On a warm Friday the 18th of February, the honours students of the biological sciences at Rhodes University were loaded onto a bus for a fifteen-minute drive and a three-day stay at Craig Doone farm (or as the sign outside the gate states, Craig Doone Conservation Academy). In tow were one of our professors and two masters' students to keep an eye on us. Disembarking briefly at the farmhouse slash bed-and-breakfast under the shade of a great wild fig tree, the owners came out to meet us: Wayne Vos – a tall, ruddy and unconfrontational man with big farmer's hands – and his wife, Charles-Frances Vos. A pair of old little dogs, sweet-natured and well-fed, padded along behind them.
Sparing only a little time for introductions, Wayne mounted his quadbike and told us to follow him in the bus, riding past a pair of grazing horses and a set of deer's antlers prominently displayed on top of a wooden pole. It was a short distance to the gate that guards the game farm proper, but the whole routine felt like the introduction to some kind of safari experience. Our convoy was ushered through and we rolled along a road of dirt and wiregrass to the camp site, with Wayne chugging ahead of us.
After unhitching the trailer, we were gathered into a circle where the seasoned game farmer delivered an inspiring speech, the thrust of which was: this was to be real camping, we were going to be taught practical skills, and we just might have a fun time doing it. So far so good. We received a very short tour of the campsite from Mr Vos.
"You can get your water from the river", he told us, "and you can wash yourself there. Now..." He paused and frowned for a moment, working out the schedule in his head. "Yes, let me quickly show you guys the toilet".
He led us to a long drop barely concealed by bushes and a green plastic screen. After doing our business, he explained, we were to draw some water out of a bucket and use it to wash our hands. This part he demonstrated using a rusty beans tin with holes in the bottom and an ancient piece of green soap (which looked it could use a wash itself). A few hearts in the group sank. At least the long drop had a seat, I thought. "Someone will need to keep this bucket filled with water, or people won't be happy," Wayne cautioned. "Who wants to go fill up?"
After some trial and error we had our tents up, judiciously placed to keep us mostly in the shade (and upwind of the toilets, as per Wayne's sage advice). The rest of that first afternoon was spent on a short hike into the hills. On the side of a steep and rocky path we paused while Wayne pressed upon us the importance of hydration.
"How long can a person go without water?" he quizzed us. "Maybe three days in temperate conditions. When it's hot, it's less than that".
Wayne also proved very knowledgeable about his land. With the confidence of a botanist he introduced to various indigenous plants: acacia, catthorn (watch out for this one), finger grass (the juicy stems are fine to chew on), impepho (pungent and soothingly herbal) and trees bearing fruits with a taste and texture pleasingly similar to wild dates. Being a botany student, I wanted to learn as many plant names as I could cram in, and Wayne patiently obliged. By the time we got back to the camp site, dusk was upon us – it was time to make a fire. Everyone was given a small task – gather sticks and tinder, get a little flame going, whittle down a couple of long beating branches in case that little flame gets out of control – and it wasn't long before we were warm and humming impatiently around our slow-cooking boeries (or in my case, a veggie imitation).
I was pleased to find that camping at Craig Doone was not difficult, more of an educational holiday than a crash course in bush survival. Every day there were new activities for us to do, each of which was intended to teach us outdoor knowledge and practical skills, but the day was not crammed full – we still had our fair share of time to enjoy the location. The air was fresh, full of the quiet sounds of nature, and in it we felt relaxed and unhurried. At night we passed the time after supper playing games around the fire, and the adventurous went exploring in the dark in search of animals big and small.
Speaking of animals: if I have one regret about the expedition, it's that we saw so little big game. Shy impala were sighted at squinting distance, and a troop of baboons made a surprise appearance at one point, but my most memorable animal encounter had to have been with a pair of Mr Vos's cows. Some of us were more lucky; at the break of dawn on Saturday, one of my botany classmates spotted a spotted hyena (pun unavoidable). The animal appeared utterly uninterested in our small party of humans and wandered off, she reported.
