Earthbound mortals often ask, almost aggressively, as if such madness must surely be wrong: "Why do you fly?"
They are not appeased by my answer either. "I fly for fun!"
Do they ask golfers why they play golf?
To my credit, whenever I can, I try to combine fun with work.
So it came about a few years ago that I persuaded a friend to accompany me on a working fly-in safari in Botswana. The Cessna 150 I used to fly would never get off the ground with 75 kg of veterinary equipment, 25 kg of personal luggage and 94 kg of dog food. I needed my friend, Leon, to take me in our mutually owned experimental aircraft - a Comp Air 6. He groaned when he saw my luggage. He had more than enough of his own. The fact that we were delayed by various circumstances and only took off at 11.20 am on a very hot day, did not help.
Although the CA6 needed a slightly longer ground run than usual to reach flying speed, she lifted off without a hitch. Climb performance was somewhat impaired by the ambient temperature of 35 degrees Celsius. To be on the safe side we remained near the Gaborone-Francistown road. We reached Francistown later than expected due to a strong headwind, but still had to wait for the day to cool down before departing for Sua at 16h30.
There we were met by Tom and Nicky who whisked us of to the Sua Pan for sundowners at the water side. The pans were full, with water stretching as far as the eye could see. As night fell, the flamingos became noisier and noisier, taking off in droves after dark for their night flight to their nesting grounds to the south. The whooshing of hundreds of wings overhead in the dark was an eerie sound.
Early the next morning Nicky and I transported my gear to to a nearby garage where I was to hold my clinic. Striving to maintain high surgical standards in an open garage can be quite a challenge. However, we managed to perform surgery on 10 animals and vaccinated and treated about 30 others.
The following day we left early for Nata. The CA6 took off eagerly from the narrow tar strip in the cool morning air. The 20 minute flight over the pale blue pan dotted with pink flamingos was beautiful, and was over too soon to my liking. I think Leon felt the same when he saw that Nata's short, bumpy, gravel strip had a strong crosswind blowing across it. In spite of that, his experience and skill ensured a smooth landing in the tricky taildragger.
Nigel of Nata Lodge met us at the strip. His indigenous hound, Katy, who had a protracted stay at our clinic in Gaborone the year before, was not pleased to see me. She had suffered a dilated oesophagus after gulping down a whole fish. She did her best to hide under the furniture when I went to vaccinate her. Luc, the Boerboel, did not move from his favourite sleeping place under the office desk, but growled softly as I crawled in alongside him. (And they say flying is dangerous!) Honky-Tonk, the white Bull terrier, was delighted to see me. Sadly though I had to break the news that his ears were not affected by bad eczema, but he in fact had skin cancer.
Meanwhile Leon and Nigel had discovered a shared passion for cricket and were watching the South Africa - Pakistan match on a TV set up under the trees. What with cricket and a delicious tea, it got rather late and by the time we returned to the airfield it was almost noon and once again very hot. Flying the heavily loaded plane was quite a challenge and we had to fight for every foot of altitude. We remained above the tar road, rarely climbing to 500 ft above ground level, and regularly being pushed back to 200ft by down draughts.
Keeping a constant lookout for bateleurs and vultures, who were also battling to stay aloft, kept us wide awake. I was amused that I could read the names of roadside bars - of which Botswana has many in the most surprisingly remote locations - as we flew past! We also had a great view of ostriches and zebras brave enough to move in the heat as we flew over the Makgadigadi Game Reserve.
Finally in Maun we had litres of cold drinks at the Duck Inn. It was too hot to fly, so I did some shopping while Leon delivered a computer he had brought along for a friend. By 15h30 it was still hot, but Kasane was a considerable distance away and we wanted to reach it before dark as we would be flying over some very inhospitable terrain where lions roamed.
We headed out directly to Kasane, initially following the Maun-Savuti road. The road, however, meanders all over the place and becomes quite faint in parts. The fact that our GPS chose this moment to start acting up was not very reassuring The paucity of landmarks in Northern Botswana has to be seen to be believed. After flying on the Directional Indicator for some time, the Gcoha hills could be seen in the distance
This was our only landmark while traversing the seemingly endless Savuti marshes, interspersed with forest and woodland. Although we were now flying at 3000 ft above ground level, we could easily discern a great many animals below - the elephants and giraffe being the easiest to spot.
Not far past the hills we flew over the village of Kachikau. From here onwards, we followed the gravel road to the edge of the swamps south of Linyanti. Then we turned slightly east, following the demarcated line between forest and marshland near the Namibian border. We were met at Kasane's modern airport with its excellent tarmac runway by Tony and Frances.
