This is Leopard Country
This is Leopard Country
It was cold. It was freezing cold. I shivered uncontrollably in my sleeping bag. I’d already got out of my sleeping bag once in the night to put on a pair of jeans and a big old footy jumper in an attempt to keep warm.
I was on a bus tour with all my classmates from Ladysmith High (uMnambithi) and we were camping just outside the historic diamond mining town of Kimberley. It was a typical South African winter, where the mornings are freezing cold and the day slowly warms through to about 3 in the afternoon, and then it starts to cool again. It’s a “dress in layers” climate.
We had cut across the country spending a day or so in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Freestate Province. Once we hit the Freestate people would see the Klip River number plates on the bus, and knowing we were from KwaZulu-Natal they’d lean out of their car windows and scream “Vrystaat”.
In Bloemfontein we camped near the main railway station. It was 1978 and most of the world had implemented trade sanctions on South Africa because of Apartheid. This included an oil embargo. South Africa has an abundance of coal, so the government had reverted to running old stream trains.
On our first night in Bloemfontein, I lay in my sleeping bag listening to the rhythmic chug, hiss, chug, hiss, of the steam trains pulling out of Bloemfontein station. What a magic sound of a time gone by. My mind drifted to the years well be diesel electric trains when people would have taken that sound for granted, and now it is the sound of history. I listened intently thinking I may never experience such a sound pounding through the silence of the night again. Such a powerful rhythmic sound made me feel like jumping out of my sleeping bag and dancing. Little did I know in 5 months’ time I’d be on one of those trains on my way back to Ladysmith (uMnambithi) from Cape Town.
We had spent the day in Kimberley viewing the Big Hole (Groot Gat). A massive open cut diamond mine dug entirely by hand by hundreds, if not thousands of miners looking to make their fortune in Kimberley’s diamond rich soil.
Our camping ground was on to outskirts of town. It had open veld to one side and on the other a mosque. It’s fenced off perimeter carried a rusted old “Camping Gound” sign with a “Whites Only” sign hanging at an odd angle above it.
We’d arrived late in the evening, erected our tents, build a campfire, and prepared the evening meal. My classmates were happy to give me impromptu Afrikaans lessons during all this frantic activity before the sun set. When describing sun sets most authors write descriptions like, “and the sun slowly set”, but as we all know, if you have limited time to erect a tent, get a fire going and feed a bus full of people the sun drops quickly to the other side of the earth.
It’s now the coldest part of the night, that freezing hour before the sun pops its head back up over our side of the planet, and I’m thinking that it’s not worth trying to get back to sleep. Things are not going to get any better from here. I’m going to get up, light the campfire and warm my frozen bones.
It’s dark when I poke my head out of the tent. I don’t want to wake anyone, so I creep about the tents trying to find enough wood to restart the fire. There are no hot embers left in the old fire and all the wood has been brunt from the night before. I start to scour around the entire camping ground to find firewood to no avail. I looked to the tree line out to the open veld. There is sure to be enough wood amongst those trees to get a roaring fire going.
Why has the camping ground got such a high well-kept, high, difficult to climb perimeter fence, I ask myself. It takes a while to scramble over the fence. The cold, dry still air hits my face. My fingers feel frozen as I wander through the shin high dry grass.
There is plenty of wood to collect. I throw armfuls of wood over the fence and venture further and further into the treeline. The sun is yet to rise, and I find myself in that beautiful twilight period just before dawn. There is a low fog stretching across the veld, I’m totally engrossed in searching for firewood while I gently hum Neil Young’s Heart of Gold.
“Keep me searching for a heart of gold…. I’ll be a miner for a heat of gold….And I’m getting old….”
I hear the called to prayer from the mosque. It’s the first time I have ever heard it, as it echoes out across the silence of the early morning. It adds an exotic feel to the day as I scan the ground amongst the trees for more firewood.
When I looked up I found I had quietly walked in amongst a herd of Springbok. All gently grazing around me. The sun was breaking across the horizon illuminating the fog in golden early morning light. I stood in absolute silent amazement at such a wonderous sight, watching at least 30 plus splendorous animals silently grazing at dawn. Pure magic!
I collected a final arm full of wood, scaled the perimeter fence and walked back to camp to get the fire started. It wasn’t long before I was being warmed by a blazing campfire while sleepy, cold souls started emerging from their tents.
I was sitting by the fire telling my fellow travellers how I had inadvertently walked in amongst a herd of Springbok when one of the teachers emerged from their tent. He walked over and asked who had set the fire. I said I did.
He then asked where I got the wood from and I explained to him how I had scaled the fence and collected all the wood amongst the trees in the surrounding veld. His eyes widened in surprise, then said aloud in a thick Afrikaner accent; “Yessus man! This is leopard country, aye. That’s why there is such a large fence around this campground. Did you notice there are no trees near the border fence? That’s to stop the leopards from climbing them and jumping into the campground and eating us in our tents. When did you do this?” He demanded, almost looking right through me with an intense stare.
“Just around dawn”; I sheepishly replied
“You’re joking?” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “Right on hunting time! You’re lucky to be alive!”
Craig
19/05/2026
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