6 September 27 20 0 9 Sunday Times Sunday Times September 27 20 0 9 7

T RAV E L L E RS ’ TA L E S there are just too many stars up there for rolled out beneath. As we progress, the me to be able to join the right dots. Mopane savanna gives way to riverine IF YOU GO ... “It’s too early for Orion,” laughs Cor, forests along the Limpopo and Motloutse P FRONT, West, our and points out Scorpio to us instead. rivers, offset by magnificent sandstone GETTING THERE: guide, turns in his saddle Back at Two Mashatus, the table in the outcrops and dolerite dykes. Limpopo Valley Horse Safaris will meet you at the and grins: “Ready to kick dining boma has been set, and after my While our mornings and some Pont Drift border post, just north of Polokwane, U some dust?” fellow travellers and I mount a successful afternoons are filled with hard riding where there’s secure parking. Alternatively you Hell, yeah. raid on the bar’s wine stocks, Maitseo (amazing, thrilling, sublime riding), in can take a shuttle from OR Tambo — or arrange As one, the horses we’d been tells us what camp cooks and sisters the evenings we do some exploring on a pick-up at the Limpopo Valley airfield in the reserve itself. weaving single-file through tight, Grace and Martha have whipped up for our own two feet. We visit a craft centre RIDING: thorny acacia scrub break the line the evening feast. The pair had already at David’s home village, and picnic in a A horse safari is no fun unless you know how to and burst into a smooth canter as made quite an impression on our small nearby canyon (gin and tonics ahoy) ride. Make sure you’re comfortable trotting, the terrain opens before us. horde of famished riders-to-be with the surrounded by pre-historic rock art. cantering and even jumping — and that you’re The 7-day safari costs R14 000 all inclusive. For riding fit. If you’re not, you risk spoiling the more information, see theirwebsite, Impala startle ahead, and as we butternut quiche on a phyllo pastry they Another day, we visit the Motloutse ruins www.lvhsafaris.co.za or email gather pace, a shoal of quelea served for lunch, but the spicy tomato on Mmamagwe, a tall hill from where the adventure for yourself and your fellow riders. RATES AND CONTACT DETAILS: [email protected] or phone 00267-7232-0024. rolls across the late afternoon soup and the smoky lamb roasted over iron-age rulers of the 13th-century horizon, past a giraffe silhouetted mopane coals are Mapangubwe kingdom against the low sun. The 50-strong h e ave n - s e n t . could survey the land elephant herd we just passed is Throughout the GI V EA W AY for miles around. far enough behind for us to open week ahead, the There, amid the pottery up the throttle. We ’re nearing the lunches that cap our This article is based fragments and glass end of our second-last day of morning rides and on one of the beads brought by riding through Northern Tuli’s the dinners that see suggestions in traders from as far Mashatu Game Reserve and the us to bed are Clean Breaks: 500 away as India, Egypt horses can smell home. I, on the i n c o mp a r ab l e . new ways to see and even China, stands other hand, smell a gin and tonic. Traditional bobotie, the world by a single baobab, carved Tuli is the Setswana word for pizza, quiches, Richard Hammond with the initials of that dust. And there’s a lot of it to skewer kebabs and and Jeremy Smith infamous giver of kick. But it’s good, clean dust. The splendid roasts; (Rough Guides). To headaches, Cecil John kind mother used to make. It’s the c h e e s e c a ke s , stand a chance of winning one of four Rhodes. dust that the local wildlife use as chocolate brownies copies, send your answer to the The only animals up su n s c r e e n . and cream, and milk question below to here are an extended Mashatu is one of the private tarts for dessert — c o m p et i t i o n @ z a . p e n g u i n g ro u p . c o m family of elephant game reserves that makes up the all beyond delicious, with Sunday Times Clean Breaks in shrew, outraged at the Northern Tuli Game Reserve in all prepared the subject line. mess we’re making of eastern Botswana, part of the myst e r i o u s ly , QUESTION: What are the ruins on the neat network of recently consolidated Greater i n c r e d i b ly , the tall hill of Mmamagwe called? avenues they’ve tidied Mapungubwe Transfrontier miraculously on a into the hillside. But

