#2: [09-Jan-04]

07-Jul-2002 -- When leaving home on Sunday morning 7 July, it was with the hope to assist with finding a Confluence, my first one I might add; my companions where my husband Heinz and his colleague, Walter. I worked with the road map and Walter with the GPS. Our intention was to locate and map Confluence 24S 28E that is situated in South Africa in the Waterberg mountain range, approx. 200 km northwest of Johannesburg and approx. 50 km southeast of Ellisras. I must add, that the Confluence was located next to the R33, being the main road to Ellisras, which is the through-road to Botswana, thus an easy target on first sight.

But when we came nearer to the "point", we realized that it will be behind a fenced private property and we might have to climb a fence to get there. Our hearts sank, when we realized that this was hunting terrain and the area was littered with so-called game fences, insurmountable obstacles, over 2 m high and electrically charged. But lo and behold, when we approached the "point", the barrage of fences suddenly lifted, giving way to a common farm fence, which was made of barbed wire and we were able to find a loose spot that we could lift up and crawl through.

Once behind the fence, we established that the Confluence was only 400 m to the East from were we stood. The area was grassy, flat and littered with small trees and scrub, which grew in hard, baked clayey soil. Fairly sized termite mounds interrupted the monotony of the otherwise featureless plain and a few of the trees stuck out with conspicuous evergreen splendour in the otherwise dusty wintry landscape. We stumbled into the scrub cross-country. The ground was littered with burrows of all sizes, giving away the secret of an abundant wild life to the observer and we tried to make guesses of which animals would sleep the day away in the safety of their burrows. In less than 15 minutes we were able to locate the Confluence 24S 28E and proceeded with the mapping, taking photos of GPS and surroundings, which we attach herewith.