I have always wanted to see Abjaterskop. This legendary mountain looms large in my imagination after reading the antics of Oom Schalk Lourens.

Oom Schalk would go out onto the furthest reaches of his farm in the Groot Marico, looking for cattle. In his words: “So I lay on my back, with my hat tilted over my face, and my legs crossed, and when I closed my eyes slightly the tip of my boot, sticking up into the air, looked just like the peak of Ab­jaterskop.”

Well, Oom Schalk had an overactive imagination, because the mountain looks more like a baboon resting. I saw it for myself last week. Before I go on, Oom Schalk was the storyteller in short – and sometimes tall – stories by South African author Herman Charles Bosman. If you haven’t read them you must. They’re absolutely brilliant.

Abjaterskop looms large in his stories and it sits on the southern boundary of the Madikwe game reserve, a huge reserve in North West province just north of Zeerust. We were there with a group of former Ballitoites Sam and Chrissie Wells, Dave and Margie Britten, present Chaka’s Rock residents Ken and Sue Bircher, and Rose and myself – all celebrating our golden wedding anniversaries.

There was much catching up to do and reminiscing about ‘old Ballito’, as one does, but still plenty of time for game drives. Sometimes drives can be a little tedious; miles and miles of bumpy dirt roads, ducking and diving the thorn branches, all to view a lonely wildebeest or a few zebras doing what zebras do.

Oh my word, did we hit a lucky streak! After a long journey to the northwest corner of the reserve, suddenly we came upon no fewer than six fine cheetah! They were a mother and her five teenage children. It was amazing that she had managed to keep them alive for so long. As our guide explained, she was teaching them the ways of the hunt before they set off to fend for themselves.

I managed to get this photograph of the mother and four of the youngsters perched on an anthill, searching for their supper. They looked this way and that, all haughty like Siamese cats, then gracefully slinked off into the bush. I was so excited to get that picture!

Anyhow, back to Oom Schalk. The story on which Abjaterskop looms large, is “In the Withaak’s Shade,” when he tells of how a leopard lay down beside him while he was sleeping under the withaak tree. It is a wonderful story, where he describes how the local farmers go hunting the leopard after it was spotted in the district.

He says: “It was dangerous to walk about in the veld, they said. Exciting times followed. There was a great deal of shooting at the leopard and a great deal of running away from him. The amount of Martini and Mauser fire I heard in the krantzes reminded me of nothing so much as the First Boer War. And the amount of running away reminded me of nothing so much as the Second Boer War.”

I guess the Groot Marico has seen some wild times, out there on the far border with Botswana, and has many tales to tell. It was our first visit to that part of the world, and won’t be our last.

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