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The Government has completely banned the use of Cypermethrin sheep dip...
Travel writer of the year awards 2011: The results
11th May 2011
We received more than 200 entries this year, and it was a tough choice between the final trio: Carol Donaldson’s encounter in the Australian outback; Malcolm Whitehead’s look at the life of a house mouse in the London Underground; and Helen Whittle’s journey into the Namib Desert.
In the end, A harsh lesson won because it combines original descriptions of nocturnal wildlife sightings with Carol’s attempts to come to terms with life – and death – in the bush.
THE RESULTS:
Winner
A harsh lesson by Carol Donaldson, Kent
Runners-up
Metro mouse in commuter hell by Malcolm Whitehead, London
Picnic by Helen Whittle, Lincolnshire
Commended
Alone in Amsterdam by Bryony Thomson, Bristol
The night of the Metswedi males by Marcus Jannssen, Bucks
Also shortlisted:
Build up at shady camp by Royston Donald Hunt, Somerset
Blue hour by James Andrew Stevenson, Cambridgeshire
Floating with puffins by Nicholas Hill, London
Karumbe by Steven Rennie, London
Astral travelling by Raoul Slater, Australia
Solo by Alan James Castle, Aylesbury
The bat cave by Sheena Harvey, Lincolnshire
What’s the catch? by Anthony Smith, Amsterdam
A harsh lesson by Carol Donaldson, Kent
Cruising the outback roads at night, Carol Donaldson learns how to spot wildlife and alert Bill to the presence of quolls, bandicoots and wallabies. But, one day, Bill doesn’t swerve and she discovers that not everything has an equal right to life in Australia.
“The Aborigines have a lack of fit,” says Bill, one hand on the wheel of the Ute, the other hanging out of the window holding a bottle of VB. “They no longer fit into a country that was once their own.”
Bill is a man of few words, but the ones he utters often have that knack of hitting the nail on the head. I nod and fall silent as the tarmac clicks away beneath us, and my own lack of fit weighs heavily on me.
Sometimes I feel I fit so well into this life. Sitting on Bill’s porch amid the croc jaws and rows of singlets hung out to dry as Patsy Cline wails into the Australian night. Somehow this rough, hairy, wild, soft-as-all-hell bushman and I fit. This dirt beneath my feet, close to the land, cattle station life and I crazily fit. I feel centred here, calm, able to get on with my own business.
“Eyes,” I call out as a pair of amber lights shine up ahead. Bill slows to a crawl. A nightjar sits in the path of the oncoming truck, soaking up the warmth of the tarmac, blinded by the truck beams.
I lean out of the window. “Get off the road,” I yell. The bird takes off, fluttering towards the headlights in confusion, the black well of its eyes not meant for glare and dazzle. I relax my grip on the dash as it swoops off, only for it to career past again.
‘Soft birds’ Bill calls them. He should know. He’s still picking feathers out of the Ute after one flew in the window last week. Its beautiful camouflage crumpled and bent, a powder puff of feathers arising from where it fell.
We slalom along the outback roads at night, avoiding quolls, bandicoots and wallabies, always in pairs. “Watch out for its partner,” says Bill. Frilled lizards look like blown-out tyres as they stand on their hindlegs so that even my 20:20 vision fails to spot them. I see eyes everywhere: “One on the left, on the right, watch it.” Bill peers into the darkness.
“Get out of the road,” I yell at them, even the crocs, baby freshies, which leap up and run on high-stepping toes, giving away the fact that they’re just big lizards after all. Sometimes I yell at rocks and litter by mistake or the eight white gleaming eyes
of spiders. Bill laughs and avoids them.
of spiders. Bill laughs and avoids them.
A full moon seeps out from behind a cloud. “The Lord has put His light out for us,” Bill says.
There is the faint smell of forest fire in the air, because the rangers have been burning around Batchelor all day. Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler comes on the radio, and Bill and I sing along. How do I even know this song?
There it is again, that fit. Sometimes I feel like a part of me has always been here, sitting with my feet up on the dash in Bill’s truck. That there was always a spot prepared for me among these ghost gums and termite mounds.
A large shape appears on the road ahead, rooting along the boundary between its world and ours. It trots onto the tarmac,
a feral pig. I start to yell, “Get off the…”
a feral pig. I start to yell, “Get off the…”
But this time Bill doesn’t swerve, he speeds up and I stare in horror as he smashes into the animal’s side, pitting his bullbar against the pig’s soft flesh. The pig rolls under the truck and I lurch forward, my face making alarmingly close contact with the windscreen before jerking back against the headrest.
