Table of contents for February 2017 in go!

It’s quite a shock to the system – the neatly compartmentalised suburban system that regulates most of us – when you fall asleep in Botswana for the first time. At home we do our best to keep the world as far away from our property as possible, but things don’t work like that when you cross the border and set up camp. The first thing you notice is that there are no Vibracrete walls or even boundary fences. No barrier between you and everything else. You have to accept that you’re part of nature and trust that your tent walls will be enough to keep a wandering elephant or nosy lion at bay. Botswana is an orderly and prosperous country, but it’s also properly wild. Almost a fifth of its…

New route for Joburg tourist bus The City Sightseeing bus has a new route in Joburg. Labelled the green route, it goes from Rosebank to Constitution Hill, via Zoo Lake, the zoo itself and the Ditsong National Museum of Military History. Like on all the other routes, you can pop in a pair of earphones and learn about the points of interest along the route. At Constitution Hill you can switch to the red route for no extra cost and explore the city centre and the surrounding suburbs. If you want to do the tour of Soweto you’ll have to pay. When? The first bus on the green route departs daily at 9 am from The Zone @ Rosebank. Thereafter, buses depart every half hour. If you don’t get off…

Môredou Farm Stall, near Jacobsdal If you’re travelling between Bloemfontein and Kimberley, turn off the N8 at Petrusburg and take a detour to Ritchie via the village of Jacobsdal, along the R48 and the R705. The latter is a narrow tar road often used by tractors, combine harvesters and bakkies. Best of all, it takes you past Môredou Farm Stall, about 10 km west of Jacobsdal! Odrie Meyer, originally from Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape, started the farm stall in 2012 when she moved to Jacobsdal with her daughter Olga. “I’ve always wanted a farm stall!” she says. With the help of the farmers who owned the previously abandoned building at the roadside, she set up a stall that sells a little bit of everything. The fresh pies are delicious…

Makes 4 “best-in-show” bakes This is the milk tart from our childhood. Both the crust and filling have their origin steeped in smoke and mirrors. To protect those that parted with long-held family secrets, we renamed it after our own company. It’s absolute perfection with flaky, leafy pastry and a soufflé filling. CRUST 1. Cut the butter into three equal parts, keep two parts out and refrigerate the last. 2. Add the salt to 2½ cups (350g) of the flour; reserve the last cup. 3. Add the 2½ cups flour to a food processor and run for two minutes at moderate speed to incorporate air. 4. Add one part of the butter to the flour. Pulse twice (the butter should still be in…

READER STORY DAVE THERON Home town: Johannesburg Occupation: Retired chartered accountant In September 2016, my wife Dani and I loaded up our 2010 Mitsubishi Pajero in Joburg and set off with two other couples in their 4x4s – Tony and Gill Theron and John and Jill Venning – to explore some wild camps in Botswana. Our plan was to tour the northern parts of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (not Mabuasehube further east) then exit the park and spend a few days in the Kaa Concession further north. No rain had fallen since March and the whole area was as dry as an eland skeleton. There was no water in the pans, other than where drinking troughs had been built and water pumped in. The Botswana Kalahari is not an easy…

Baby potato and bacon bake Serves 6 Preparation time 10 minutes Cooking time 1 hour Potato bakes don’t get much better than this. The salt can be replaced with ½ packet brown onion soup powder. You need Here’s how 1 Preheat the oven to 200° C. Use a sharp knife to make 6 – 8 deep cuts in every potato (Don’t slice it all the way through.) 2 Finely chop the onion and bacon. Put the potatoes in an ovenproof dish. Scatter the onions and bacon over the potatoes. Melt the butter and add the garlic and herbs. Pour this mixture over the potatoes. Season with salt. 3 Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove…

Roberts VII Multimedia Birds of southern Africa The Roberts app might not look as impressive on your coffee table as the stupendous Roberts VII hardcover, but it delivers the same info and it’s much cheaper. The app provides detailed information about 968 bird species and has interactive functions like a checklist, bird-call recordings and GPS maps. It will take up 1 GB of storage on your phone, so you might need to cull your music collection before you download it. R499 at Google Play and iTunes Newman’s Birds of southern Africa The Newman’s app is a concise field guide for your phone, rather than an encyclopaedia with long descriptions. It features 975 bird species found in southern Africa with illustrations, photos and about 800 bird-call recordings. You can download the…

Here on the southern tip of Africa, we often get it wrong. Some of us managed to work out that Hyundai is pronounced “Yan-dei” as opposed to “Huh-yoondai”, but before we could get a grip on “Tuck-son”, Hyundai changed the name to ix35. That was back in 2009 and nobody complained because it saved us from embarrassment. Now the “Too-sohn” is back, shrugging off the previous mixed-case nomenclature, and it’s selling like hot cakes. At least 400 units find happy homes every month and South African female motoring journalists have already declared it Women’s Car of the Year. With respect to my colleagues’ reasoning, I must mention that when it comes down to brass tacks, there’s very little difference between a Tucson and the mass of SUVs already out there.…

