Table of contents for Aug/Sep 2023 in go!

ED'S LETTER Looking out of the window of my study this morning, cold hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, I can just make out a thin layer of snow on Simonsberg behind Stellenbosch. In the mountains of the Free State, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, the snow lies much, much thicker. There were even reports of snow just south of Windhoek. Yes, southern Africa is shivering – it's like someone locked us all in the freezer! And it's not just snow. This winter, the Western Cape and Northern Cape received more rain in a single month than in full years of recent drought. Even though my roof is leaking in places where it has never leaked before, I'm not complaining – I'm making plans to go to Namaqualand this…

PIT STOP The central and northern parts of Botswana are flat, and in a flat landscape, trees stand out prominently. It's these trees that make Botswana's picnic sites so attractive. The superstars of the region are the baobabs (sometimes you'll even find a picnic site under one, like east of Gweta next to the A3), but today's superstar might be a shepherd's tree that casts a shadow so dense and dark it feels like you have to cut your way through with a pocketknife. On an ordinary day in May, I pull over here next to the A3 between Sehithwa and Ghanzi. I've just driven through the foot-and-mouth control point at Kuke and I'll overnight at El-Fari Bush Camp near Ghanzi. But first it's time to park my Subaru next…

It's early morning on Blueberry Heights farm in Magoebaskloof. I'm sitting on the veranda of their cottage. In the distance, the Iron Crown – the highest peak in the province at 2 126m – is already baking in the sun. A few sips of coffee later, the light paints Ebenezer Dam gold, from the pine trees on its slopes down to the water's edge. Now it's only the hydrangeas and azaleas near the cottage waiting for a touch of sun. When you drive from Tzaneen in the Lowveld over Magoebaskloof Pass towards Haenertsburg, you climb about 600m up the Wolkberg range, past flowing streams and forest giants. Air rises up the slopes and creates a microclimate with regular mist and rain – ideal conditions for the blueberries and kiwis grown…

Why are trees important! Natural forests are shrinking because we chop down trees for wood or to make space for expanding towns and cities. But we can't survive without trees! • Trees offer a home to various animals, insects, birds, plants and fungi, especially when they grow together such as in a forest. • Trees and plants are like vacuum cleaners that purify the air. They absorb gases from the atmosphere that cause global warming. • Trees absorb a gas called carbon dioxide and use it to make oxygen, which they release. As you know, we need oxygen to breathe! This process is called photosynthesis. HOW DOES PHOTOSYNTHESIS WORK? Photosynthesis needs four elements to work: sunlight, carbon dioxide, water and minerals. When these four things are present, something wonderful happens…

Tell us about yourself… I'man Afrikaans teacher at Afrikaanse Hoër Meisieskool Pretoria. I'min charge of organising tennis for the school, so I sometimes get to travel to places like Bloemfontein, Bethlehem, Paarl and Mbombela. I'm happiest when I'm on the road. Where does your love of writing come from? My childhood was filled with wonderful trips on remote roads to far-off places – those memories are often the “driving” force behind my writing. My mom kept a diary of every holiday and as soon as I was able to hold a pen, I did the same. My dad had a knack for describing things. I went to school in Meyerton and I was one of those kids who liked writing essays. I wanted to be a journalist when I grew…

NIGHT WATCH We normally get one full moon a month, but in August 2023 there will be two: One on the 1st and the second on the 31st. When two full moons occur in the same calendar month, we call the second one a blue moon. This happens once every three years or so (well, every 2,72 years to be exact) and has given rise to the famous saying: “Once in a blue moon.” The definition of “blue moon” as we understand it today comes from a 1946 article in Sky and Telescope magazine, which attributed a different hue to the second moon. This was an error, but the name stuck. A blue moon is the same colour as any other full moon. Another astronomical term that owes its origins…

