We were in the Tuli block near to where the countries of Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa join in a single point. We had three ways to cross the Limpopo. We could get on the back of a 4×4 Unimog, take a mechanically operated cable car or wade across the hip-deep water.
The guide who volunteered these options assured me that he had used the wading option several times himself that day, but it seemed to be risky. You don’t need to know too much about the Limpopo in these parts to know that it is home to large and dangerous crocodiles.
We took the cable car and cycled a few kilometres to an airstrip in the Mashatu Game Reserve where a tented camp had been set up.
We met the rest of our riding group of 12 people. Our tour leader, Howard Kelly, farms crocodiles and serves as a country representative on an international panel that studies the reptiles.
He said he’d be happy to wade through the Limpopo at this point, the crossing at Pontdrift, because crocs do not like the disturbance of vehicular traffic and move away.
But Jeanetta Selier, also in our group and a Tuli resident for 10 years, noted a case in the past few years, not too far from the crossing, when a tourist was taken from a canoe by a crocodile. One moment he was in the canoe with his paddling partner, the next he was gone.
Letting it ride: Cyclists enjoy the African sunshine, but keep a wary eye for straying jumbos
We were in Mashatu for the Tour de Tuli, an annual bicycle tour traversing three countries: South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. The event, which is a ride, not a race, there being no winner, is organised by JSE-listed Wilderness Safaris as a fund-raising venture for Children in the Wilderness, which runs educational programmes for children who live in areas adjoining reserves.
I had previously done the Tour de Kruger, mostly riding in Mozambique, but it was only while speaking to Selier that I fully realised what I had signed up for. The area is home to 1 400 elephants. We would be riding with them.
In the Tour de Kruger we cycled in groups accompanied by a Land Rover. This time there was no support vehicle. The two group leaders each carried a bear banger, a sort of outsized pen that makes a terrific noise when discharged.
Up to 400 cyclists participated in the tour, leaving in batches and over two days to maximise game-viewing opportunities. There were support vehicles that we encountered along the way, such as at tea and brunch spots and check points. These vehicles would come to our assistance if the worst happened, but in general each group was on its own.
That night, under a massive Botswana sky, the jackals cried and, in the early hours, hyenas whooped. Someone said he heard a lion roar, but in the distance.
The groups left at 10-minute intervals. We were the last to leave. We saw a large herd of impala, zebra, wildebeest, warthog, eland and giraffe, but no elephants.
Our strategy was to do not much more than stick together and keep quiet, but we were pretty hopeless at the latter.
At the tea stop we heard that group 14, one ahead, had seen an elephant charge members of another group ahead of it.
Tea was fruit cake, biscuits, energy bars, tea or coffee and cold drinks. We cycled to the brunch stop; a wrap or sandwich with a choice of two meats and one veggie filling, salads and cold drinks. The consensus was that even though we were cycling more than 60km a day on average, we would put on weight during the tour.
After lunch Kelly warned that we were entering a section in which both people and elephants live and where the elephants were known to be troublesome, perhaps more skittish because of the human habitation.
The border post between Botswana and Zimbabwe
We cycled along dusty roads in the afternoon sun. About 150m ahead a group had stopped because there were elephants near the road. To our right, in the bush about 80m from us, an elephant spotted us. It waved its ears but did not move closer.
Then a large elephant emerged from the bush ahead and charged a female cyclist who had been separated from the rest of the group. The animal bellowed and kicked up a cloud of dust.
Most of the cyclists pedalled furiously down the road, but the lone rider came back towards us, making very slow progress in thick sand as she tried to get away from the trumpeting giant. As the elephant turned we saw two youngsters with it.
More riders arrived and there was some discussion over walkie-talkies. Selier, who is completing a doctorate on elephant behaviour, took charge. We would ride between the 4x4s. As we rode down the road we saw that the elephants had gone.
That night the campsite near the dry Motloutse River was abuzz with stories of encounters with elephants. One group found itself surrounded by elephants on three sides, one of which ran at them from 30m, with cyclists, led by a television cameraman, scrambling in all directions into the bush.
At 10m, so close that you could see the bugs on its eyelashes, according to group co-leader Gary Green, the elephant pulled up. Group leader, Pete le Roux, an experienced ranger from these parts, stood his ground, staring down the elephant and averting the threat.
The next morning Kelly gave us new instructions. We would stay together in the event of an elephant incident and not break ranks. We’d also stare the animals down.
Most charges are mock, Selier told us. Male elephants are the really dangerous ones and usually only when they are in musth; the male equivalent of being “in season”. It can happen at any time of the year, but mostly when females are in oestrous, during the wet season.
If you were wondering, it was now the dry season.
We came across a large herd of elephants feeding in a mopane forest. A Land Rover escorted us through.
Selier had told us about the history of the area. Some of the first exchanges between Brit and Boer took place here. The Brits used then Bechuanaland to launch hostilities against the Boers.
We camped near Fort Tuli on night three, the site from which the ill-fated Jameson raid was launched.
A tented camp was put up in the Shashe’s massive river bed. In ancient times this was a mighty river, Le Roux said. The Zambezi flowed into the giant Makgadigadi inland sea and emptied via the Shashe into the Limpopo.
The Shashe can still fill up when there are very good rains, but for much of the year it is all but empty.
Tuli toyi: Locals teach the cyclists some moves
Our days folded happily into one another as we crossed what has become a giant transfrontier park. Special border posts were set up for us to cross from Botswana into Zimbabwe and into South Africa.
On day four we crossed the Limpopo at one of these posts, just a few officials sitting at a table on the sandy banks of the river. We sang Waka Waka it is time for Africa with the border officials and waded through the refreshing grey-green greasy Limpopo, to use Kipling’s description.
Across the river we came to Mapungubwe, one of our newest reserves and home to the ancient treasure that is the little golden rhino. We had sundowners that night overlooking the confluence of the Shashe and the Limpopo, one of my favourite places anywhere to watch the day end.
The Tour de Tuli masquerades as a bike tour, but is really just a non-stop rave. Expect most of this year’s riders to return next year.