My first visit to Tuli Wilderness was in December 2014, some 7 years ago. I find it difficult to put into words the profound impact that the experience had on me without sounding corny with a phrase such as “it felt like home”. But it did feel like home. It was as if there was some part of me that had been asleep up until that point, and suddenly it had woken up. Stuart described Tuli as a land of giants, where nothing happens in small measures, and I suppose that was part of this awakening, but at the same time, the beauty of the wilderness made it seem as if I had stepped into a Garden of Eden. I have returned to Tuli every year since then, up until the Covid Pandemic. I missed my annual trip for almost two years until this past December when I returned with some friends. I had not realized how much I had missed Tuli. That old part of me woke up again, and once more, I felt like I had returned home. We stayed at Mohave for a few nights and my wife and I were in the furthermost chalet, shaded by a huge Mashatu Tree. Every morning we were woken up by a dawn chorus that celebrated the arrival of a new day. The sparrow weavers chattered beneath the leaves as they planned the next phase of their new nest build. Woodland Kingfishers pirouetted to each other with electric blue wings outstretched. A sunfire-yellow oriole burbled in the high branches amidst a plethora of other calls which I couldn’t pinpoint individually. I would lie on my back, listening to the birds and imagining their colours, excited for what we might see for the rest of the day. The night was filled with a similar range of sounds: from the strobe of tree frogs calling at the water’s edge to the xylophone of crickets hidden from sight. We heard the manic laughs of hyena and the cry of jackal. Late into the night there were the reverberating calls of lion that were staying in the area; on one occasion so close it felt like the strength of that awesome call was vibrating in my own ribcage.
The thing with Tuli, though, is that even though there are some amazing sightings like the first time we saw this small lion pride, the landscape is so beautiful that it impresses even without the animals. There are open plains, claustrophobic with the butterfly-leaves of mopane trees, where we saw so many elephant. With the rains that had been consistent throughout the summer, regular muddy pools had formed all around the bush. The herds had made use of these to besplat themselves, flinging mud and water with their trunks onto their backs, so that the elephants emerged a glistening brown. We watched as the calves which had been born that season hid between the legs of the adults. Some of the younger adults would shake the dust from their heads in false bravado, trying to show how tough they are. There was a playfulness in the mud as well, with elephants tightly packed together, broad shoulder to shoulder, squelching mud with their gargantuan feet.
We saw some incredible bird life as well, with the pink-red of carmine bee eaters that swung and twisted in the sky, catching food on the wing. Daily, we drove past a secretary bird nest, with the adult bird disappearing from sight as if on an elevator when it realized that it had been spotted. The blush of lilac-breasted rollers were everywhere and wherever we went we were accompanied by the sounds of spurfowls, coursers or guineafowl. At the start of one of our afternoon drives we were lucky to see an impressive-looking marshal eagle feeding off a long snake that it gripped in its talons. We had spotted a large variety of birds of prey, but this raptor was staggering in both its size and the killer’s glare from hooded eyes. The eagle seemed to exude a sense of might which we had not seen in the other raptors. I think it is the landscape of trees that I find most inspiring at Tuli, though. Jou, our guide, would meander the open game vehicle through the soft sand of riverbeds as we studied every dappled shadow in the hopes of seeing a leopard. The trees would dwarf everything else with names that matched their size like Tamboti, Mashatu and Leadwood. The more open areas were carpeted with yellow flowers, rather incongruously named devil thorns. We also drove along the uneven edges of rocky outcrops where kudu made silhouettes against the skyline. The most iconic feature of Tuli, Eagle’s Rock, could be seen from our camp, and when we drove down to the hill that descended towards this beautiful koppie, we were blocked by a heard of elephants that fed at the base of the rock. Our path thwarted, we watched the eles amble among the trees, twisting branches off at their leisure. They were in no hurry and so we were unable to get to Eagle’s Rock and see the view onto the Moloutse River. Watching the eles whilst on foot was reward enough. Instead, Jou took us to the bat-eared fox dens. Most of us had not seen these little creatures before and they were a delight to watch. The would lie close to the ground, flattening their large ears so they looked like an embodiment of a Star Wars Yoda or perhaps the inspiration for the Gremlins Films. The foxes were so endearing with cautious black eyes and disproportioned ears, that they became a firm favorite sighting with each of us. As we would drive back to camp in the late afternoon, a sunset that only Tuli can produce would stretch through the skies. There seems to be a richness to the reds and oranges and pinks of an end-of-day-sky here that is unmatched anywhere else. At the risk of offering up yet another cliché, it seems like God is showing off when he paints a sunset at Tuli. It seems to last longer as well, as we would celebrate the end of another good day with a beer in hand and the silhouettes of the bush as our company. The highlight for the trip, though, was our experience on New Year’s Eve. We were hoping to have a bush dinner to bring in 2022, but the weather had other ideas. We cut short our trip to the Limpopo when the clouds began to open up, and what was a smattering of rain turned into a deluge. By the time we got back to camp, it was raining hard, with a wind that was whipping even the largest branches of the biggest trees. The lightning was creating an impressive display along the clouds and the strength of the storm was of a might that I have never seen before. The Mohave River bed, which was dry enough for us to drive through that morning became mottled with rain. And then we heard it. A surge of water was scrumming along the river. We watched as a first bow wave tried to crest and break, but the strength of water behind prevented it from doing so. A once-in-a-lifetime experience was unfolding before us. The dry river was become a torrent and we were witnessing its first wave of water. The rain continued to bombard everything around us, and the water steadily rose along the river bank; a muddy brown swirl of water and sand and anything else that was not anchored down strongly enough. Trees and vegetation crashed along the river, and still, it kept rising. The island in the middle of the river slowly disappeared as the sound of the rain was replaced by the force of water, funneling through its banks. The river continued to rise for about an hour, reaching the second to top step of the huts and a few inches below the deck. We were simply in awe of this spectacle. The water began to erode the banks, and in the night we heard the crashing of trees that had become uprooted and the collapse of the river’s edge. It was the thud that sounded like buildings being demolished, creating a new surging wave that was transferred across the river. Jou had never seen the Mohave this high and Stuart estimated that we had seen around 50 mm of rain during the course of that hour. As the rain abated, the river slowly began to calm, and by the next morning, it was only a few feet deep at the far bank. Nothing happens in small measures at Tuli. So, Tuli remains the land of giants: a place which has and always will captivate me. I have missed this it more than I can articulate and leaving for home always feels like I am bidding farewell to a good friend. Tuli is incredibly special, and it holds a sacred place in my heart.
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