Tale guide

The wild life

Living in Africa has certainly provided its fair share of the wild life, especially when we were much younger. Running barefoot in the park, riding the world’s longest zipline, climbing some of the highest mountains, winning and losing at some of the most exotic casino resorts and catching tiger fish on the Zambezi are but a few of the reasons why growing up on the ‘dark’ continent is so much fun.

When Ann of Africa hooked up with the bushman, she had never been to the bush and had virtually no idea what to expect in that reputedly ‘hostile’ environment.

In those early years she also believed in the bushman. Looked up to him in awe so to speak, and gingerly set off on her new journey through life trusting that he would protect and provide. Of course, as we all know by now, the bushman only thought he was able to navigate the bushveld let alone life in general.

They bought a house in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. A comfortable home with a heated swimming pool and surrounded by a windbreak of very tall, well established pine trees. At the time their son had been visiting and in the very first week, while the bushman was driving said son to the airport, Ann made herself busy by arranging the study overlooking the pool. She decided to move the pc monitor to a new position on the wide table and as her hands gripped the sides of the monitor a ‘gigantic’ spider twitched on the wall millimetres from her hand.

Back on the road, the Bushman’s phone rang. “Hello my sweetheart.”

“Please get back here quickly,” came the frantic response.

“Why? What’s happened?” asked the bushman, keeping calm.

“There’s a gigantic tarantula in the study. I’ve never seen anything so big,” cried Ann of Africa.

The bushman engaged his usual understanding and calming pose. “I’m sure its not a tarantula my darling. Its probably a rain spider. Harmless enough. Why don’t you leave the room and close the door and I’ll sort it as soon as I get back?”

Of course, there was no way of him knowing what kind of spider it was lurking on the wall in the study 10 miles away. Even if he could have seen it, he still wouldn’t have had a clue. In fact, the only type of spiders he had ever heard of were a rain one and a tarantula one.

“I’m going nowhere until you get back.” The very assertive tone was something that the bushman would need to come to terms with over the later years.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I’m going to keep this monster in my sight until you can do something with it. I won’t have it disappear into the house to where, I will never know, including after I go to bed tonight!” she explained in determined phraseology.

Later that morning the spider was duly despatched safely back into the garden with an upturned pot and a lid. -

No! I’m lying. I didn’t want to offend any sensitive reader, but eventually the truth will out. Honestly, I flattened it with the heel of my shoe.

After this incident we encountered the spiders virtually every day such that we had never experienced before. It was becoming somewhat tiresome, and their regular appearance simply increased the anxiety levels of both Ann and the bushman to breaking point.

It was a practice adopted from the get-go, to leave a light on in the passage at night so that they could find their way to the bathroom without falling over the furniture.

One night, the bushman was awakened by the sound of a rustle. A sound similar to a piece of paper being scrunched. He lay in bed staring up at the ceiling as he slowly gathered his thoughts when the scrunching sound repeated itself. He turned his head and saw the shadow of a proper gigantic spider making its way across the wall in short sporadic runs.

Of course, the spider wasn’t gigantic, just like its late cousin in the study, but it appeared gigantic to a fearful bushman coming out of deep sleep.

The following morning Ann of Africa and the bushman sold their house and moved into a modern estate far away from the pine trees.

In today’s world, living in a country experiencing such a contrast between the haves and have-nots has sadly fuelled what can best be described as survival crime. People having to revert to stealing in order to stay alive.

Consequently, upon arrival in our little piece of paradise, the very first thing we had to do was to install a set of external (pet friendly), intrusion detection beams around the outside of the house. At night the system is switched on and we are able to sleep, assured that any attempt to enter will activate the audible alarm siren and scare the living crap out of the intruder and ourselves.

There have been a number of encounters with African wildlife, some of which have been the subject of earlier tales on this site. Encounters with porcupines, snakes, buffalo, elephant, crocodile, lion and even a Nile monitor in our bedroom have certainly livened up our lives, not to mention whales, seals and dolphins on the high seas.

And now that we have settled back in a little cottage overlooking a deserted beach on the subtropical shores of Southern KwaZulu-Natal, it became evident very quickly that our adventures with wildlife were not quite over.

No sooner had we moved in when we received a visit from a pair of rock rabbits, otherwise known as dassies. They sniffed their way around the small front garden for a while before disappearing back into the bush.

A Natal green snake decided to climb the kitchen wall and frighten the daylights out of the domestic lady. To the untrained eye the similarity between that harmless snake and the very dangerous green mamba certainly gives reason to approach them with extreme care. In fact, best not approach them at all.

To our immediate north lies a beautiful freshwater lagoon that periodically flows into the sea and enjoys the occasional backwash of salt water and many species of fish and crustaceans that breed in the calm waters.

