tonishingly cool inside after the heat
of the day. Warthogs grunted and
roamed around and some of the ani-
mals wandered into the compounds,
unafraid of the humans. Warning
notices implored us to ‘Beware of
hippos, stay on lit paths’.
Next day was a day off the bikes
and we had the option to go for a
horse ride instead. The other two
ladies were both accomplished riders
but me? Give me a motorbike going
at 110kph any day! Horses have teeth
and a mind of their own, and no
brakes or gears. How do you control
it?! Against my better judgement I
was persuaded to give it a go, and just
like my first day doing a CBT, I re-
laxed and began to enjoy it.
My gentle horse was called Vicky
and because the wild animals were
not scared of the horses, we could
ride very close to them. Vicky and
I were so close to the zebra I could
have stroked them. We were soon
notching up the sightings of the
animals. We saw impala and kudu,
wildebeest and monkeys, little guinea
fowl skittered away from the hooves.
We saw a huge crocodile basking on
the banks of the lake, but we didn’t
see any of the big 5.
In the afternoon we visited a local
traditional village where we were
entertained by traditional singing
and dancing. We three women were
simultaneously amused and horrified
by the defence strategy employed by
the villagers. The first hut inside the
stockade which invading enemies
would encounter, would be the hut
where the young girls of age 6-16
would live. Their job was to delay the
invaders until the village defences
could be activated by the big burly
adult men. Umm … I don’t know
what to say really! Interesting cultur-
al differences.
That evening, we sat out watching
the stars as was becoming our nightly
ritual but finally the mosquitoes and
din of the frogs drove us inside.
Next day was to be one of the
highlights of the trip! We were riding
into Kruger Park! We were only the
sixth party of motorbikes ever to be
allowed into the park and later that
day we would find out exactly why the
bikes are generally not allowed. In
the meantime, we had several hun-
dred kilometres of riding through the
highlands of Swaziland. We stopped
for a cool drink at the impressive Ma-
guga dam hydro-electric scheme and
saw two fish eagles wheeling above
the dam, but we couldn’t tarry long,
we still had many miles to go.
There are two aspects of motorcy-
cling which are the same the world
over. First, there is ‘small boy syn-
drome’. All small boys love motor-
bikes and the Swazi boys were no
exception. They loved to wave to us
and give the thumbs up as we sped
past. The other syndrome is ‘target
fixation’, a familiar concept to us all;
if you look at something, you will ride
straight at it!
Unfortunately for one of our num-
ber, both phenomena coincided. She
was waving at a crowd of small boys
and simultaneously target fixated
on them. The bike careered off the
road straight towards the wee boys
who scattered like peas and gave
her a cheer as she rode up the ditch
and back onto the road. Impres-
sive off-roading sister! We ribbed
her mercilessly at the next stop but
thankfully no-one was hurt. Alex just
shook his head in despair again.
Next stop Kruger! I could barely
contain my excitement.
Alex has many skills. As well as
being an expert biker and business-
man, he is also a qualified tracker,
trained in wildlife conservation. He
stopped us just before the entrance to
the park and explained that there was
an elephant trail crossing the road
just inside the gates. He would enter
the park first and ensure the way was
clear for us. We would follow at his
signal, coasting down towards the
river. We did exactly as directed and
sure enough, as we drew up beside
TRAVERSE 54
him, a huge elephant crossed the
road twenty metres in front of us.
We sat amazed as the elephant
plodded past. Just as we were about
to start our engines and ride on, the
elephant suddenly wheeled around
and started trumpeting, flapping its
ears and “mock charging” towards us!
Alex mouthed that well-known biker’s
prayer, “Oh fuck”, whilst I sat con-
templating how quickly I could learn
to do a U-turn and wondering if my
death notice would say, ‘trampled to
death by an elephant on a motorbike’.
Alex drew his bike in front of us
three women and was getting ready to
make lots of noise when just as sud-
denly; the elephant lost interest in us,
turned and ambled away. Alex apol-
ogised for swearing but we assured
him that under the circumstances it
was acceptable.
Shaking, we crossed the rickety
bridge over Crocodile River. ‘Great’, I
thought, ‘survived the elephant, just
to fall off into a crocodile infested
river’.
We were buzzing with adrenalin as
we checked into our thatched huts for
the day and chalked up the elephants
as our first sighting of the big five.
I spent the rest of the afternoon
watching hippos snorting and wal-
lowing in the river then as evening
fell, we joined an organised game
drive. The sun was setting over the
savannah creating a low dusk light
which was the best time to see the
wildlife. The animal sightings came
fast. We saw impala, antelope, wil-
debeest and the most beautiful-tailed
genet. We saw little mongooses
(mongeese?) civet and vultures. And
we saw lions, we saw a big-maned
male lion and we saw a whole pride
of lionesses with their cubs. But the
greatest excitement came when we
saw a leopard! They are very elusive
and even the park ranger was excited
to see the big cat silently glide away
into the bush. I wondered how any-
one could look at all these beautiful
creatures and think, ‘yes, I’d like to