A River Ramble

I've been back a few weeks in Blighty and yesterday was a day to remember.  I could have been on a mountainside in rarified snowy landscape if I closed my eyes.  The air had an amazing purity.  See the story below that I wrote to commemorate those priceless hours.

                                                             
                                                        A Lidless Sky

The nearest I've ever come to floating away was on a cloudless day.  Walking under a blue sky lifts the spirit and opens that precious portal to the heavens and beyond.

The snow crunched under foot as we strode along to stay warm.  Mist rose in gentle wisps from the very earth as we drifted by on a crust of crisp snow from the previous night.  There were no trails of cloud in a lidless sky, but the ground told of the passing of early morning animals as well as the joggers and cyclists that will have sent them scurrying.  Dog tracks abound and rabbits had made their furtive way out from the thorny cover to snatch some mouthfuls of well nibbled grass.

Views along this river were two sides of the same coin.  Heading north up river, the pastures spread in a patchwork to the hills.  Criss-crossed by hedgerows and dykes, they told of an landscape, long shaped and tied by and to man's hand.  Snow cover betrayed gentle undulations of former farming prcatices; furrows where the plough shear had passed were carried off the land left rich by seasonal floods and into the riffles and wake made by a pair of paddling grebes

The male led, with his splendid ear tufts and brighter plumage.  He sat higher and more proud in the water, followed by his more delicate mate.  A greylag goose flew low and strong over the water, not stopping to admire its reflection, but allowing us the chance to stand admire one of Nature's marvels; a bird in flight.  For the serenity of such motion to be reflected in the graceful passage of water seemed just so.

We turned at the bridge and were soon greeted by inquisitive, thristy ponies.  In their winter coats, with steaming breath, they plodded from pasture to gently sloping bank and cracked through an icy spread over the languid flow.  We left them to slake their thirst and ventured on, looking out across an ethereal swathe of land woth outlines blurred by mist.  The soft edges allowed one to imagine and roam down lanes of the mind in silent reverie.

The large lake was bereft of large flocks of birds that can often be seen paddling in the fringes or wheeling fish-like aloft.  But, after several hours of a perfect day's river ramble, the tingle spread from face throughout one's body and soul.  It was enough to stretch the stride and put a spring in any step.  May there be many more days the same.

Stranger in a strange land

I am sat in a cold, admittedly dry, office space sending emails and receiving them until my eyes are going square. This is the less glamorous side of the Conservation world.  At least it is if one is in a wintry Oxford.  The fund-raising ideas are flowing thick and fast, with potential donors identified and itchy fingers ready to send off proposals complete with please(s) and thank you(s).  It seems a far cry from Mareja, and yet without all of this, that wonderful place that captures the heart and mind will not remain in its current state with an undulating canopy as far as the eye can see.

An old friend just sent me a picture of a beautiful bull greater kudu staring straight at the camera from bush that looks quite a lot like the sort of place one would find them in Mareja.  After admiring and reminiscing about my Ruaha days, I couldn't help but feel a little sad that it will be quite some time before the numbers of kudu in Mareja will climb back to where they should be.  Whilst driving around the Mareja tracks, I remember thinking how strange it was that one could not see Hartebeeste, Niassa Wildebeeste, more Sable, Greater kudu and impala.  Apparently there was a solitary wildebeeste wandering around Lake Bila Biza.

I suppose that is part of the mantra of those that choose to make their business; ...BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE...HALT THE SLIDE INTO EXTINCTION.  I hope that future generations of Mozambicans will be able to say they have seen these large mammals, relatively close by, and be proud of that fact.