Conservation Area. The HORSE SAFARIS LIMPOPO VALLEY Pictures: campfire in the bush. from our vantage point transfrontier park stretches HORSEPLAY: Riders spot eland and other wildlife in Mashatu, part of the Northern Tuli game reserve Our nights are spent in spacious tents at the top, we have a spectacular view of south, into South Africa’s that sport real beds with honest-to-Betsy herds, prides, dazzles and journeys on Limpopo province, and east, over mattresses. They follow us from camp to the vista spread beneath our feet. Armed the Shashe River, into Zimbabwe, camp, providing wondrous relief for only with G&Ts and, miraculously, offering 300 000 hectares of sulky muscle groups that are first oysters, we marvel lazily, or laze unspoilt and fence-free terrain to shocked, then tested and finally made to marvellously, as the sun melts into the the enormous herds of elephant come to terms with the six or seven horizon. that make it their home, along hours we spend in the saddle each day. So it goes, there in the bush. The days with countless antelope, giraffe, The days begin with a 5am wake-up pass in a haze of horses, wild animals, lion, wild dogs, hyena and birdlife. Back in the saddle call by Cor or Malora, ameliorating the feasts and more than one too many G&Ts. There are ways to see the sheer lack of civility of the hour with a Yo u ’d think, perhaps, that a week in bushveld, and there are ways to mug of hot coffee. Hasty bucket showers the saddle would be enough. A week of see the bushveld. Walking’s good, me driving hundreds of Kim’s “Oh look, Matt’s saddle has and quick breakfasts are grabbed while early nights and earlier mornings, of if slow — and 4x4 game drives are kilometres to the Botswana Matthew du Plessis mounts up an anti-fall-off device on it” wa s t h ey ’re hot, and we’ve mounted up and aching limbs and sun-burned faces. a favourite among the tourists. border. probably the least impugnative. are riding out as the sun rises. But those setting suns. The cry of the There are mountain-bike safaris I’m met at the Pont Drift border for a different view of Botswana’s As I said, it had been a while. At first, the land is marked by green, fish eagle. Trumpeting elephants, and through Mashatu. And word on post on the Limpopo River by We don’t ride out, that first day yellow and copper Mopane trees nibbled hooves in the dust. Never enough. — the range is that there’s even a David Cheno, our back-up guide Mashatu Game Reserve — some of the others arrived late down to eye-level by the elephants, with Matthew du Plessis was a guest of hot air balloonist in the area. for the week ahead, and in the afternoon, and by the time a golden carpet of long, wispy grass Limpopo Valley Horse Safaris But nothing can beat riding welcomed to Two Mashatus — we ’re all present, and our horses horses through the bush. our first camp in the reserve — by heading out once more. They’re A couple of days into the ride, accounted for, the sun has set and Especially when you find yourself Malora and Maitseo. I’m the first kept fit and strong, well fed and David tells me how Lieutenant- it’s time to make the drive from LEFT IN alongside an errant wildebeest, guest to arrive, but soon the watered — and expertly groomed, General Sir Seretse Khama Ian the stables back to camp. THE DUST: Tu l i cantering along a stretch of open others start to trickle in, equal even while out on the trail. Khama popped by for a visit a few As the light fades, a strange means savanna on the flanks of a dazzle parts French and British. For I am introduced to Frankie — a years back, when he was still the and foreign sight unfolds across dust in of zebra. Throw in elephant, lion, some, it’s not their first visit to tall, diplomatic gelding of country’s number two, and when the night sky. S et swa n a , antelope, giraffe and leopard Tuli. LVHS gets a lot of riders ambiguous heritage. “He’s an he rode out it was Frankie who Bloody hell, I think, look at all and along with some good company coming back for more, it seems — Nguni mix,” teases Malora. bore Botswana’s future president those stars. Millions of them — t h e re ’s a and a tented paradise that this augurs well. Magnificent, is what he is. It’s into the Tuli bushveld. billions, even — littered idly lot of it magically appears wherever the Later on that first day, after been a while since I was last in I find I grow quickly across the firmament as if they’ve a ro u n d d ay ’s ride ends, and you’ve got taking our measure, Louise pairs the saddle, and my days of weekly accustomed to this seat of power been there all along. They’re not heaven on earth. each of us with a strong and outrides are more than a few — even though it takes the form fooling anyone, though — I’ve Cor and Louise Carelson, who excellently schooled mount from years behind me, so I’m more of an Australian stock saddle. seen the night sky often enough own and run Limpopo Valley among the 35 horses they stable. than happy to make Frankie’s The others are mainly on from the city to know for certain Horse Safaris, are my hosts for The horses work shifts out there relaxed acquaintance. Others are English saddles, and I remain that all those extra stars weren’t the week’s adventure — wh i c h in the bush. One week of safari, riding boerperde, huge shire cross resolutely immune to their there before this evening. comes as a last-minute, followed by a week of rest, then thoroughbreds and SA sidelong observations of the I used to be able to spot Orion, I spontaneous godsend that sees seven days of schooling before wa r m b l o o d s . reinforced pommel, of which remember. But tonight I’m lost;