The Good, The Bad and The Vervet Monkey

Kruger Park veterans will tell you that you have to head out when the gate opens in the morning if you want to see anything interesting. Not Evan Naudé – he decided to sleep in and let the animals come to him…

An old flame – let’s call her Jane – asked me once whether I’d been to the Kruger Park. She’s from the Lowveld and we were visiting her family on a farm near Barberton. I’m from the West Coast and grew up in flat, fynbos country – the wildest thing I’d seen at that point was a red-legged ostrich chasing his mate next to the Velddrif Road. So no, I hadn’t been to the Kruger.

Early the next morning, we loaded backpacks, a tent and a cooler box into her dad’s beige single-cab Hilux. It was a typical farm bakkie with dents all over, sponge peeking out of the seats, a dust layer on the instrument panel, broken aircon, the kind of long gear lever that leads to arthritis in the shoulder, and a stiff accelerator pedal that sent cramps up the leg. But it was better than nothing, especially if you’re young and poor.

Jane’s sister was also coming along for the weekend. She squeezed into the uncomfortable middle seat and off we went. The sisters had grown up in Phalaborwa and knew the park backwards. We didn’t even need a map – they gave directions and I drove.

Now, years later, I realise that my first day in the park was special, but back then I thought it was normal to rack up the following sightings one after another: a herd of more than 50 elephants in the road; a lion pride sniffing around the bakkie; buffalo, rhino, hyena, almost every kind of antelope, including a million impalas; and a wild dog with newborn pups.