ADVENTURE
Augrabie Falls Clockwise from below: Mountain biking in the Kalahari; river rafting in the Orange River
Guide tips
Charles Ncube Gauteng
People might not think of Soweto as an adventurous place, but we
fish, unhooks it and holds it up for paren- tal approval. “Great job, Lee!” Danie says. “Now give him a kiss and throw him back!” In the cool of late afternoon, we head out on an open-top 4x4. The landscape offers up countless curiosities like the jackal food plant — its fruit smelling of rotting flesh, and the quiver tree, whose tubular branches were used by the San bushmen to hold arrows. We spot springbok and rock hyraxes, black eagles and bee-eaters. Danie pulls over and we watch a snake shudder through the scrub. “The Green Kalahari, for me, is about the beauty of the small things,” he says. “Other areas, like Kruger, have their big animals, but we have Augrabies flat lizards, scorpions, birds, ants. And after the rain, we have flowers blooming every- where. It’s just magic.” The last surprise of the day lies just over
the top of a hill: a coolbox. We fill our glasses and admire the vast landscape of russet escarpments, and the polished glass
everything here. At SOWETO TOWERS, we
even have bungee jumping and quad biking.
David
of the river as the sun sets. I adopt Danie’s philosophy and take a moment to look for the small things, and find the ground is littered with crystals. Rose quartz. Ame- thyst. Fluorite. I’m incredulous. “Ah yes, the property straddles a few quartz seams,” he explains. We watch the sun drop though the Belt of Venus, a colourful atmospheric phenomenon only visible in a handful of places on Earth. “This place is bigger than the imagination,” Danie sighs. “For me, paradise isn’t overseas. It’s right here.” n Amelia Duggan
khamkirri.co.za SOUTHAFRICA .NET 43
Quihampton Mpumalanga Something that’s on my bucket list is hiking through the northern part of KRUGER
NATIONAL PARK. I’ve heard that it’s wilder and more unexplored up in the northern section.
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