Embracing the real forest
When last have you hugged a tree - in a real forest? Unless you're strolling with the Prince of Wales, such shows of offbeat affection are best done when there's no-one else around, I always thought.
But in the end - after checking if I was alone - I could not resist giving the 100-year-old "Hugging Tree" in the Woodbush Forest at Kurisa Moya a gentle, little embrace.
After all, Lisa Martus - co-owner of the eco-lodge near Polokwane - had urged in her notes for the forest's self-guided trail: "This tree has the perfect shape for you to lean against and hug.
"This will ground all your energies as you commune with this old forest inhabitant. Come on, try it!"
With personal energies now well and truly grounded, it was time to explore the rest of this rare Afro-Montane forest. It's cupped by two mountains and to reach it, I had accidentally wandered through a pine plantation - and unintentionally experienced the difference between indigenous forest and exotic, alien plantation. The pines, as picturesque as they may be in a frosty Canadian setting, here seemed out of place, and devoid of habitation.
Eerily silent, too; only the sound of my footsteps, dampened by the thick blanket of pine needles.
But the moment I hiked into the indigenous forest, the environment changed. There was life.
The Afro-Montane forest is one of the most endangered habitats in southern Africa, covering only 0,47 percent of the region's surface area. This is a complete, self-sustaining habitat where each component relies and supports every other.
For a forest to have reached the state of Woodbush, will have taken hundreds of years. Alone, in the perpetual shade and serenity of the forest, I felt humbled.
It's the kind of setting where you'd expect Tarzan. The proliferation of forest vines - twining stems of forest creeper spread all over the canopy, and hanging from the branches of the trees - sometimes assumed eerie proportions.
The amazing spaghetti vines would, for example, conjure up a hangman's noose; while loose pieces on the ground, sometimes looked just like sleeping puffadders. The presence of a lot of vines apparently shows that a forest is mature, and has not been disturbed. Woodbush certainly passes this test.
Another forest habitant, the strangler fig, would also not be out of place in a scary movie sequence. The fig's seeds, deposited on other trees by birds, germinate and send out long roots into the soil below.
I tried, in vain, to see the top of a towering Outeniqua yellowwood tree, the tallest indigenous tree in the forest. The presence of yellowwoods in the forest many years ago attracted the forestry industry, and on the trail you can still see the remains of a saw pit.
At the turn of the 19th century, hardwood trees - such as yellow- or stinkwood - were felled in the forest by loggers, using a pit dug under the trunk of a fallen tree. One logger would saw astride the trunk, while the other sawed from the pit below to produce planks for the fast-growing city of gold, Johannesburg.
Yellowwood trees - which can grow as high as 60 metres - play an important environmental part. Their dense crowns provide shelter for Knysna louries (now renamed the Knysna Turaco, better get used to it), raptors, and are also nesting sites and food for the endangered Cape parrot.
It was, in fact, the loss of so many yellowwoods that put the Cape Parrot on the danger list in the first place. The green cloth around the trunk before me showed that lichen is also partial to yellowwoods.
Throughout the forest there are orchids, ferns and mosses growing on the stems of the trees. These plants absorb all the water they need from the air, which is why mist and rainfall are so important in the forest. The long grey-green, thread-like moss that hangs from branches looked like scraggly hair.
No wonder it has become known as "Old Man's Beard".
You can experience the wonder of the plane tree - or all plant life, for that matter - without having to hug, but you have to touch.
I placed my hand on the trunk of the plane tree, and the tree felt strangely cold on a warm spring morning. This type of tree has an exceptionally thin layer of bark and the coldness of the trunk is caused by the water the tree is busy absorbing from the earth below. It stays at a constant 15 to 17oC.
One tends to forget that a Highveld garden favourite, the clivia or bush lily, grows wild in South Africa. Next to a babbling stream, I found a clump of clivias growing in the hollowed surface of a huge boulder in the forest, others apparently grow even in the fork of trees.
Then, the highlight of the forest walk: the amazing cabbage, or kiepersol, tree. The folks at Kurisa Moya believe this kiepersol must be the biggest in the country, if not the world. The tree measures a staggering 8,5m in circumference at chest level, compared to the norm of 2m.
It's an awesome, formidable tree that's been around longer than any human on earth today. Lisa says the name "kiepersol" came from the Anglo-Boer War.
The Brits, retreating from the Boers, apparently hid up such a tree and wondered "will it keep us all?"… and also wondered "will it keep our souls?" True?
Who knows … Lisa has such a wicked sense of humour.
