2005, shortly after the walking trails were closed
Jurgen loved to take the scenic route up to the reserve and would often travel on his own via Polokwane and Magoebaskloof. For security reasons he always carried a big handgun on his hip, except for the short period when he accidentally lost it in the refuse trailer up at the workshop. This happened when he hoisted the bin bag and threw it into the receptacle; the bag must have hooked the exposed hammer on his revolver, which lifted the gun out of its holster and into the bin. A couple of days later it was found when the garbage was being sorted for incineration. Were it not for a sharp-eyed staff member, it would have been incinerated along with all the other trash. How this slightly built man didn’t feel the sudden weight loss of a .357 magnum revolver disappearing from his waist beats me.
In the days when the game-viewing vehicles were all parked at the reserve’s main entrance gate, shareholders would park their Jo’burg vehicles there, unload all their supplies into their game-viewing 4x4, or merely transfer their pre-loaded Venter trailer from one vehicle to the other. With the trailer and the other paraphernalia loaded, the journey then took you along the winding, bumpy access road and through the wide, soft sandy crossing of the Mohlabetsi River. Once across, you continued through some beautiful Combretum and Marula woodland which took you past Wild Dog Pan, a popular game watering hole. Then you could either turn down to the Madrid lodges or continue on to Spaghetti Junction. This drive was approximately 18 kilometres long and took about 30 minutes, all of it through prime big game country, so it was always a bit of an adventure; in essence, it would be the first game drive of your visit.
Looking forward to a relaxing weekend on the reserve, Jurgen was probably in deep contemplation, thinking where he would go for that afternoon’s drive, and what he’d pack in the cooler box for sundowners.
Approaching the sandy river crossing, he slowed down, engaged a lower gear, pushed down the yellow knob to engage four-wheel-drive and then eased the Land Rover into the soft sand. As the vehicle was churning its way through, he saw two men running towards him from the fence line. They were about 30 metres away, approaching fast, waving long knives known as ‘pangas’ and shouting something Jurgen didn’t understand. It must have been a terrifying sight. Although always armed, he told us that he thought better of reaching for his handgun to protect himself and decided to rather try and drive away from them, which fortunately he managed to do. As the Land Rover climbed out of the river bed and up the steep bank on the opposite side, he looked back over his shoulder, and could see that although the two men had long since given up the chase, they were still gesticulating in his direction.
The next morning, a very shaken and worried Jurgen stood in the office and in wide-eyed detail related the story to us, pausing only to lift a shaking hand and take another deep draw on his cigarette. When he had finished telling us about his ordeal, he must have noticed that we were not taking the story as seriously as he might have expected. Eventually I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I decided that before I burst out laughing, I’d better tell him what really happened, and then we could laugh about it together, which we did. Despite his Germanic sense of humour instinctively searching for logic, the explanation that followed had him laughing until he had tears in his eyes.
In fact, the two panga-wielding attackers were employees of Olifants who had been clearing the grass and scrub growth along the fence line with our neighbouring reserve, Ukhozi. Being a Saturday meant that it was a half-day, which had been overlooked by the person who was supposed to pick them up, and so they had not been collected. That was when they realised that the vehicle approaching them was a perfect opportunity to get a ride back to headquarters. Jurgen was on his own and had plenty of room in his Land Rover, so they waved their pangas to show they were bona fide workers, and to attract his attention to their plight. In order not to inconvenience Jurgen, the two men thought they would save time by running up to him, knowing that the shareholders were often quite keen to get to their lodge as quickly as possible …
Can you blame anyone who didn’t know these two men for reacting the same way as Jurgen? It makes you think just how something so innocently funny could just as easily have ended in tragedy by Jurgen turning into an armed and dangerous person exercising his right to self-defence, or by the entire tale starring a couple of poachers whose objectives would have been far from innocent. But Jurgen did the right thing and exercised restraint, something we all have to do on various occasions in the bush. Not only is it prudent to exercise restraint when apparently being attacked by panga-wielding poachers, but dangerous animals also need to be given the benefit of the doubt, time and circumstances permitting, of course. As an example …
Olifants had recently closed its walking trails, and for good reason. The influx of nearly 500 elephant and the burgeoning hippo population meant that walking on the riparian floodplain of the Olifants River, once a popular route, was now too dangerous to contemplate unless you were accompanied by an adequately armed ranger. This possibility prompted one of the shareholders to ask if he and his partner could accompany our anti-poaching ranger on his next patrol. These patrols take place over the entire Olifants region, including privately owned neighbouring properties surrounding our reserve. As a matter of courtesy, permission from the neighbour was obtained for persons other than our bona fide rangers to walk on their property, and this was granted.
The weather that morning was perfect picnic weather for Scotland, overcast and cool with a light drizzle. Despite this dampener on the day, the young couple set out early with our chief ranger, in eager anticipation of a brisk walk along the breathtakingly beautiful floodplain. Following the well-worn hippo path, they walked in virtual silence, the soft sand muffling even the most clumsy footfall.
One of the first animals they saw that morning was the rare Pel’s fishing owl. At their approach, the huge bird dropped silently from the thick foliage of a huge grove of Natal mahogany trees. Swooping low, it then settled plainly visible in a sycamore fig tree a little further downstream. ‘What a start to the day,’ the couple thought. As they continued, a number of waterbuck and even the normally wary bushbuck were startled at the walkers’ silent approach, only breaking cover at a heart-stopping few metres ahead of them.
By now used to the odd animal revealing itself at the last moment as they walked, there was a hardly perceptible hesitancy when a louder crashing of vegetation was heard off to the side. Only when this revealed a hippo bull hurtling towards them at full speed was there any reaction. After seeing the tracker throw his rifle down and climb the nearest tree, one of the party simply picked the next best tree and also climbed up it. This left only one option for the remaining walker … the river! But this was the same river the hippo was heading for. Fortunately, the hippo path followed a fairly gentle gradient into the river, which allowed the hapless walker the opportunity to dive off the steeper edge of the path at a right-angle into the river and avoid the hippo. There really was nowhere else to go!
The startled hippo had no intention of attacking anybody that morning. The short-sighted old bull was merely determined to get back into the water along the path with which it was familiar – only this time there were three strange animals standing in his way. On cool, overcast days hippo often move quite some distance from water, particularly in winter when the grass on the floodplain has been depleted and better feeding is to be had further inland. These nocturnally active animals will often extend their hours of grazing by taking advantage of cool conditions such as this, foraging late into the day. Being caught between a hippo and the water can be an extremely dangerous situation, as effectively you are blocking its route to safety and it will attack if given no alternative.
Did the ranger register this lack of intent in the hippo’s tiny pig-like eyes when he dumped the rifle, or did he also just ‘pop his clutch’ and use ‘four-limb-drive’ to get the hell out of the way as Jurgen did, and then in hindsight, breathe a sigh of relief, happy not to have used his firearm?
Everybody survived the ordeal unscathed, except for the rifle, which to this day, despite repeated stripping and cleaning, still has a gritty feel about its action.