Bill finishes his bottle of beer. “Good,” he says, “I’ll feed him to the dogs.” I look down at my hands, knowing I’ve just got to sit there and pretend I’m not shocked. Knowing that, to Bill, the pig is vermin, a pest species, with no right to life. He’d do the same to a whole host of other animals that have unwittingly been released into this country.
“Help me chuck it in the back,” Bill says. I climb out of the truck, trying not to notice the blood sprayed up the door. I love this country and I’m despicably fond of this guy, but sometimes I feel I don’t fit here at all.
Carol Donaldson is an Essex girl currently living in Kent, where she works for the Kentish Stour Countryside Partnership. She spends her days wading through ditches doing wildlife surveys and chopping down scrub with her band of volunteers.
Carol wins a nine-day ‘emerald season’ safari to South Luangwa National Park in Zambia with Expert Africa. She will stay at Norman Carr Safaris’ Kapani Lodge and the tented bushcamp of Kakuli, exploring the Luangwa Valley on walking, canoeing and driving excursions. www.expertafrica.com
RUNNERS-UP
This will be coming soon.
Motoring inland away from the surprising pretzel-filled German bakereis of Swakopmund, we pass wagon tracks carved through delicate surface-growing lichens a century ago. A dull duvet of fog hangs above this surreal Namibian coast, but as we begin to creep from beneath its flat grey light a group of burnished springbok skitter out into the sunshine and the whole landscape pops-up into bright 3-d.
In the 60 million year old desert around us, prehistoric Welwitsias are slunk, their twinned leathery leaves curving thick and grooved before tapering to torturous wind whipped ribbons. Closer to town, large specimens are neatly ringed in white stones, but here they simply sprawl, slumped and scattered in the searing heat. Approaching one on foot I imagine the trunk and weird thigh-high arching foliage, to be just the head and shoulders of a vast triffid cousin mostly buried in the sand, but able to heave itself out to march across the land if future millenia demand. The ancient stump sprouts branches of cones, scaley in salmon pink and spring green and I am delighted by the attendant army of shield bugs, spotted black on fried-egg yellow and white.
The map showing 6000 square miles of the Namib Naukluft Park ahead was hard to find and is oddly comforting considering that all the distinctive features, roads, picnic areas and campsites are shown on a line drawing barely a hand span wide; possibly because it says nothing about being cooked alive. As we unhurry eastwards towards our chosen overnight spot of Bloedkopie, we are thrilled to see strolling ostrich, the cocks shadow-black against muted shades. Between our bonnet and the lilac horizon the palette is terracotta and toast, ochre and bone, parched to perfection beneath intense blue skies.
Bloodkopie is a big rock. A big hot rock with other big hot rocks piled on it and around it. Nearby is a single quiver tree like a sun-bleached hat-stand holding a dozen spiky wigs. And, as the midday sun turns up the heat it sucks up its indigo shadow and the heavens and earth melt together in the distance.
It is oven-hot and we wonder if we can survive the next 18 hours. We have plenty of water and food, but there is no fridge to climb into. A few buff lizards scatter across the burning boulders but besides the oozing heat, nothing much seems to be moving.
Quite suddenly, in a flurry of wings we are joined by several eager pale-winged starlings, a polite pie-coloured mountain chat and a pair of cape sparrows. The starlings make varied, hopeful – but not exactly musical – noises. How do they know it is lunchtime? Have they been following us?
So tucked tight beneath a towering rockface, I am munching a roll, and being entertained by the picnic-crashers when something warm and soft slides onto my foot. Looking down I see the largest cheekiest gerbil ever, crouched and quivering on my flip flop. Wondering about sharp teeth I stay still and it looks up, presenting beady, probing eyes, a custard-coloured snout and black whiskers twitching in anticipation; so I drop some bread.
This is obviously just the ticket, the monster gerbil grabs the offering in its mouth and, pursued by starlings, disappears at speed into an unfeasibly narrow crevice. It is back so swiftly I wonder if there are two, or perhaps a gang? How long must it wait between picnickers? I drop more and there is slight scrum with the sparrows before the small furry visitor dashes away with booty half the size of its head. And so the meal continues, some for me, and some for my guests until the bread is gone. I am not sure who is most upset when this happens, but the party is over and I am baking, but not - to everyone’s loss - in a biscuit-making sense.
