Travel’s experiential curve-balls

The lessons I learned from my father were few but one remains as fresh in my napper as the day I learned it in the Eastern Cape at the age of around eight – the day I was given my first air rifle.

“Before you pull the trigger,” he said, “ask yourself: where is this bullet going to end?”

Not what are you aiming at but where the round is going to finally expend its momentum. The lesson imprinted itself – painfully – on me about two years later.

My mother was away attending a course in Cape Town and my father decided to expand my experience of firearms. We had a long passage that extended the length of the house, from my parents’ bedroom to the back door.

To my dad, it made the ideal indoor shooting range … especially after a few hours at the pub with his pals. He opened the door (there was a retaining wall two metres on the other side) and placed an empty Ricoffy can in the entrance.

Retreating to the other end of the passage, he sat at the foot of his bed and I backed up against him. After showing me the correct two-handed stance for firing his 9mm pistol and banging off a few shots, it was my turn.

I rested my arms on my knees, sighted carefully and squeezed. The can rocked. Squeezed again, same result. Fired a third time and started screaming. The bullet had gone through the tin, hit the retaining wall and rebounded back down the passage, shot up a leg of my shortie pyjamas and came to rest – white-hot – on my pre-pubescent scrotum.

Thus did I learn about the Law of Unintended Consequences, though it would be many years before I came to know it by this name. It is a law that is universally applicable; whatever the situation or circumstance, you can be sure decisions and actions will have unexpected outcomes.

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Because I travel so much and act somewhat spontaneously when I do, I have been on the receiving end of a surfeit of experiential curve-balls. These range from an African head of state accusing me of being part of a South African-led coup attempt on his country to almost treading on a lion while shooting pictures of a Jeep Wrangler outlined against the Mpumalanga sky.

Dietary decisions have backfired (in both directions) and my predilections for sport and strong drink have led me to make inappropriate remarks in various sectarian cities. I have seen admissions wards and police cells on four continents when things have gone sufficiently awry.

But some of my choices have had near-magical consequences and I’ve made wonderful friends through chance encounters. About a decade ago, I was asked to do an article on battlefield tours in South Africa and – naturally – I wanted to include the Frontier Wars of the Eastern Cape, a province I’d visited only for work since my folks split when I was 12.

One name kept recurring during my research; Alan Weyer. He was, people said, not only knowledgeable but immensely entertaining when telling stories of the Eastern Cape’s bloody history.

The unexpected result of my request for an interview with Alan was an invitation to spend a few days outside Kenton-on-Sea at Kariega Game Reserve, where he was and remains general manager.

It was the start of a relationship with man, reserve and an area known as the Sunshine Coast that has burgeoned over the years. That initial visit also reawakened my long-dormant love for the Eastern Cape and I now visit the province at least once a year. The people are pithy but hospitable and there’s truth in the saying “there’s no thirst like Bathurst”.

However, overlooking the Kariega River at sunset with a sopie brandewyn in hand a fortnight ago, what came immediately to mind were the words of The Eagles’ Hotel California: you can check out any time you like … but you can never leave.

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