Page 40 - Waterfall Issue 8 2021
P. 40

Waterfall Travel
























           kRUGER sHALATi:

           THE TRAin on THE BRiDGE





                                                By James Clarke and Mary Broadley


        It rates as South Africa’s most unusual hotel –                         walkway or lean against the railing
                                                                                watching for whatever might be
        not that a stranger would recognise it as a hotel.                      moving about down below.
       i   t’s a specially designed train and   Sabie and experiencing the night sounds,   For a birder, this alone was a thrill

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


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