Ostrich Capital of the World


Oudtshoorn, 14th of August 2018 – ‘Ostrich Capital of the World’ is what you read in guidebooks about Oudtshoorn. Indeed, approaching the town we see more and more ostriches on each side of the road. There are show farms everywhere. Oudtshoorn used to supply most of the ostrich feathers to fashion houses all over the world. When the feather vogue was over, the farmers had to rethink their business. Today tourists watch these big birds in shows, their meat is low-cholesterol and from their eggshell they make beautiful things. Check out the African gift website of www.avoova.com . We decide not to go to a show farm and move to ‘Buffelsdrift’, a resort with tents around a pond in the middle of a private game reserve. ‘Thanks Romina and Wim for the tip’. From your luxurious tent, pitched high over a two-metre wall, you are virtually on the stage! In and around the pond it is teeming with wild animals. Antelope, elephants and hippos. By sundown, we see the hippos move out of the water and walk into the bush to graze. During the night they roar, fart and snore… we can hear that from our tent. Waking up is fun, the birds sing like in Belgium, but their chant is completely different and make it clear you are in Africa. I zip open the tent and see the hippos are back, their heads half under water. What would you do if the Lord had blessed you with a head like that? After breakfast, we take a two-hour tour in the game reserve together with an Austrian-Iranian couple with their daughters. Too clever for their age and bombarding their father with questions. The ranger who drives the jeep is Llewellyn Okkers, like our Belgian cyclist hero Stan Okkers. The sunny sky is aqua blue but the blankets in the jeep are essential… when Llewellyn tells us everything about aloe vera, we spot a rhino lying behind some shrubs, a huge animal and very close to us. He is not as impressed as we are and does not move an inch. At the end of the tour we park next to a family of meerkats, they are on the outlook, pretend not to see us but run into their holes when the ranger restarts the car.

Fast food for predators, so always on watch (FDC)

Slowly on the driveway (FDC)


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