Author: TW

Midnight in Johannesburg

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Full article here. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” ― Ernest Hemingway In the rush of wild mushroom fricassée, espresso martinis and winter moonlight, each second feels like a feast. A Moveable Feast. Champagne and cigars, a fire sizzling in the bar. I have to pace myself, remind myself of the limits. Is there ever any middle ground in a feast? It is midnight in Johannesburg, at AtholPlace Hotel & Villa, in the eddy of the City of Gold, a retreat that merges the higher and lower frequencies of the city, leaving it up to you which to choose. The initial frenzy settles as morning comes, as the hadeda take to breakfast on the lawn and the sun shimmers through the oak trees. Morning is part of life’s natural feedback system to keep you from the edge. Slowly faces start to stand out, you learn everyone’s names and histories and love affairs and it becomes less like …

The Season of the Whale

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Read the full article here. The truth about whalesong is like much in life. Elusive, if not wholly unknown. We can philosophise and theorise but the truth about the enigmatic voices of whales and dolphins evades us. Nobody knows its true purpose or meaning. As the BBC documentary below states, “Scientists may one day find out the whole truth behind these extraordinary voices of the sea, but for now the private life of these ocean giants remains wondrously mysterious.” All we can do is look on, watch these creatures on their cross-oceanic journeys, from land, water or air. We can deduce a little more from their body language, their lobtailing and spyhopping and breaching. But between the fact and fiction of their wonder, all we have to do is be amazed by the simple joy of something we cannot fully grasp.   In African waters, you can glimpse whales on the east and south-east coast of South Africa on their own version of the Great Migration. On the east, they often flock to the Sardine Run, from May through to July, as captured on film …

The House of Health

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Health is one of the stealthiest of animals to pin down, a state of being we spend our lives seeking to acquire or hold onto. Some believe that the mind is the answer to all health, that, like time, it can heal all. But there are occasions when our bodies, as external entities, require something that the mind cannot provide. Since the Roman era, men – yes, even the manliest of men, legionnaires and the like – have visited spas. ‘Sanus per Aquam’, health by or through water, or SPA – a word that is believed to originate from the hot, natural springs that fatigued troopers sought out for rejuvenation, relaxation and to treat their sore wounds and tired muscles. As much as the meaning of the word “Health” may fluctuate with changing fads, the word “Spa” remains reliable. It is a place to heal, even when you don’t realise you are in need of healing. The masseuse manages to uncover the aches you’ve ignored and bitten your tongue through, the subtle tension you’ve hidden from the world in the muscles in your back, …

Life Lessons From Leopards

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[published here] She did not want to be found. Were it not for the herd of impalas surrounding her, she wouldn’t have been. The young female leopard’s spots made her almost undetectable behind the low branches of the bush, as she hunched over her kill – the impala that didn’t get away. The herd, as if tattletaling on the leopard, barked loudly to alert others of the danger. We followed the call in our safari vehicle in the Kapama Private Game Reserve around Camp Jabulani, and locked eyes with the big cat through the trees. About ten metres from us, she sat unmoving, heavy panting and startling eyes giving away the life inside her. One of us shifted in the vehicle (not the experienced ranger), trying to focus the camera lens on the cat, but spooking the leopard in the process. The leopard darted instantly, leaving her prey behind. We idled the vehicle a little closer to the site of the kill. To get a better look at the leopard we had to be just as stealthy as this big cat. We placed a GoPro camera beside the lone impala and continued on our way. A …

How To Be Quiet – Unexpected Lessons From Unexpected Guests

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A dispatch from the Royal Chundu blog We are very grateful for this blog and are greatly saddened when the noise of the outside world keeps us from it. Partly because it allows us, as Anaïs Nin wrote, to taste life twice, and partly because it reminds of the little things that bring us joy, the odd ‘aha moment’ that is easy to forget in the flurry of daily life. For instance, the subjects of today’s blog… Recently, we had two of the quietest guests we’ve ever come across. They arrived in a uniquely quiet week at Royal Chundu – as if they had sensed the stillness of the lodge, even months before when they booked their trip. They stayed with us for just over a week on a birding safari. Sure, birders tend to be a characteristically quieter breed compared to the rest, but there was something special about this couple. They were so quiet that we didn’t know how to entertain them. But therein lay the answer – they didn’t need to be entertained at all. In the way of the books by …

