The Great Discoveries Of The big Game in Sabie Park

Latish in the evening of 1 July 1988, the Van Deventers entered the gate of Sabiepark for the very first time. Our visitors’ permit was safe in my pocket. In bright starlight we eventually came to erf 79, exactly where Maroela and Wildevy Avenues meet. Sleeping zebras and impalas woke up and scattered in the dim car lights.

What a discovery!

To be able to enjoy a carefree walk in the veld – we and our children could often just reach out to touch the game – was a rare treat. What a rare joy for a city-dweller! We could not get enough of the wealth of trees and birdsong. On 3 July we continued our journey through the Kruger Gate to Skukuza and then northwards to Satara and Olifants Camp. Just before we left, Tokkie and I duly recorded the following team effort among the photos and other anecdotes in the logbook of our hosts, Fickie and André Visagie:

“It was a feast. A welcoming committee of zebra and impala was there to meet us. Then an inquisitive family of warthogs, a lonely blue wildebeest, a dancing troop of impala and a little duiker greeted us. A giraffe also visited, but we were not at home. We saw his footprints up against the stoep. He evidently also tasted the leaves of the large tree on the stoep.

“Visitors with less peace-loving intentions was a regiment of banded mongoose who completely surrounded the house. The general gave continuous orders and set up his soldiers in threatening battle array.

When they realised that we were not going to surrender, they suddenly disappeared. A woodpecker brought a message in Morse code. Unfortunately we could not decipher it. The buffaloes did not come to visit us, but we encountered them where they were watching a tennis match with intense concentration and wonderment. Thank you for the lovely time and for a breather in your Bushveld paradise.”

Before that visit, we never even realised that banded (striped) mongoose existed. We had to look up the name of these over-active little creatures in a book on mammals. We were also ignorant of the fact that there were different species of woodpeckers, and that some “woodpeckers” were in fact cardinals, goldbands and bearded “spegts”, or KGB’s as Chris Sevenster (erf 232 in Maroela Avenue) calls them. Of the myriad of Bushveld trees we could not even name one. But that it was love at first sight with Sabiepark, was as certain as the sunrise in the morning.