First you notice her big smile, then the handgun strapped to her hip… You realise that she's already sized you up: She knows how tall you are, the colour of your hair and eyes, what you're wearing, the pattern your shoe soles leave on the ground… If she misses anything, the friendly dog sniffing around your feet will alert her to it with its body language. Anke Kruger de Rosner ducks under the branches of an acacia tree as she approaches. It's been a wet summer and everything is overgrown. It's always hot here in the far north of the country, and not just when it comes to the climate: Hoedspruit and surrounds are also a poaching hot spot. This is exactly where Anke likes to be: In the heat…

FOOD No-bake chocolate cheesecake Makes 1 cheesecake Preparation time 20 minutes, plus 3 hours chilling time Cooking time 5 minutes You need • 1 packet (130g) Oreo biscuits, crushed • 3 tablespoons butter, melted • 1 tablespoon gelatine powder • 1 cup cream • 100g dark chocolate, melted • 2 tubs (230g each) medium-fat cream cheese • ½ cup icing sugar • 2 tablespoons cacao powder • Maldon sea salt flakes For decoration • 100g milk chocolate • ¼ cup cream • berries, chocolate balls and a Flake chocolate Here's how 1 Line the bottom of a 22cm springform cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides with butter. Combine the biscuit crumbs with the butter and press the mixture down onto the bottom of the tin to form…

This awesome spot is tucked away in the Tugela River valley in KwaZulu-Natal. Mark and Linda Calverley bought land here in 1983 and slowly developed the property to become what it is today. They've since handed over management duties to their son Peter and his wife Jenny. As the name suggests, you can do a variety of river activities at Zingela. White water rafting on the Tugela starts at R275 p.p. depending on how far you want to paddle. Other adrenaline activities include rock climbing (from R175 p.p.) and abseiling (from R275 p.p.). You can keep the kids busy by taking them on a guided hunt for scorpions using UV lights in the evening (R25 p.p.) or they can while away a morning doing pottery in the Clay Café (R70…

TOWN 1 Visit Cheerio Gardens It's not only Namaqualand that's in full bloom in spring. The azaleas and crab apples in Cheerio Gardens start to flower in August and the cherry blossoms steal the show in late September. The gardens are often blanketed in pink, purple, yellow, peach and cream. The manager of the wedding venue here, Sarah-Leigh Hillary, says her great-aunt Sheila “Box” Thompson, a botanist, started the gardens: “She served in the army and shortly after World War II, she moved here to the mountains. She wrote articles for gardening magazines and newspapers. The physician of the Japanese Emperor read one of her articles and they started corresponding. Eventually they sent each other seeds – that's where our azaleas, cherry trees, maple trees and rhododendrons come from.” The…

COMMON SPECIES Olive sagewood Its leaves are long and thin like an olive tree's and it bears clusters of delicate, white flowers. RARE SPECIES Tree wisteria Its flowers look like purple snapdragons and hang from the branches in bunches. WHICH TREE IS THAT? Download The TreeApp by TreePro and all of South Africa's trees (about 1 100 species) can fit in your pocket! All indigenous trees that grow taller than 3 m are listed on the app. Wellknown invasive species like jacaranda are also featured. You can select a reserve, vegetation zone or even a spot on a map to see which trees are found there. The search function allows you to use tree characteristics like leaves, fruit or thorns to figure out which species you're looking at, and you…

We publish eyewitness accounts of incredible animal encounters in the wild. Send your story and photos to toast@gomag.co.za and you could win two large Leatherpress journals worth R1 000 in total! A Leatherpress journal is your ultimate travel companion. Capture your moments and memories – a glorious sunset or a special bird. This is a proudly South African product, and the attention to detail puts Leatherpress products in a class of their own. The collection boasts 100% full-grain South African leather, with classical stitching and binding methods. Journals are available at exclusivebooks.co.za/page/leatherpress…