Checking my books I find that I have been dining with a dassie rat, the only member of its genus and a creature confined to rocky outcrops like this one. It says nothing about mugging sun-drugged tourists, but this one is smart and savvy and most definitely knows its business.
Beaten and braised by the merciless heat, we decide to move on and create a small vehicle breeze for ourselves. Until this morning our mammal encounters have been defined by the Namib’s archetypal oryx, zebra and springbok eking an unlikely living in this mesmerising land, with smaller species less apparent. But within a mile our first cape hare springs up and sprints from the sage and silver verge before diving into a hole, evicting in one bound, our first meerkat. Like a genie conjured from a dusty lamp she stands tall and alert in the heat haze, shimmering above the hot sand for a few magical minutes.
COMMENDED
I wander into Amsterdam exhausted and filthy; my legs scratched with three weeks of adventures and sleeping on sticky train floors, little more than a living rag-doll still smeared in yesterday’s ketchup. I was expecting sleaze and grime and the heady stench of smoke and stagnation, but the city is glitteringly ethereal and buzzing with life. The last of late summer sunlight rippling, fresh and silvery, across the maze of canals, sparkling off the railings and herds of bikes as they flock down the streets. The cool, sweet smell of fresh summer rain lingers permanently, interrupted with explosions of sugar drenched baking – stroopwafels and Dutch pancakes, Apple “flops” and fat poffertjes – luring the last Euros from my pocket.
I’m alone for the first time. Feeling tiny, anonymous and free. Abandoning my map and wandering through the narrow streets of skinny houses, bent beneath the blue sky. I claim every new discovery; every eclectic street I stroll down, each quirky shop I wander into, every new hour and smell and taste my own. And the horror is all mine, as the wet, flaccid flesh of a raw herring crawls down my throat, swiftly followed by half a bottle of water and another waffle. Or two.
The parks and side streets are a riot of colour as the trees begin to turn; green, gold, orange, yellow. The locals linger on benches; book in one hand, coffee in the other, cool and collected as the ducks serenely weaving through the river boats. A flash of exotic as a ring necked parakeet sweeps past, a stranger here too, standing out brash and tropical against the soft shades of Holland. A perfect addition to a city of contradictions.
I bypass the tourist sodden streets of the red light district and amble through the open air book market, enjoying the scratch of pages and soft mash of Dutch and English as punters and sellers haggle good-naturedly. I relish the musty, comforting smell of well loved books, and guess at the stories they tell, tracing my fingers over the almost-words, sharing smiles with fellow browsers, united in our pass-time.
Over the square the palace bells sing a playful melody; not doleful and deep, tired from centuries of tolling, but bright and unique and fresh every hour. In Krakow and Prague, Vienna and Paris, pigeons flocked and cooed and squatted in every rafter, splattering the streets and monuments, bursting into great grey clouds as delighted toddlers charged through their bowing mobs and eyeing up every picnic through demonically red eyes. The same drab shade of ordinary obscuring famous attractions from London to Budapest. But in weeks to come, when winter sets in and we curl up, mugs in hand, flicking through photos and reminisce and they ask me what I loved best, I’ll say it was the starlings in Amsterdam.
The air is alive with their music; rippling, merry, and otherworldly. The bright chorus of bike bells and hourly chimes lost amongst their delighted chorus. Skipping about my feet and pecking at stray flakes of pastry, fluting their demands. So close, I can admire each iridescent scale of colour on their wings. Ignored and unnoticed by the bustle of city life, tilting there reptilian heads and bickering brightly. I remember watching black clouds twisting and swirling, like a belly dancers veil, across the autumn skies at home, how I’d missed them as their numbers dwindled, they were magnificent together and enchanting alone.
I crouch on the pavement, my crumb covered hand stretched out in expectation. The city blurs into white noise and animated colours as she hops closer, until it’s just her and I, eyeing each other up with mutual fascination and nervous curiosity. So familiar and so strange. She’s on my finger tips, I’ve forgotten I’m supposed to breath, engrossed in her tiny weight on my hand, the scratch and tickling of her scaly feet, the sting of her peck on my palm.
It’s funny how even amongst the din of the world, you could pick out even the whisper of your own name. Jolting back to reality and she’s gone. Our moment lost as she joins the swirl of black and silver and returns to the skies of Amsterdam.
