Page 12 - The Villager July 2021

Travel

Kruger Shalati:

the train on the Bridge

By JAMES CLARKE AND MARy BROADLEy

It rates as South Africa’s most unusual hotel or Lake Panic’s famous bird hide,
– not that a stranger would recognise it as a hotel. 10minutes’ drive away.
In the hazy distance to the west,
one can watch spectacular sunsets
t’s a specially designed train and it over on the bridge than by the journey. over the kilometre-high Drakensberg
stands, permanently, on the century- People hankered for a chance to stay down Escarpment while, to the east, one can
Iold Selati Railway Bridge downstream below in a camp among the giant riverine see the crest of the Lebombo Mountains
from Skukuza, Kruger National Park’s main trees with the night-time roar of lions and on the Mozambique border stretching
rest camp. Despite the precipitous fall-off the cackle of hyenas. This spurred the 1926 southwards to eSwatini (formerly
in overseas visitors caused by the COVID declaration of Kruger National Park and Swaziland) and Zululand.
pandemic, ‘The Train on the Bridge’ is open the development of its first rest camp – At the end of the Boer War, there was
to guests. Skukuza. uncontrolled hunting along the Sabie
The stone-pillared bridge spanning Having known the landmark bridge and the government called in a Scot,
the Sabie River provides an evocative link for most of my life, I was anxious to Lieutenant-colonel James Stevenson-
between the Kruger Park and its 19th see the train and with photographer, Hamilton, to stop the killing which,
century beginnings. The bridge was built Mary Broadley, we went to Skukuza’s incredibly, he did. A quarter-century later,
in 1893 to accommodate a railway loop revamped Selati railway station and were he became the first warden when the
from the main Delagoa Bay - Pretoria line cheerfully greeted, though, because region was proclaimed as a national park.
and was hastily planned to carry goods guests were occupying the train, we I met him on his 90th birthday and heard
and labour up to the mountain ridge could not enter the ‘carriages’ but were first-hand how he took control.
beyond Gravelotte where a gold rush was taken up to the bridge. Each carriage is He was called ‘Skukuza’ by the local
causing great excitement. But the rush an en-suite apartment with a glass wall people. One interpretation of his name is:
quickly fizzled out and investors, including allowing guests to either sit in armchairs ‘the man who turned everything upside
the British government, lost millions. or lie in bed observing the elephants down’. Fair enough. But some historians
The Selati railway became a line to bathing and watching the ever-present believe the name given to him by the
nowhere. fish eagles patrolling the river. tribe living there and who, for centuries,
In the 1920s, it was re-opened to offer On the south side of the carriages, guests had freely hunted using bows and
tourists a nine-day railway tour of the can stroll along the bridge’s walkway arrows, spears and, later, rifles, was less
Lowveld which included a night on the or lean against the railing watching for complimentary. Their translation was ‘the
bridge looking down at the wildlife of the whatever might be moving about down man who wrecks everything’.
Sabie and experiencing the night sounds, below. Their descendants are, nowadays,
and spotting game as the sun rose. For a birder, this alone was a thrill conservationists and form most of
The government soon realised that and I now wonder which is the better the team that manages the Train
tourists were more entranced by the stop- birding vantage point – Selati Bridge on the Bridge. They also patrol the

10 • Issue 7 2021 • The Villager