Where have you been? What have you seen? Write to editor@gomag.co.za WINNING LETTER If looks could kill My husband Johan and I camped with our kids in the Kruger Park for a week during the school holidays in March. It was my husband's first time staying in the park and we had a spectacular time. One of the highlights was this fork-tailed drongo irritating a brown snake-eagle near Skukuza. We watched the pair for about 20 minutes – the drongo even sat on the eagle's head at one point! MELISSA WERTH, Johannesburg WRITE TO US & WIN! Melissa wins a Zartek ZA-476 LED spotlight worth R2 350. This rechargeable spotlight delivers an impressive 6 300-lumen beam over a distance of up to 1 100m. It has a run time of…

IN BRIEF Time for a snack Leopards are opportunistic, adaptable hunters. They're not fussy at all when it comes to food. Earlier in this column series, we saw that leopards worldwide consume more than 100 prey species: from rats and mice to something as big as a young eland. When times are tough, they'll even eat insects like beetles and crickets. In general, however, they prefer medium-sized prey of around 10–40kg. Research done by the Cape Leopard Trust in the Western Cape shows that leopards will take prey in proportion to what is most available in the habitat. In the Cederberg, 60% of their diet consists of dassie and klipspringer; in the Boland mountains, grysbok, klipspringer, dassie and porcupine make up 80% of their diet; and in the Little Karoo,…

A Brief History of Black Holes by Becky Smethurst, Macmillan About R350 in bookstores Sometimes when you look up at the stars, you can't help feeling a bit queasy. What exactly is out there? The idea of black holes is especially terrifying, particularly if you imagine a deep gravitational well that draws in everything that ventures too close… No need to panic, says British astrophysicist Becky Smethurst, as she delves into the history of this subject. “…You can sleep soundly knowing that the MilkyWay's black hole is merely shepherding the Solar System around the MilkyWay […] there is no doomsday scenario at the end of time where we fall into a black hole,” she writes. Phew! Smethurst, who also runs a YouTube channel called Dr Becky and presents The Supermassive…

GEAR STANLEY “THE MILESTONES” 1l COFFEE BOTTLE There are few things that will survive a nuclear war: cockroaches, Toyota's 70-series Land Cruiser and the Stanley flask you inherited from your grandfather. No road trip or camping weekend is complete without this legendary coffee container. Stanley has been making flasks for 110 years and their Milestones range pays tribute to designs from the 1920s, 1940s and 1960s. Our favourite is the 1940 Garnet Gloss. It looks really old school, but it uses all the latest technology to keep your coffee hot for 35 hours and your Oros cold for 37 hours. Back at home, you can put the flask, cup and stopper in the dishwasher. R1 999 trappers.co.za WILLIAM MORRIS ECO COFFEE CUP 400ML The statistics surrounding disposable coffee cups are…

An essential birding skill is the ability to climb a farm fence – with permission of course. Get your friend to pull open two strands, make your back horizontal, watch your clothes on the sharp bits, and you're through. On a few occasions – where I was being chased or chasing something – I've even leapt straight over with a running start. But this morning I found myself pausing to consider the best strategy. I'll admit it took a bit longer: My knees groaned in agony and something clicked in my spine… Getting older is an unavoidable fact of life. But growing up is optional. As I strolled through the grass, my jeans getting wetter with every step, I reflected on three decades of birding. When I was a fledgling…

In September 2020, after the Covid-19 lockdown, my wife Teresa and I decided we had to get away for a bit. We spent two weeks in the Kruger Park, at Lower Sabie, Skukuza, Balule, Olifants and Mopani. We saw 15 different leopards in total, among other places between Skukuza and Lower Sabie, and near Crocodile Bridge and Mopani. While we were staying at Olifants, we drove out one morning on the H1-4 towards Satara, like we'd done the day before. There wasn't much to see and we turned around when we got to Satara. About halfway between Satara and Olifants, we noticed several vehicles in the road and pulled over, too. They were watching a young female leopard. She rested for a while then moved around to mark her territory.…