DAY 7 - THINGS THAT GO CLOP IN THE NIGHT

From the Freestate I headed down into the Eastern Cape. I arrived in Queenstown on a warm evening, with a few Stouts under my belt. I'd just sailed down from the Stormberg mountains, where I'd threaded my way through a howling lunar landscape of rounded, wind seared hills and mountains. Between Molteno and Dordrecht I had literally not seen another living thing. A biting wind had whipped in through my window, and I had begun to feel pleasantly numb and disengaged from the world.

But Queenstown was a warm and friendly place. I drove through the neat suburbs and emerged onto a plain dense with thorn trees. I found an unlocked gate and hid amongst the trees, tucked partly into the fold of a bank running beside a dry river bed. Apart from the odd car rumbling past on the dirt road some twenty metres away, Spud and I had the bush to ourselves. A mountain range rose out of the plain in the near distance; nearer still, a lone flat-topped Sandstone mountain glowed red in the sunset.
Before long I had the tent up in the warm, pleasant twilight. By the time it was dark we were snuggled inside. My kerosene lamp flickered brightly in the tent entrance, where the sooty smoke was free to swirl up into the night. My transistor radio blared tinnily, giving me the rundown of events here in Settler Land. I recommend tuning into the local stations to anyone travelling through South Africa. It gives you a feeling for the people who live in that area. I fed Spud a tin of Hoender flavoured dog food, and I drank my final quart of the day as I ate chunks of brown bread dipped in achar. By nine my lamp and torch were out and I fell into a contented, frotted sleep.

Spud's quivering body woke me. Something was out there. I looked at my watch and saw by the faint green luminescence that it was five to one. I listened to the dense darkness, taut with anxiety, and heard a shuffling sound and then a series of clops. Lions don't clop. It couldn't be lions. There was only a token wire fence seperating the bush from the road. If there were lions here they would be rampaging through the neat suburbs a few kilometres away. Still ... there was some sort of large hoofed animal out there - a herd of them. Without turning my torch on I quietly unzipped the tent opening and stuck my head out. There, glowing whitely in the moonlight, were six donkeys. They dipped their heads and looked at me with sad, gentle eyes. Spud jostled his head through the hard opening beneath my arm and had a quiveringly excited look for himself. This startled them and they clopped away and vanished amongst the thorn trees.

The clopping continued throughout the night. Each time Spud heard it he began to quiver, which in turn woke me up. God knows what kind of carnivourous creatures he was conjuring up in his imagination. I tried wrapping an arm around his taught body and pulling his head down. He pretended to sleep; but I sensed his ears and eyes twitching in the dark, and at the faintest sound his head shot up and he began to quiver.

In the morning the donkeys returned. I got a good photo of Spud lying flat on his belly, with his ears flattened and his head between his paws, while one of them approached him. This donkey's schlong was awesome. It was black, as thick as my wrist, and it drooped rubber like halfway to the ground. Once Spud got over his awe they all made friends and trotted off amongst the trees. As I was packing the tent I looked up and saw them nearbye. Spud was frozen with one paw raised while a donkey sniffed his arse. Then when I looked again Spud was sniffing a donkey's arse, the donkey peering back at him with sad patience. It wasn't the big five, but it was touching all the same.