The next morning it was back to work for me. I got up early to set up my clinic in the garage. Tony's lively German Shepherd, McGinty, was intrigued by all the strange animal smells emanating from my boxes. Karen, who had organised my appointments, arrived at 8am, as did my first surgical case, a Boerboel by the name of Chimanimani, belonging to Dee. Dee lives on the banks of the Chobe river. Her experiences brought home the wildness of Kasane to me. Her male Boerboel bears the scars of a leopard attack. Her cat was swallowed by a python right under her mobile home. Her Labrador was dragged off by a crocodile while she watched helplessly and one of her horses died after being bitten by a cobra. Yet, she is raising her young family here. Africa is not for sissies.
After a long day of surgery and consultations we visited Heidi at Kubu Lodge to vaccinate her dogs, Yago and Tess and her cat Minnie Mouse. Her previous cat was severely injured after a run in with a hippo and had to be put to sleep. After seeing Dee's horses and checking up on Chimanimani, I still had to do pregnancy diagnoses on Karen's dairy cows. This kept us busy until dark. Dave, the manager, warned me not to accidentally touch the electric fence beside the cattle crush. It is there to keep the lions out of the cows' camp. After we left, Karen reported that two zebras got into the cow camp in spite of the fence and were now grazing with them.
We were airborne out of Kasane by 9am on Thursday. The plane was considerably lighter now and climb performance was noticeably improved. There was a solid bank of dark cloud to the south and south-west of us and pilots from Maun reported heavy downpours. We headed south-east, skirting along the edge of the storm to intercept the road to Nata. We stayed above the tar to Pandamatenga and cut across the vast acreage of cultivated land. Over the Sibuyu Forest Reserve we turned south-west and headed straight for Gweta. We would be crossing over 200km of very sparsely inhabited and inhospitable land. From time to time we spotted small groups of elephants at pans below.
We passed directly overhead Gweta, situated on the Nata-Maun road and found the airstrip called Xirago, with the help of our GPS. We buzzed the camp nearby as instructed. There were some zebra in the pan directly in front of the camp. By the time we had parked the plane under the shade of a large tree, Rod, the camp manager, arrived at the airstrip in his dark green Landcruiser, with it's distinctive "Uncharted Africa" brass nameplate.
From this moment onwards we experienced SERVICE unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. "Welcome to the camp. What would you like to drink?" He conjured up a vast selection of ice cold drinks. The 6km drive back to the camp was our introduction to the bird life of the grassland surrounding the pans. I can now distinguish between a LBJ and rufous napped lark or desert cysticola. In fact on my return home I had listed 35 species whose names I could actually remember.
At the camp a long legged blond German beauty was waiting for us. Lunch would be ready when ever we were, what would we like to drink and did we want to shower now or later? After a delicious lunch under a large spreading camel-thorn tree we retired for an afternoon nap. The spacious safari tents were tastefully furnished with Persian carpets on the floors and antique wood and brass furniture and fittings creating a real "old Africa" ambiance.
On our afternoon game drive we were most surprised to discover a heavily laden table with drinks in the middle of nowhere. We started a small campfire and whilst enjoying our sundowners, our very knowledgeable guides explained to us how the pans had evolved. Surrounded by the magic of the full moon shining through the clouds, with the world around us quiet and peaceful, while simultaneously teeming with vivid life, we became deeply aware of the tranquility of nature.
Back in the camp we sat down to an exquisite dinner by the light of paraffin lanterns in the large dining tent with its teak floor. Friday morning Leon and a guide, Joe, went up in the Comp Air to spot the migrating zebra. We were then able to follow them into the Game Reserve on the ground. Never before have I seen such concentrations of zebra - herds of far over a thousand - strung out from horizon to far horizon - the galloping of thousands of hooves drumming across the plains; synchronising with the zebras' high pitched whooping calls.
In the evening another surprise awaited us. Just before sunset we arrived at Chapman's Baobab - said to be the second largest tree of its kind in Southern Africa. The setting sun coloured the huge trunks a surreal orange pink. Perched in the lower fork of the 5000 year old tree, we were told of early explorers who passed this way, bringing a long distant time back to life in a place that had seen very little change over the centuries.
After such a fantastic stay, being pampered like royalty while experiencing the true uncharted Africa, we were really sad to leave the camp. We arrived back in Gaborone just as the sun was setting.
Who says one has to have a reason to fly?