“Over here!”
“You nutter, why are you feeding the birds?”
“They’re covered in diseases!”
They’re striding towards me, grins slapped across their faces, ready for bear hugs and reunions and breathless catch ups. It’s time to say goodbye to Amsterdam, the emerald city at the end of my journey. We’re heading home.
With the pearl-spotted owlet’s final fluting call, the last vestiges of the shy African night were put to bed by the clumsy crunch of trendy trainers on the parched Pilanesberg earth. With every step whole chapters of the sandy storybook of nightlife in camp were erased, as Jay obliviously trundled his way over to the smouldering embers of last night’s campfire.
The smell of coffee and leadwood smoke hung in the still morning air as a crested francolin announced the new day with an exuberant prelude to the dawn chorus. “So where are these lions, huh?”, was Jay’s frank synopsis of his uneventful first-night in a tented camp.
Jay was disappointed. He’d not yet shrugged off his city straightjacket of rigid timetables and strict deadlines, and he’d been expecting a bedtime serenade from the local coalition of lions known as the Metswedi males. The three magnificent black-maned brothers had been spotted by an anti-poaching patrol a few days earlier, and were thought to be heading up the valley in the direction of our camp. “Remember, we’re here on their terms Jay, not the other way around”, was the best that Thabo, our Tswana camp manager could do to explain their apparent no-show.
The daylight hours seemed to pass by in a hot and hazy blur of wonderful matinee performances by Pilanesberg’s cast of flora and fauna. Iridescent green wood-hoopoes and arrow-marked babblers chattered noisily overhead in the canopy of black monkey thorn whilst herds of impala emerged glistening from the dusty mirage and nervously joined a bachelor herd of battle-scarred and gnarled buffalo at the waterhole.
Helmeted guineafowl scratched and scurried between the columnlike legs of ambling elephant as they slaked their thirst and then silently coasted by like great grey ghosts. And like their nonchalant elders who sat grooming each other under a wild fig, even the insolent screeching of cavorting young chacma baboons wasn’t enough to lift Jay’s spirits whose slumped shoulders spoke sadly of indifference.
And so, as the ochre sun kissed the western walls of the vast volcanic crater that is South Africa’s Pilanesberg Game Reserve, my imagination drifted once again through the dry river valleys and over sparse red rocky outcrops, scouring the arid winter landscape for the place where our lions would be stirring from their long slumber.
I remained alone at the fire that night allowing myself to be mesmerised and enveloped by the warmth of the flickering flames as they danced and lapped at the remnants of an ironwood barricade left behind by a mighty bull elephant. The plaintive, churring call of a fiery-necked nightjar brought me back from my reverie as it rang clear through the crisp night air and was then followed by nothing but the whisper and crackle of the fire. Quiet. Suddenly acutely aware of my surroundings, I looked over both shoulders, an uneasy chill running down my spine as the bush held its breath as if poised in expectation.
It was then that I heard it.
Out of the inky darkness and reverberating like thunder, the first unmistakable roar of an adult male lion rolled into camp like a cavalry charge. As if we are hard-wired to revere them, their voices creep beneath your skin and penetrate into the deepest recesses of your very core in some ancient and primal way unlike any other sound on earth.
Building to an awesome crescendo their calls flood the dry river valleys and echo through the hills for up to eight miles, leaving all in their wake overwhelmingly aware of their position as apex predator. I was no different – I scampered to the security of my tent where I lay in bed more awake than I had ever been before, adrenaline coursing through my veins and the intermittent silences filled with the sound of my own pounding heartbeat.
Closer and closer they came, their roars getting louder and louder still, until even their heavy, carrion scented breaths could be heard as the Metswedi males sauntered into camp. Terrified that the sound of my own gasping breath and hammering pulse would betray my presence, the prickly heat of irrational fear pulsated through my veins as images of Colonel Patterson’s notorious man-eaters toyed with my mind, depriving me of sleep.
Exhausted by my own fear, it was with a heavenly sigh of relief that once again, the jubilant call of the crested francolin alerted me to the break of dawn and the end to the long and sleepless night of the Metswedi Males.
Long after breakfast had been cleared away I watched Jay emerge gingerly from his tent, and stare in awe at the tracks left behind by our visitors in the night. Carefully skirting round them, his eyes bright, he made his way over to the fire.
There is so many great
There is so many great writers in this contest. There is so many that deserve these awards. You will get so much from it
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