Time to Retreat

“You know … they say an elephant never forgets.
What they don’t tell you is, you never forget an elephant.”
-Actor Bill Murray

With a height of just over 3 – 4m (measured at the shoulder), a length of between 6 to 7.5m (that’s the length of an average motor car garage!) and weighing in at 6 tonnes, these mostly gentle giants of the African bush are highly intelligent with a strong sense of family and herd, and a complex social structure.

Here in Africa they are native to a wide variety of habitats including semi-desert scrub, open Savannah’s and dense forest regions. Besides its greater size, The African Elephant {Loxodonta africana} differs from the Asian elephant in having larger ears and tusks, a sloping forehead, and two “fingers” at the tip of its trunk, compared to only one in the Asian species.

Connochaetes gnou

 W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - ©Maree Clarkson 

Often, when travelling on the Sterkfontein road on our way to Lanseria Airport (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa), these Black Wildebeest cross the road, bringing all the traffic to a halt and resulting in everybody hauling out their cameras and binoculars. I always leave early for the airport, never know what you might spot on the road!
Swartwildebees [Afrikaans]

Black Wildebeest, also known as the White Tailed GNU, are endemic to South Africa, found almost exclusively in the Highveld areas of the country in South Africa. It is a very strange and comical looking specie with its black body, erect mane, long whitish tail, forward curving horns and facial crest. They were on the verge of extinction in the 1960’s, but are plentiful today as a result of careful conservation management. They are often found in herds of females and young males, with the older males either being solitary or forming small bachelor herds.

G stands for Gnu, whose weapon of defence
Are long, sharp, curling horns, and common sense.
To these he adds a name so short and strong,
That even hardy Boers pronounce it wrong.
How often on a bright autumnal day
The pious people of Pretoria say,
‘Come, let us hunt the______’ Then no more is heard
but sounds of strong men struggling with a word;
Meanwhile the distant Gnu with grateful eyes
Observes his opportunity and flies.

It was love at first sight... the day I met The Beach

Taken in Ballito, KwaZulu Natal

Dedicated to all beach-lovers!
 
That day, in 1973, at the age of 25, was the first time I had ever seen the sea – and it was love at first sight. The beach was all I had ever imagined it to be – soft, white sand, shells strewn here and there, little crabs scurrying for cover as I walked on the wet sand where the tide had left its mark.

I looked at the waves with their white crests, a beautiful sight to behold. Perpetual motion, hypnotic, soothing, yet disturbing. There and then I decided that the water was the domain of the sharks and the beach was mine – mine to walk, mine to search for beach treasures, mine to leave footprints on and mine to sit and dream, for hours, while the waves crashed in a never-ending crescendo, alluring, calling, but also warning,

“In joy thou hast lived.
Beware of the Sea!
If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore,
Thy heart shall then rest in the forest no more.”

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