No Cheetah

There was another interesting lesson (re)learnt on this last trip into the African bush - the realisation that nature is bigger than all of us and can't be co-ordinated or orchestrated to meet our (immediate gratification) needs.

This of course includes not getting to see the cheetah we were sure we were going to see...

The reserve we were visiting had introduced cheetah from a breeding programme. The cheetahs were habituated to humans - which meant that there was a strong likelihood of seeing them... and our expectations were high.

But nature planned to teach impetuous and somewhat demanding journalists a lesson that involved expressly not meeting their expectations or demands.

A week before we arrived at the reserve the lionesses killed one of the cheetah pair. This disrupted the normal pattern and movement of the now lonely and pining cheetah - and he remained elusive and well hidden.

Journalists on assignment can be a rather arrogant and demanding bunch (taking deadlines and editor's demands too seriously can to this to the nicest of people) and not wanting to insist that the reserve change its policy and use telemetry to track the cheetah we took the opening presented by contact with the neighbouring farm...

And there we were the next day, driving around 8,000, hectares in the baking African sun trying to track the pair of male cheetahs on the neighbouring farm.

We went to the spot where they were last sighted. Put up the telemetry equipment but found no signal.

We drove on and tried again. And again.

We saw rhino, giraffe, zebra, leopard tortoise, dung beetles, hornbills... but the cheetahs who were tracked daily by telemetry remained invisible - there was not one blip on the radar so to speak.

We eventually retreated to nurse our frustrations while attending other events on a tight media schedule - only to learn that the original cheetah on the first farm was sighted while we were out chasing a sighting of the other cheetah...

A wonderful (if frustrating) lesson. You can't control nature, or people; and it is possible to try too hard to achieve something that would come naturally if only you would relax and go with the flow...

I'm sure you are wondering about the final outcome...

The pair we were tracking were found late in the afternoon, resting in a shady valley where the signal could not be picked up; but there was not time nor opportunity to go back there.

We had another two days on the original reserve,and the lone cheetah was not spotted again while we were there... and we did try (when will I learn?).

I've often wondered if one sees more on a game drive bouncing around on rough roads through the bush, following fresh spoor... or sitting still and quietly letting nature unfold in front of you...

There's the thrill of the chase (almost satisfying a hunting type urge) in a game drive, and a sense of doing and trying which is appealing - and you probably do see more of the larger species... but you miss so much by not sitting still and letting the world reveal itself in layers to you.

Life can be frustrating; or a lesson... and I think there is a fine line between chasing a goal (too hard) and steering the course of your life in a chosen direction. Perhaps all that is needed is to know yourself and follow your heart - which is a whole lot easier said than done (given societal expectations and conditioning) - especially on a media trip.