WEEKEND ADVENTURE

• I'm a corporate communications professional, a diabetic these last 26 years, and an ordinary South African. One day in my late 30's, I looked out of the window and had this sudden, strong urge to go there. Personally, I blame books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an over-imaginative, scrawny kid enduring boarding school in the dustblown farming town of Cathcart, South Africa, I read and re-read nature and wildlife books, including all of the 1950’s-era Willard Price books at the local library. Through the eyes of those world-travelling brothers Roger and Hal Hunt, I could escape into nature and its many strange animal species. Although these somewhat naive stories revolved around collecting animals for zoos (something most of us are set against in 2013) and horribly dated Whale Adventure was written in an era when ruthless whaling was still driven by many countries - you could tell that, context of the times notwithstanding, Roger and Hal still had a reverence for animal species (even while putting them in cages).  The best stories were aquatic, like Price's South Sea Adventure and Underwater Adventure, which featured irritable giant clams, predatory squid, a crazy thing called an oarfish, and sharks. Lots of sharks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I began to fall in love with nature and sat slack-jawed in front of those old black and white Sunday National Geographic specials. On beach holidays up the coast, I would patrol the rocky shores until I was sun-blasted, trying to spot dolphins, whales or, first prize, a shark tooth (mostly I just found shark purses). I wanted, more than anything, a submarine. 

 

Later, around age 12, I joined the conservation society at school in KwaZulu, and spent  weekends camped atop the Drakensberg with classmates and teachers, listening to the baboons barking in the kloofs around us. Once, we went to St Lucia where I saw a Gaboon Viper that looked almost like a CGI creation, so vivid and perfect were its markings. For about three months, I became a 'birder' (but I was too lazy; to see all the best bird species in Pietermaritzburg, you had to go to the swamp by the sewerage plant at 4.30am).

 

Our family were great outdoors people and trips to mountain (winter) and sea (summer) were an annual tradition. I'll never forget seeing an Eland in the wild for the first time, the crystal clear berg river water, or the smell of salt spray over banana trees on the wild coast.

 

My stepfather is a zoologist and world-renowned shrew specialist. My mom, for a time, worked on communications at the famous Rhodes Icthyology Institute - and was a kind of a 'bird whisperer' whose Port Alfred garden was always full of rare bird species. While living with my dad and stepmother near Albert Falls Dam in KZN (being a divorcees' child, I kind of moved around between both sides of my extended family), we were surrounded by monkeys, leopards, eagles and snakes in the dense bush.

 

Curious, then, that I didn't study marine biology or zoo later on in life (if I could rewind..) - but I never lost that boyhood fascination with animals. It just sort of ...went to sleep for a while. I still loved the outdoors, and animals but I must have gotten terribly absorbed in girls, studies, music, work - all manner of other things. I forgot about my true passion for a long time.

 

Also, I think that being a diabetic had, over the years, led me naturally towards a less adventurous life. Because that's more reassuring when you have to do four injections every day, test your blood sugar all the time and know that, should you ever be in a situation where insulin was unobtainable, you could pretty much sicken and die in a couple of days.

 

I guess I just couldn't see myself being a bush ranger, arachnologist or marine biologist, with those sort of considerations to factor in. I was too 'vulnerable'. So maybe that's how I become a deskbound commercial writer in the end, instead of a mountain-scaling, reef-diving, cave-diving sort of writer like Redmond O' Hanlon.

 

It's absolute nonsense of course - these days diabetics, like anybody with a chronic conditions, do all manner of incredible things. The only limits we have are those we place on ourselves. That's kind of true for everyone, ins't it.

 

In my late thirties, I suddenly got a strong urge to get into nature whenever possible; to bring back the sense of wonder to daily life that nature provides. It wouldn't go away. It got more and more distracting.

 

So I decided to make attempts to go into the wild (both salty and dusty) and reconnect with animal species large or small. I have since gone on to experience several humbling encounters, adding what I can only call 'spiritual meaning' to my life - like that moment when you feel your eyes have suddenly opened.

 

If ordinary people blog about animal encounters maybe more South Africans will be inspired to  explore the biodiversity we have on our doorstep - which would be great. The more people 'fall in love' with our wild species firsthand, the more entrenched will become their urge to support ongoing conservation efforts - and make no mistake, numerous species are at very serious risk at this time,     our rhinos being one most obvious example.

 

I got started with a shark diving trip (www.sharkdivingunlimited.com), whales (www.boatcompany.co.za) and a seal diving expedition (www.animalocean.co.za), and those will always be my 'wet-wildlife' go-to people. Since then I've been privileged to meet not just animal species marine and terrestrial (not to mention aerial), but also many intrepid members of the human species, from all backgrounds, who are inspired by nature, inspiring others, and actively furthering conservation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I have a 'church', this is it. And it’s not even about long boat trips or drives to the 'real' wild, and all it takes is going into the back garden to find jumping spiders, mole snakes or beetles (these kind of encounters, I call 'micro adventures'). 

 

It's all a weekend adventure once you're out of the front door.

 

My wife, queen and soul mate is fellow nature-lover Christelle Pike. We live in South Africa's Western Cape with our darling son Harrison, and three members of that most mischievous and curious of all animal species, the Scottish Terrier.