Thus alerted to any sign of grinning beasties lurking in the bushes, I had a "wilderness shower": squatting in the buff over a narrow, chilly stream while I ladled tolerably cold water over my head with my coffee cup. Our first breakfast was over the fire: reheated wors, toast a la braai, and corn flakes. It was going to be a blistering day, that kind where failing to put on sunscreen seems not just careless but suicidal. I don't think this is that much of an exaggeration; it was barely 9 A.M. and the LED on the solar-powered lamp I brought along was blinking fast as a heartbeat before I had even taken it out of the tent. What's for sure is that we all heeded Wayne's advice about staying hydrated that day. This was the day that Barry, the first-aid trainer, joined us. Before we dealt with any broken bones, however, Wayne literally showed us the ropes. Knot-tying is an important skill, and we got five types of knots under our belts in under an hour. If I ever go overboard at sea and have to tie a Sailor's Knot in eight seconds for my crewmates to save my bacon, I am prepared.
Sheltered under the forest canopy by the upper reaches of a mountain stream, Wayne gave us a Scouts' talk, instructing us on how to be prepared for any emergency. We got plenty of advice on snakes: the different kinds of snakes and their venom, how to react when confronted by a cobra, and how to survive a snakebite. He opened up his pack and showed us what we ought to be carrying out in the field. First-aid kit. Flares. Pocket knife. A magnesium block for starting fires in wet weather. Have a compass on you, he said, or better yet, a GPS. (Not that we couldn't make do without those – he also taught us how to orientate using the rising sun and how to find true North using nothing but a circle drawn in the dirt and two sticks. Now that's Scouts stuff.)
Thus primed, we were led down the mountain to begin our real first-aid training with Barry. It was a riveting experience: over the course of the lesson the masters' students were covered in blood and scrapes, impaled through the hand with thorns, and had venomous snakes thrown at them. Of course, Barry – a believer in the educational value of theatrics – did not abuse the students as much as my description may suggest. The gory parts were accomplished with food dye and corn syrup, fake tattoos, and rubber cobras. We were not just entertained, but got to practice the essential uses of a bandage – rolling a "doughnut" to secure protruding objects and broken bones, putting a broken arm in a sling, splinting a broken leg, and (I hope I never have to do it) applying a tourniquet to stop someone from bleeding out. The most important advice we received, however, was what our first reactions should be in a medical emergency. Keep your head. Call emergency services if possible. Always check for hazards to yourself lest you try to help an injured person and end up injured yourself. And remember a certain grain-based acronym that applies to most injuries ("RICE", which stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation). I was also surprised to learn that calling 911 works in South Africa, but only because it redirects to the national ambulance number, 112. It's nice to think that our medical services are so considerate that they even made provision for Americans in distress.
Now that I had no excuse for not springing into action should somone trips and break their clavicle, I felt that much more capable. One beautiful sunrise and one wilderness shower later – our last morning at Craig Doone – we added another handy-capable skill to our repertoire by learning how to replace a car tire. It must have been a long weekend for us, since no one exactly jumped to be the first to get under Wayne's bakkie and jack it up. It took about forty minutes and ten of us working by turns, but we did eventually get it done. One of the zoology students, evidently an experienced car mechanic already, demonstrated a low-effort technique for manipulating a tire: sit on your bum and use your feet. I wish he had shown us that little trick before I bent my back into an acute angle trying to pull a twenty-centimetre-thick tire off a mud-encrusted wheel.
Wayne had enough confidence in our tire-changing job to drive the entire party in the bakkie and trailer straight to "the beach". To our disappointment, "the beach" was more of a trickle with narrow, sandy banks and dead wattle piled a metre high on each side. Formerly several metres higher at ground level, it had been scoured down to the bedrock in places by a flood several years before. There we had one more botanical lesson on invasive plants and the logistical impossibility of farmers getting rid of them.
"If I were to pay someone to remove all of the invasive plants this year," Wayne said, indicating to the river's still wattle-infested banks, "I would have to sell the farm the next year. And by the third year the plants come back." He shrugged. "So what can you do?"
To cap off our stay, Wayne and Charles-Frances kindly invited us for a dip in the pool at their farmhouse. Of course, we had to earn it by changing another tire first (for those who hadn't jumped in the first time – fine by me, because I was thoroughly pooped by then).
Even as I was plucking the thorns out of my feet with tweezers, waiting for the bus, I decided that I wouldn't have minded staying in the bush twice as long. At fifty rand per person per night, I don't see why I wouldn't come back for a reprieve from the postgraduate workload. Maybe I will finally see a hyena – or step on a real snake, and find out how much of that first-aid drill I really remember.