BLINDIANA BARISTA, WORCESTER Joseph Matheatau works the coffee machine with such skill you’d never know he is blind. I’m so impressed that I order another cappuccino as soon as I finish my first. Blindiana is run by Kaleidoscope SA – an NGO previously known as the Institute for the Blind. The restaurant employs blind and visually impaired people, offering sighted people a glimpse into their world in the familiar setting of a coffee shop. The decor is stylish, with beautiful braille typewriters against one wall, and the menu is varied enough to ensure happy customers: breakfast, toasted sandwiches, burgers, salads, wraps and a variety of cakes, all at reasonable prices. (Breakfast costs about R45; toasted cheese, ham and tomato R35; big slice of cake R25; coffee R15.) Each cup of…

IN OTHER WORDS I wake up thankful that I live in Haenertsburg. We are truly blessed. Where you live shapes who you are. My children live in London, but they still thank me for letting them grow up here. – Mara Hermann The beautiful scenery in spring, the people, the safe environment, the gorges, mountains and grassland… Every day you just go, “Wow, this is incredible.” – Bridget Hilton-Barber 1 Walk the Louis Changuion Trail It’s not every day that you get to hike a trail with the person it was named after! Historian and author Louis Changuion (76) likes to take a morning walk on “his” trail with his Labrador Sophie. We walk through fields as mist envelops the landscape. I can see Iron Crown and Ebenezer Dam in…

He might only stand 25 cm high and weigh in at 12 kg, but the relatively diminutive honey badger packs a serious punch. James Stevenson Hamilton, the first warden of the Kruger National Park, apparently witnessed honey badgers killing waterbuck and wildebeest by biting at their scrotums. The animal succumbed as a result of blood loss. This might be an exaggeration, but there are verified accounts of badgers stealing steenbok kill from brown hyenas. A brown hyena weighs about 40 kg – four times more than a badger! Having steenbok for lunch is the exception for a honey badger. They usually prey on smaller creatures like beetles, scorpions, baboon spiders, mice, lizards and snakes. As their name suggests, they’ll also readily raid beehives in search of bee larvae and honey.…

DO THIS… Always • Help the patient stay calm. • Keep the patient immobilised. • Do what you can to get the patient to a hospital, or to a pick-up point for emergency services. • Try to get a clear description of the snake. If the bite was from a mamba or a non-spitting cobra • Wrap the affected limb in pressure bandages and make a splint. For example… If the bite was from an adder, stiletto snake or spitting cobra • Elevate the affected limb slightly above the heart and immobilise the limb. • Don’t use a pressure bandage! For example… If patient experiences difficulty breathing • Apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. NEVER • Apply a tourniquet. • Open or cut the wound – it will make the venom spread faster. • Suck blood from the wound in an effort to remove…

Where does your love of the outdoors come from? My grandparents farmed at Koedoeskop in Limpopo and I visited regularly in the years before I went to school. My father and grandfather were hunters who understood the concept of sustainable hunting even back then. I was taught that the senseless killing of animals was unacceptable and unethical. I also grew up with the stories of how my mother used to camp at the San Martino lagoon (now Bilene) in Mozambique as a child, travelling there in a Thames truck towing a boat that my grandfather had built himself. My grandparents really enjoyed travelling and went everywhere in South Africa and Namibia – first in a Chev El Camino bakkie towing a Capilano Abba caravan; later with a more modern VW…

DO IT YOURSELF Here’s how to book a mokoro outing or accommodation on a houseboat: Mokoro outings Most places to stay around the Okavango Delta offer short mokoro outings, but you can also do longer, overnight outings from Maun. Enquire at the lodge or campsite where you’re staying – they will help you make arrangements. Okavango River Safaris offers a seven-day mokoro safari from R13 000 per person, depending on the size of your group, departing from Maun. The rate includes accommodation in tents; B&B accommodation in Maun; three meals per day, plus coffee, tea and drinking water; park fees at Moremi; airport transfers or safe parking and fuel for the boats. Contact: 00 267 684 1016; okavangoriver.com Houseboats Hire a boat from Okavango Houseboats from P8 500…

CHEMONE STANDER (15) NIKON D3000 55 – 200 mm lens Chemone’s striking image took first place in our Trappers Junior Hot Shots Competition. (She wins a family holiday – see p 10.) She was visiting a wildlife sanctuary called Eldorado, close to Etosha National Park in Namibia. On a guided walk through, she noticed these two leopards lazing in a tree, not bothered at all by the presence of the guests. She took lots of photos, many of them blurry, but when one of the leopards decided to move between branches she captured the moment perfectly. She says it was just luck that this one was sharp! The moody clouds make for a neutral yet dramatic background. Had the background been more cluttered, the photograph wouldn’t have been as strong.…

Sometimes summer calls for a thirst-quenching drink. That’s why we’ve abandoned wine this month and gone for beer and cider instead. It seems there’s no limit to the craft-brewing industry at the moment – new brands come out almost every week. It’s great to see there’s an emphasis on quality – using better ingredients and flavourants than some of the commercial beers. Try these and see what you think. Sxollie Granny Smith Apple Cider (R35) is the latest single-varietal offering from this fun Cape Town-based brewery. They already do a Golden Delicious Cider and a Packham Pear Perry; this new drink is bit drier, probably owing to the crisp acidity of the Granny Smith apples. I’m not sure if you’re meant to, but I drink this over ice with a…

