Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 116, March 2019 | Page 36

By Karoline Hanks
Environmental activist and avid runner Karoline Hanks describes a moment
with a Leatherback turtle on the beaches of Maputaland in the north-eastern
corner of KwaZulu-Natal.
As soon as we hit the
sand, we would start
running – easy going,
hard-packed, low-tide
sand. The circle of
torchlight would bob
up and down and pink
ghost crabs would
scuttle away and dive
into the foaming surf to
our right. We were on ‘Mission Turtle.’ We would run for up to four kilometres,
perhaps more, before any reward. Then! The sheer joy at coming across the
ruffled sand, the tell-tale tractor-like grooves that leave the surf and head
straight up to the dunes.
See one, you inch a little further. If you see another a short distance on, you
sigh quietly and move on. Two tracks – you’re too late. One track – bingo!
Heart races, torch is switched off immediately. You follow it quietly up the
beach… and then you stop. And listen. Swish, swish, swish. In the pre-dusk
gloom you can just make out a massive shape on the sand, and if you listen
carefully, you can hear breathing, and puffing.
We had two such encounters this year. Two beautiful, massive Leatherback
female turtles, both at the end of their laying, both covering up the nest and
then moving a little further up to make a ‘fake nest’ to confuse any potential
predators. The work is exhausting, her flippers work hard – front and back:
scoop and flick, scoop, scrape, dig, flick, smooth over. She sighs with the
effort of it all. The lack of buoyancy, the effort of having to work against
something solid, as opposed to the ease of moving in water. She is exhausted.
Mucus mixed with sand pours from her eyes and mouth. She gasps, sighs
deep, flicks, scoops. Driven by a magnetic instinct, so powerful, so brilliant.
I take a moment to reach out and touch her shell. A light touch. I stroke this
barnacle-encrusted soul, and whisper, “You clever thing, you.”
Eventually we watch her manoeuvre her massive shape and face the surf. She
inches rhythmically back down towards the waves – almost parallel to her
track out of the sea. I love watching her as the first ripple hits her. The sense of
relief must be enormous. I touch her one last time. It’s emotional. I almost want
to pull her back, tell her not to venture in there. Because it’s bad in there. And
getting worse. Because of us. “Go well, be safe beautiful,” I say quietly, my
words whisked away in the wind.
Juno and the Leopard
By Hein Wandrag
Hein Wandrag would prefer the location
of this encounter not to be shared – for all
the right reasons!
I spend a lot of time running in an
adjacent reserve, as it allows me to just
clear the head after a day’s work, and the
fact that it’s a closed reserve allows one
to get away from people while being in
nature and working up some endorphins.
My standard running partner is a border
collie named Juno. We have come across
a fair amount of puffies and Cape Cobras
on the trails, but she was made snake-
savvy early on in life and has always
stayed away when we did encounter any.
About seven months ago, we were still climbing the first major hill into the
reserve when she started barking into the bushes about 30 metres ahead of
me. I immediately thought snake or baboon – her self-proclaimed mission in
life is to catch one. I screamed at her to back off and she did retreat a metre or
so, but still barked non-stop. I raced forward to chase away the baboon or at
least get her away from the snake, if that happened to be the case.
About eight to 10m away from her a beautiful Cape leopard suddenly dropped
into the trail between Juno and I. The night before I had started re-reading A
Story Like the Wind by Laurens Van Der Post. In the first couple of chapters
he happens to describe the hate there has always been between leopard and
dog, and that the dog tended to be on the losing side of every encounter.
Admittedly this was not the first thought that went through my mind. It was an
utterance that may not be published.
The leopard seemed not to be bothered by either of us and showed almost no
aggression. I managed to get the leopard looking my way by making a hell of
a noise – I admit that very little of this noise was voluntary – and Juno took the
gap to run past and join me on the ‘closer to home side’ of the leopard. We
backed off slowly and after what felt like ages, the leopard jumped back onto a
rock and watched us retreat.
Yes I did have a camera on my phone tucked away in my running vest. No,
I never thought of taking it out and capturing the moment. The reserve has
captured the leopard on trail cams several times now. I do look around a hell
of a lot more when running there, and I guess Juno stays a bit closer when we
go running.
She inches further and then a wave pounds down and covers her completely.
It retreats, and she has moved, sunk into the sand, an incredible, prehistoric,
ancient shape, again enveloped in meringue-white surf. We watch as she
starts moving with greater ease into the pounding surf and beyond into the
flatter stuff. Her little head pops up, once or twice, and then she’s gone.
Why do I feel so heart-sore every time I see these magnificent animals re-enter
their ocean home? I have visited this beach for three years in a row now,
and each time I find more
and more ocean-borne
plastic being spat out. I
can no longer holiday here
without the overwhelming
compulsion to pick
everything up. In the five
days that we were there, we
collected 10 large hessian
bags of plastic waste
from approximately two
kilometres of beach!
36
ISSUE 116 MARCH 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
Credit to Wildrunner
This article first appeared in the Wildrunner Newsletter published on 11
February 2019. Wildrunner is a Cape-based events company specialising
in trail running events, including the popular Trail Series events in the Cape
and Gauteng, the three Mountain Challenge Series events (Jonkershoek,
Helderberg and Marloth), and various multi-day stage races around Southern
Africa. More info at www.wildrunner.co.za.
Seeturtles.org
Precious Moments with
a Leatherback