining because it was wet. It was squealing because it wasn’t a warthog at all, but a prematurely born black rhino.

  Evidently the mother, Makoko, having just given birth, hearing the Land Rover’s noisy approach up the rocky incline on the other side of the hill, took fright and bolted. By the time the vehicle arrived on the scene the only rhino to be seen was the calf, its little footpads and toes still with their soft skin covering that protected the mother while it was in the womb. The likelihood was that the newborn had not even had the vital first suckling that would have provided it with antibodies in the colostrum.

  Lapalala’s eagerly awaited first-born black rhino baby was premature, abandoned and unprotected against any number of infections that could attack and kill it within a matter of hours. It was winter. It was a Sunday. Clive was away.

  I was at Doornleegte and followed Lapalala’s shifting into high gear over the radio. The emergency was reported to the reserve manager, Clive Ravenhill, and he called Clive in Johannesburg. From there the SOS went to Dale in Cape Town, then to Onderstepoort, the veterinary facility attached to Pretoria University, and from there to the nearby Animal Rehabilitation Centre (ARC) and its manager, Karen Trendler. In the meantime everyone with access to a phone frantically tried to find expert advice for dealing with the situation, only to discover that such advice didn’t exist – not at that time.

  The lodge manager tracked down a colostrum replacement and this, together with the stroppy little baby, was raced out of the reserve to meet the animal ambulance despatched from Pretoria. At the end of that Sunday a student at the animal hospital had been moved out of her room to make way for the baby’s first night while Karen was preparing her study to serve as a temporary rhino nursery.

  Our rangers named him Bwana, the Big Boss. The media loved him. Bwana was world news, and with good reason.

  Only the hardest of hearts would dispute the cuteness of a baby rhino. As a photogenic, defenceless orphan, Bwana’s was a story that tugged at the heart-strings.

  But there was a bigger story, one which, to my mind, illustrates perfectly man’s apparently unlimited capacity to be utterly foolish. It also illustrates Africa’s vulnerability to such foolishness.

  As a small child in rural South Africa I had first become aware of the fact that this great continent of ours is poorly guarded against blows struck far from its shores. Germany, the homeland of my missionary parents, was for me no more than a fantastical place. It lived only in their stories. Yet suddenly it mattered to people who didn’t know us that we belonged in some punishable way to that remote, unreal country and to the terrible conflict into which it had plunged the world. Someone else’s war entered my life and because of that my father was removed from it. Not because he was at war, but because somewhere faraway other people were. It was a disquieting realisation: a family in Africa was as vulnerable to the shifting tides in European thought as it was to the ebb and flow of the Niger, the Congo, the Zambezi.

  That was WWII, but it was no different before and it is no different now. To thi
s day Africa seems to have no protection against ambitions and obsessions from other continents. From Europe, Asia or America such appetites inexorably reach across the vast geographical and cultural barriers that separate us to come and stir the grass of our savannah.

  Whether it be a thirst for territory and mineral resources, for slaves or converts, for magical elixirs, Africa has ever been the quencher of great foreign thirsts. Sometimes that has meant war.

  In the 1860s tantalising rumours began to reach the Britain of Queen Victoria: diamond deposits in South Africa. Rumours became reports. What promised to be a rich diamond field lay on the cusp between the Empire’s Cape Colony to the south and the Boer Republic of the Orange Free State to the north. By 1877 the diamond fields were under British control, annexed to the Cape Colony. Less than a decade later there was more news: gold deposits in the Transvaal, another Boer Republic further north. By 1896 the Witwatersrand gold reefs accounted for 23% of the world’s gold production. The new El Dorado.

  Three years later the British Army sailed for South Africa. The Empire was playing to win and also called on soldiers from its far-flung colonies – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Ceylon – to join the British and South African colonial forces. Two further appeals were issued to volunteers to join the armed forces in mounting Britain’s greatest military campaign since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

  The Boers, largely a farming nation, gathered together an initial resistance of around 87 000 men to face 448 000 soldiers advancing under the Union Jack. One of those soldiers was a 16-year-old boy from Hatton Garden in London. He’d lied about his age in order to enlist and join the adventure in Africa. In February 1900 the Empire’s forces reached Paardeberg, just south of Kimberley – the epicentre of that alluring prize of the fabulously rich diamond fields. The 16-year-old Londoner, fighting in a Welsh regiment, had become a battle-hardened soldier.