Back in the Day
Cheetah sightings, a lark that makes mix tapes and a letter from Windhoek.
KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, 1956
KOOS MOL from Pretoria writes: The article “Kruger National Park, 55 years ago” ( go! #132) made me think of my own childhood experiences in the park in the 1950s. All the roads were gravel, there was no power and the tents had steel beds with coir mattresses. We lived in Benoni and visited the park at least once a year. On the first night of the December school holidays, vehicles would queue at the Numbi gate, hoping to be first in line when the gate opened the next morning. Us kids played in the road while people braaied and picnicked on the verge. In those years, the northern parts of the park weren’t open to the public during the summer months. For that reason, we normally camped at Skukuza or Pretoriuskop. At the entrance gate to Skukuza, there was a brick building with two rooms. One room was the office where you had to check in; the other was where you had to collect your coir mattress. The camp was rudimentary: an assortment of tents with steel bed frames and oil lamps inside. There were no fridges or cool boxes. At night the camp staff would make a big fire and divide the coals between everyone who wanted to braai. The coals were placed on metal rubbish bin lids in the communal braai area. There were no braai tripods so you had to balance your grid on bricks. Sometimes a hyena would sneak into the camp at night looking for something to eat. People would put their meat in a bag and hoist it up into a tree with a rope to keep it out of the reach of nocturnal animals. I remember that certain sections of the gravel road between Skukuza and Lower Sabie were being tarred at the time, to test the effect of tar roads on the animals. One of the park staff members would sit at the low-water bridge where the road crossed the Sabie River to the north. He counted the vehicles that used the bridge by throwing a stone into a big container every time a car passed. Lions and elephants were abundant on the road between Skukuza and Lower Sabie and we children loved it when baboons jumped on the car and caught a lift for a few metres. Many vehicles had a water bag that hung from a side mirror or from a hook on the chrome front bumper. This bag carried our drinking water – the wind cooled the water as we drove around. Yes, a visit to the Kruger Park in those days was always an adventure!
Koos and his wife Irene are retired and they’ve been touring the country with their caravan since April 2016.