At montybrett.com  you can do an outdoor course from the comfort of your own home. The courses are presented in the evening and are fully interactive so you can ask questions while you sip your wine. The aim of birdlife.org. za  is to protect bird species and create a gathering place for like-minded people to join clubs and research projects. You can also learn how to build your own bird hide and there’s a free checklist.…

GENERAL STUFF How to get there? Haenertsburg is on the R71, about 60 km from Polokwane and 40 km from Tzaneen. It’s a four-hour drive from Joburg. Best time to visit? The town is a year-round destination, but try to go during the annual Spring Festival. And always pack a warm jacket – it can get chilly when the mist rolls in. More info: Get a free “Explore Magoebaskloof” map at Memory Hold-the-Door (also available at most of the shops and accommodation venues in town). Look for the free quarterly magazine Mountain Getaways or download it at mountaingetaways.co.za . Jane Allison at Magoebaskloof Tourism can also help you with your questions. 083 442 7429; magoebasklooftourism.co.za MORE THINGS TO DO Ride your bike: The mountain-biking trails…

Chemone’s winning photograph (see page 67) is unusual and dramatic. How often do you see two leopards in a tree? And then for one of them to be jumping from branch to branch! She captured the split-second moment with a skill that belies her age, somehow managing to pull off a decent, pin-sharp composition that instantly grabs the viewer’s attention. It’s a photo that will no doubt inspire many more children (and adults!) to take their cameras along on their travels. Who knows what you might see around the next bend?…

TOUR INFO How long? 11 days/10 nights Departure point: Nata, Botswana End point: Kasane, Botswana Accommodation: Formal Rates: R22 450 per adult. Single supplement additional 30 %. THE RATE INCLUDES WHAT TO BRING DATES THE TOUR IN A NUTSHELL Day 1: We meet at Nata Lodge and enjoy sunset at the famous Makgadikgadi Pans. Day 2: We explore Maun and surrounds, with an optional flight over the Okavango Delta. Day 3: Near Sepupa, motor boats will take us to a houseboat on the Okavango River, where we’ll spend two nights. Day 4: Enjoy a mokoro cruise on the Delta, or do some tigerfishing. Day 5: We return to the vehicles and drive to the rock…

The subject of auxiliary-battery selection can be a minefield of data, facts, and uninformed opinions. This situation is made worse by the retail sector, in which well-meaning salesmen (with limited knowledge and battery training) make the mistake of recommending their top-selling battery as a one-size-fits-all solution. More often than not, this is a deep-cycle, wet-cell/flooded battery. Another problem with the battery market is that there is little (if any) information on how various batteries perform under different charging conditions. Unfortunately, most battery manufactures don’t want this information publicised, as it might reveal too much about their product’s performance. National Luna recently invested over R250k in a vast range of battery-testing technology. The information we gather from these tests will give us a better understanding of how various batteries perform in…

ACCESSORIES 1 K-Way Explorer Talus Floppy A cowboy would never ride off across the plains without a Stetson and neither should you. This lightweight wide-brim hat will protect you against more than 98% of UV rays and it carries CANSA’s stamp of approval. It has ventilation ports to keep you cool and it will keep you dry in a rain shower. R299 at Cape Union Mart 2 Roberts Bird Guide – second edition You can’t go birdwatching without a proper guide. The latest Roberts has excellent illustrations and extensive information about the breeding seasons, distribution, appearance and status of nearly a thousand species. As Toast Coetzer wrote about the first edition: “If you’re not in this guide, you’re not a bird.” R175 in bookstores 3 Mac in a Sac…

BIRDING IN SOWETO When Raymond Rampolokeng was a child, he and his friends roamed the wild spaces of Soweto, hunting birds with catapults and swimming in the dams and the rivers. Now that he’s grown up, he’s proud to be Soweto’s only accredited birding guide. We meet at Orlando Towers, a landmark in the suburb, and walk down to the wetland that also used to be part of the decommissioned power station. We greet the kids from the local canoeing club who are getting ready for a training session and we scan the horizon for birds. Right on cue, a mustard-coloured shape whizzes across the water. “Squacco heron,” says Raymond. “That’s one of our specials.” As we stroll along the bank towards the polluted river that feeds the wetland, Raymond…

The Land of the Silver Mist is how author Lord John Buchan, who later served as Governor General of Canada, described the Haenertsburg area. After the Anglo-Boer War, Buchan worked in Pietersburg (now Polokwane) and often came to Magoebaskloof to fish. The N1 between Joburg and Polokwane is quite dull, but as soon as you turn onto the R71 towards the kloof, you enter a green landscape of mountains, hills and fields. It’s easy to miss Haenertsburg, especially when the mist rolls in. The town centre is one main road long, with a café, a filling station, a Tank Foodzone, some restaurants and shops. “As soon as the first Pep or Ellerines opens here, I’ll put my stuff on my bakkie and leave,” says Linda Wilkinson who runs The Pennefather…