23rd June, Ant's Hill

The Sable Antelope is one of the very endangered animals they have on the property.  To help the breed survive and to avoid both predators and poachers as well as optimizing breeding, the Sables are managed. A large chunk of land is fenced off and a breeding heard live in there. Every two years a new breeding male is put in, the older one is released onto the property.

As part of their gene pool management the property sell off male animals once they have contributed to the gene pool and bring in a new male from elsewhere.  Today was the day to capture the last seasons breeding Sable bull as he had been sold. Sold for more than 2 million South African rand. That is about $250,000.  So it was a bit of a military operation.

At 6.30 the horse riders (Sarah being the only guest invited to join them) headed out to search 5000 hectares for a giant goat! At about 8am the rest of the guests (there were 7 now) headed out in one of the many vehicles to join in. The English neighbours were there, the maintenance man etc. The vet was even there riding out with the others.  The plan was when the Sable was sighted; we would all go there. The vet would dart him and we would all help load him.

The method of searching was to have all the riders spread out at about 30-50m intervals and ride straight through the bush, sweeping each section thoroughly. Sarah was of course included in this, and the experience of riding through the Bush Velt scrub is a unique one indeed. She has done her share of ridding through bush and over rocky terrain, but never before through bush constituting mainly of acacia thorns. She was covered in scratches by the end of the 5 hour ride. She stumbled upon a small herd of Zebra, who scared the shit out of her snorting at her before she saw them (busy looking for a big black antelope with massive horns) and then got amazingly close to them, like 1m away. :D

By lunch time there had been a few false starts. But sill not THE Sable. He was not found on that day. The next morning of course he was back in his normal spot, trying to fight with the reining bull through the fence. The vet has been booked again for next week.

Did we mention that there was a doctor and a physio there, they went for a RUN!

Between lunch and afternoon tea we spent some time on our balcony.  Just chilling. And watching giraffe come in to the water hole and drink! Yes – Watching a giraffe drink was on the absolute wish list – thinking we would never see this. But there it was. Mum standing guard while her baby drank!

We headed off on another ride. With Wendy and our two guides. You have one guide at the front, to lead the ride and show you things and another at the rear – a true rear guard. He was watching out for dangerous things and there to lead the way in case we ran into trouble and needed to back pedal. We had a lovely ride and again got close to the giraffe.  You just don’t get tired of them. 

Sarah had managed to keep her brilliant pony and Raina got his brother – also excellent. We had got the hang of some of there riding terminology. A short canter was a canter over a kilometer or so. A long canter was more of a gallop over a long distance.  WE split a few times for Sarah to have a long canter, while Raina plodded along with a short canter.

The plants are awesome, apart from being cranky. Peter, one of our guides, has been showing so many different plants to us.

The ‘toilet paper tree’ who does have soft, velvety and suitable leaves.

The ‘tooth paste tree’ which after scrubbing your teeth with the leaves made them feel like a dentist clean.

‘Baboon tails’ (the plant) make excellent fire logs burning for 8 hours and also make great torches, as well as being good for making ropes.

There were trees for diarrhea, for perfume, antiseptic and on and on

There were many different ‘tooth pick trees’ although the acacia won that hands down.

We had ridden out in three separate groups today, but all met up for a massive Sundowners. In the middle of nowhere, a big party with drinks, BilTong and chairs etc. Sarah had ridden for eight hours today. Good effort.

The four new South African guests (now 11 guests) were very funny and lovely and we sat up late talking about everything, especially political talk. It was great to hear the perspectives of it all for others. Many of the younger people, guides and so on, that we spent time with could not really remember living under Apartied and could not imagine how it must have been. It was fantastic to hear from 50yo who had been there and who now thought that Mandela was a brilliant man. “If [Mandela] had of remained in power for 10 more years, South Africa would have integrated fully.”