Living to tell the tale
Tim Walker shares his varied experiences of South Africa Ihappened to look up before I turned off the light just after 11 p.m. and there the snake was, writhing on the mosquito net just a few feet above me. It was not big — no more than nine inches long — but it looked to me, with its distinctive coffin-shaped head, very much like a black mamba.
Slowly, very carefully, I eased my left leg out of my bed at the Lion Sands Private Game Reserve on the Sabie River close to Kruger National Park. The rest of me followed in quick succession. The snake was in an angry bundle at the lowest point of the drooping netting.
I telephoned reception. A butler arrived with a broom. I politely inquired if this was the ideal implement to use. I asked for the manager but it became clear after a series of crackly conversations over a walkie-talkie that he was unavailable. Eventually a young offduty South African guide appeared with a long wooden pole with a manoeuvrable claw and the snake was hastily removed.
The next day Oliver Richter, the manager, sought me out. He said that the snake must have some how burrowed its way through the thatched roof and fallen on to the netting. While apolo getic, his line was that, in the middle of the African bush, these things hap pen. At £1,100 for a suite per night, I respect fully suggested that these things should not happen.
A line of Basil Fawlty’s occurred to me: ‘I mean this is a hotel, not the Burma Railway! I mean it does actually say “Hotel” outside, you know. Perhaps I should be more specific? What about “Hotel for people who have a better than 50 per cent chance of making it through the night”?’ Soberingly, I read the week after I returned from South Africa that a young backpacker, just 28 years old, had been killed by a juvenile black mamba at the nearby South African Wildlife Campus in Hoedspruit. I doubt very much whether they had the antivenin to treat a snake bite. I know for a fact that Lion Sands did not. On the plus side, I did get to see at close quarters the Big Five — that’s a lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo — during my stay, but somehow I find myself unable to recommend this particular game reserve unreservedly.
My holiday in South Africa had begun sedately at the Mount Nelson in Cape Town. A lot of the guests who check into the deliriously glamorous relic of the country’s colonial past don’t ever venture out of it again until it’s time to leave, and they will tell their friends when they get home that they have ‘done’ South Africa. That is a mistake. I appreciate that is dispiriting to see a hire car playing any part in a holiday itinerary, but on this occasion it proved a godsend. The journey from Cape Town to Franschhoek in the heart of the winelands was breathtaking.
There I checked into the Mont Rochelle, a smart little watering hole for foodies. A raucous wedding party on the first night spoilt the ambience of the hotel’s restaurant. The next day I lunched locally at La Petite Ferme and then dined at Reubens. The former was sensational, the latter a bit of a disappointment.
From Franschhoek, it was on to Birkenhead House in Hermanus, a boutique hotel beside Walker Bay, run with great charm by Shane Brummer, formerly of the Avenue in St James’s. I took a tour of the nearby Hamilton Russell Vineyards and was wined and dined by its charismatic and PR-minded proprietor, Anthony Hamilton Russell, who told me he had entertained just about every journalist I could think of from the past century but almost every one of them had died in recent years. I doubt the wine was to blame.
I went off in search of the Great White while I was there. Four hours bobbing about on moody seas and finally one arrived. A cage was lowered into the water, and, with several other nauseous shipmates, I stood in it for about a quarter of an hour. When, finally, we clambered back on board we were congratulated for our bravery. If I am honest, I couldn’t see anything at all in the murky depths. It is what you see that bothers you — as I discovered at Lion Sands. Happily I live to tell the tale.
Tim Walker is the diary editor of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph.
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