The Armchair Safari

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Since I was a lone girl child, my father and I have been talkers. We don’t talk to other people much, but we talk to each other. About other people. But also about big ideas. Philosophy. Politics. Plants. Every and anything. It has been a way of working through the commodious complexity of daily life. A method for understanding ourselves as much as the world outside of our small sphere. These days, when I return from assignments out in the bush, we sit across from each other on big leather couches in the family lounge, my mother beside us, completing our sphere. And we talk. We drink tea and we talk. About everything from poached eggs to poaching. About the warthogs I met. “Do you think I could keep one in my flat? They’re just like fat puppies.” About the lions. “You were right, Dad. I’m a wimp.” About the colours, the smells, the sounds of safari. The talking can go on for days, as new memories return. Like a sort of Armchair Safari. In a way, this blog at Relais & Châteaux …

Tanzania’s Best Kept Secret

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The Other Pemba Tamlin Wightman discovers there’s more to this tiny Indian Ocean island off Tanzania than diving. It started with a touch. The touch of a child’s soft, plump hand in mine. So timid that it didn’t linger long and was quickly retrieved by its owner. All around kids were screaming at me like banshees. ‘Mzungu! Mzungu!’ White person! The crowd of about 20 little mites had chased after me as I passed through their village, Kijijini, on Pemba Island, named Jazirat al- Khadhra, the Green Island, by an Arab geographer. Some kiddies were naked, some just pulling on their dresses or shorts after enjoying the beginning of the monsoon rains. Once one of them had felt the strange pale skin, all wanted a turn. If you let it, Pemba Island will touch you in many ways. It’s hillier and more lush than neighbouring Unguja (known incorrectly as Zanzibar), with which it makes up the Zanzibar Archipelago within the union of Tanzania. Some say it’s Tanzania’s best-kept secret. Tourists of the more usual sort …

The Paris Catch 22

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Published in The Sunday Times She waits for the waiter to pull her chair out, sits down as he pushes it in. She pulls her tight black leather dress down, her Hollywood legs still well exposed, and struggles to tuck one ankle behind the other. Four inch red heels are difficult to manage. Even for Mary Louise Parker. I’m watching her every move, covertly and calmly, despite being so close to someone so famous. I’m not used to this… Mary brushes her black hair behind an ear, showing me her cheek as she sits to the side. Her skin is as pale as the Parisian sky this October. The star of the series Weeds, she’d be a much better choice for a Tim Burton film. A rival to Bonham Carter. Parker’s posse swoon around her, knocking my chair as they pull out their own. At her table is one friend, one PA, one film assistant. Three women and Mary. Mary is sitting on top of my boyfriend. Basically. Seated with his back to her, at our table at this popular bistro in St …

The Hunter’s Last Days

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Last night I sat next to my grandfather on a bench in his garden while he told me of the ways he planned to kill himself. He said that the pain some days gets too much to bear and he imagines how to end it all. My grandfather is a hunter. His outside shed is filled with guns, bullets, gunpowder and other paraphernalia. In the locked safe are about five rifles and two shotguns. If memory serves me. When I was a child, growing up, he’d show me how to put together a bullet in that shed. A little after-school project. He sat over his tools like an artist over a water painting, lamps arched over his hands to illuminate the small casing and fine, fatal powder. I can’t remember much of what he told me. If I tried to construct my own bullet today in that same shed I’d fall short. I’d create something closer to a birthday cake sparkler. But my grandfather, he was a weapons expert. Is. His guns have been with …