A pair of African fish eagles have made their home on the lake shore. Flocks of ducks, cormorants, herons, and a few muscle crackers occupy themselves in and around the shore. I’ve seen bushbuck spoor close to the fence and our garden attracts all number of land birds including the illusive grey-headed Bush-Shrike whose haunting calls can be heard close by every early morning and evening.

We certainly seem to have found ourselves in what appears to be a natural wildlife sanctuary.

The other night the bushman and his missus settled down for the night after enjoying a couple of glasses of superb South African wine while watching the ocean play itself out on the sandy shore below, in the fading light of day.

The doors were locked, and the alarm set, and all was well with the world.

At about four o’clock the following morning, the bushman was awoken by a loud thud in the ceiling above him. He was still bringing himself gradually out deep slumber when one of the roof sensors triggered the alarm siren instantly bringing the bushman to life.

He leapt out of bed and looked at the status of the alarm on his new acquired App. He stood in stony silence in the lounge and listened to the noise of someone crawling along the ceiling boards in the general direction of the trap door in the back of the house.

At this point in time, he found himself alone. Lady Ann was still sound asleep. A shiver passed down the bushman’s back at the realisation that nothing stood between him and his destiny. There was no way out. If he ran, he would never ever live it down; if he went forth and confronted the highly dangerous, probably armed, intruder, his life may very well be brought to an abrupt end sooner than he had hoped for.

The bushman grabbed the ladder and gingerly climbed up into the roof through the garage trapdoor hoping that he would be able to approach his quarry from the rear.

At this point in time the armed reaction squad car had arrived with a screech of tyres on the driveway and siren blaring forth into the night.

Lady Ann woke up and quickly realised that something was amiss. The intruder, wherever he was ahead of the bushman in the dark, seemed unperturbed by the racket.

The bushman found himself in the darkness between the roof tiles and the ceiling below and of course, he then realised that he had forgotten his torch. The security guard popped his head through the trapdoor behind the bushman and realising the missing link, offered his flashlight.

The bushman panned the strong beam of light across the roof, slowly from left to right. “Freeze you bugger,” he demanded with an ever so slight tremor in his voice. There was no reply.

Slowly he crawled further forward and repeated the call. It was at this point that a calamity declared its arrival in an explosion of activity, dust and noise.

The bushman, who had been expecting his torch beam to fall on a human, momentarily froze when the light picked out the form of a huge monitor lizard otherwise known as a leguaan.

The bushman’s fear of having to fight for his life changed instantly to the realisation that leguaans traditionally are unaware of the need to stay on the strong wooden beams that keep the ceiling in place and that there was virtually no way of communicating the inevitable consequence of its heavy body moving directly onto the ceiling boards.

Monitor lizards grow up to 8 feet in length and can weigh up to 33 pounds. They are broad bodied and can move at speed when necessary. In the closed and confined space of the dark ceiling the animal appeared a lot bigger and potentially catastrophic to the bushman.

As the torchlight fell on the animal’s eyes, the leguaan stepped sideways directly onto the ceiling boards. The bushman yelled “stop,” at the top of his voice in a state of dreadful panic and lunged forward in the mistaken belief that he could, in some way, avert the impending disaster.

The leguaan’s unhindered progress onto the ceiling boards coincided precisely with the bushman losing his balance as he lunged forward.

Lady Ann, who, only that afternoon, had sat quietly in the lounge admiring the splendid results of her newly appointed décor, beautifully composed at her exemplary talented hands, stood motionless and without feeling, as the crisp white plastered ceiling above her started to crack under the combined weight of the leguaan and the bushman, before giving way with a deafening crash as both fell down on top of the brand new dining room table and a dense cloud of fine dust enveloped the room partially concealing the images in front of her.

Shocked and stunned, Ann of Africa watched as the leguaan rapidly made its way towards the patio door. The security guard rushed forward just in time to open the door and chase the terrified animal out into the garden.

She watched as the bushman slowly rolled onto his side and slid off the table, his face looking more like the chimney sweep at the end of a day in the soot. His eyes bulging with a look of embarrasment and fear.

Ann remained unusually speechless, staring blankly, almost unsighted, at the mess in front of her.

“I thought it was a burglar,” said the dazed bushman. “How on earth did that lizard get into the roof?”

The security guard chuckled. “Leguaans are able to climb virtually anything, sir,” he explained. “They have been known to climb up the side of a face brick wall, lift a tile off the roof and climb inside. That’s what must have happened this morning.”

Lady Ann finally found her voice as she sat down on the dusty sofa. In a state of exasperation, she declared, her voice laced with evil derision, “Well, I guess if you wanted an unusual welcome home, you would be hard pressed to beat this."