In mechanical terms, there is so much not quite right with the design of an elephant. For a start, its trunk has too much to do – it’s the breathing snorkel, the hands, the feeding device, the warning horn and the sniffer radar.
Then there are the legs. Each one is, individually, the most powerful of any creature on Earth and its “all-wheel-drive” capability means that an animal weighing up to 8 tons can accelerate to an eye-watering 40km/h or more in a charge (twice as fast as a mere human can run). You wouldn’t think so, looking at its lumbering gait.
Yet, physics is not the friend of the elephant. Its enormous mass, coupled with its not-so-low centre of gravity, means that it will never be a ballet dancer. And nowhere is that awkwardness shown up more than when the huge beast is trying to go down a hill.
Even we bipedal creatures struggle to stay upright on our way down a steep surface but our ape ancestry means we can make a pretty decent job of it.
So, what happens when an elephant needs to clamber down a steep river bank, to get at water or – in the case of the group we are watching at the Sibuya Reserve in the Eastern Cape – to find the soothing river sand they use for dry baths?
Well, they get down on their knees and, having lowered their centre of gravity so they don’t topple over, they slither down on their stomachs.
It’s something I’ve never seen before in 25 years or more of going to game reserves… and I’m fascinated.
At first, we think the big, bad male (grumpy attitude and slash in his ear from fights for ascendancy) is just fooling around with a younger elephant – but then he disappears from sight over the bank. Most of the others eventually follow him and we are able to drive closer to the bank of the Kariega River.
As we peer over, we can’t believe that these vast animals have made it down a steep bank which is at least 7m high.
Perhaps they don’t like us looking or even that we laughed at their antics, but they come up – surprisingly quickly – and are soon giving us the message that we should move on.
Ranger Kerrow Miller doesn’t panic when a youngster makes a mock charge. It’s enough to fire up the Land Cruiser engine and the wet-behind-the-huge-ears juvenile is off in fright. Not so the big matriarch or the bad-ass male, who also lunge towards us.
Kerrow finally agrees that discretion is the better part of entertainment – to say nothing of his guests’ heart rates – and he puts the vehicle into gear quickly and we bump away, pursued for a considerable distance by the female.
On the vehicle with us is a young family from England on their first visit to Africa – mum, dad and three boys – and they are thrilled and frightened at the same time. You’ve brought us luck, we tell them, because we’ve never seen that elephant-crawling behaviour in the bush.
Earlier, on their first game drive with us, we saw the reserve’s white rhino which we, on our own, missed the previous day.
Later, they will see buffalo, as we opt out of the morning drive on the day we leave. They’re thrilled and we’re happy for them.
But it is the other aspects of this very different game reserve which enchant me.
It is, so they say, the only game reserve in South Africa where guest access is by river.
From the Sibuya Tented Camp’s offices in the seaside resort of Kenton-on-Sea, you board a boat and cruise for a leisurely 10km or so up the Kariega River to the reserve’s two camps – River Camp and Forest Camp. And it’s that river which makes the experience so different, so memorable.
As you clear the bridge outside the town, civilisation appears to fade quickly. The outboard motors on the Sibuya boats have, sensibly, been silenced, and they make little noise.
The river is effectively an estuary, an extension of the sea, which pushes inland for most of the year until rains up country bring down fresh water to join it.
As you go further inland, the bank on one side rises to cliff-like heights and the euphorbia forests give the scenery an other-world feeling. It’s not quite steaming up the Congo River to the Heart of Darkness, but it is something you won’t get in any other game reserve experience in South Africa.
Sibuya is a Big Five reserve of more than 2 000 hectares which offers a luxury tented camp African bush experience, but at the same time it is ecologically aware and committed to keeping its footprint – in all aspects – as small as possible.
Tents – canvas around wooden-pole frames with wood-and-glass doors – are luxurious, without being wasteful. For example, there are no power points in the tents and the electricity for the lights is only turned on towards evening to conserve power from the solar-power system. There is a central plug point in the main dining area, though, if you need to recharge your phone. Geysers are gas-powered, only using as much energy as is needed to heat the water required and are, therefore, efficient.
The camps are sited with minimal visual impact in mind and it is only when you walk up the jetty after alighting from the boat that you get a glimpse of the reception area and some of the tents.
A huge fireplace sits to one side of the lounge and dining area – a reminder that it can get chilly at times, although it is still worlds away from the real cold of Gauteng.
Food and service are, as you’d expect, in line with the promise of luxury, and the fact that the camps are fairly small means that there are seldom more than six other guests. Mind you, one of the good things about a place like this is how different people from different countries (Sibuya attracts many foreign visitors) share their thoughts and experiences.
Game-wise, we also see the reserve’s lions – not difficult because they are in a fairly small fenced camp (regulations prohibit lions being released in an area of less than 2 000ha and they would decimate Sibuya’s expensive species if they were allowed to roam free).
But it is the bird life which accounts for most of the crosses on the reserve’s interesting checklist (why doesn’t everyone else do this as a matter of course, I wonder) – although we catch them out on the Burchell’s coucal, which we see skulking around the low branches of a bushy tree… but then discover the bird has been omitted from the checklist.
In the evening, I go down to the jetty, which is the only place in the camp with a cellphone signal adequate to do my e-mail checking via BlackBerry (sadly, no man is an island, even along a forested river). The blanket of peace and quiet is almost palpable.
As the sky darkens and the river’s silver dusk tone slowly fades, I put down the phone and just enjoy the atmosphere.
Then I almost jump out of my skin as the water nearby erupts and a fish breaks the surface in search of a last fly before nightfall. Getting a fright from a fish… that’s also a first in my game reserve memories.
l Brendan Seery was a guest of The Incredible Journey, Sibuya Tented Camps and African Ramble Air Charters
l Contact: Sibuya Tented Camps – www.sibuya.co.za; call 046 648 1040; fax 046 648 1443
The Incredible Journey – www.jennygreeffmarketing. co.za; [email protected]; call 083 454 6565
African Ramble Air Charters – www.africanramble.co.za or e-mail [email protected] or call 044 533 9006 - Saturday Star