Day Eight

The day, hour by hour

• First light

  Morning drive

  Out before the heat, in the party’s own open vehicles with their own ranger. Lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino and leopard are all here, and cheetah, which in this landscape can be watched running.

• Mid-morning

  Breakfast in the veld

  Laid out under a thorn tree, with nothing man-made in sight in any direction.

• Midday

  The heat, and what one does in it

  Which is nothing. The pool, the shade, a long lunch, sleep. In the Karoo in February the middle of the day belongs to the animals lying up in the shade, and the sensible visitor does the same.

• Afternoon

  Rock art, thousands of years old

  For those who want it, a walk with a guide to San paintings on the rock faces of the reserve, made by people who lived in this valley long before anyone drew a boundary around it.

• Late afternoon

  Evening drive, and sundowners

  Out again as the light turns, and a table set on the open veld as the sun goes down behind the mountains.

• Evening

  Dinner in the boma

  Around a fire under the open sky, with the reserve dark and loud beyond the light.

• After dark

  The sky, properly

  An astronomer brought out to the reserve with his own telescopes. Saturn’s rings, the Jewel Box, the Magellanic Clouds, and someone beside them who can explain what they are looking at. Astronomy depends on the weather; if the sky closes in, we try again the following night.

Along the way today

• SanbonaFifty-four thousand hectares of Little Karoo wilderness.

Films▶ Sanbona

Who is where