Sign of a Lifetime. Leica M2, Leitz Summaron 35mm

There is a farm in South Africa that breeds Nile crocodiles… What could possibly go wrong? Eighty or so juvenile crocs escaped and headed for the nearby river. There have been intensive efforts on the part of wildlife management to round up the escapees, but there are still some out there on the lam. When The Great Escape happened, the crocs were about four to five feet in length. Several months have gone by and they’re no longer four to five feet. People like to camp by that river, and swim in its sweet waters. There’s a problem.

The subject triggered a memory: It was May, 1989. I was journeying around South Africa with a companion, and spent a couple of nights at an exquisitely unspoiled spot at the mouth of the Umfolozi River in South Africa’s far northern Zululand – now KwaZulu-Natal -. I think that this is the remotest spot on our planet to which I have traveled. Ten miles can take one to a different galaxy.
If one travels north on the N2 National Road almost as far as one could go before crossing the border into Mozambique, one comes to a crossroads at the tiny settlement of Kwambonambi. And once one has gassed up the car, and visited the local booze store, one sets off on a track – barely -, winding through the thick vegetation, undulating across and between sand dunes, until one reaches the Indian Ocean about ten miles to the east. The track really demands a 4x4 vehicle, but somehow we got there in a stick shift, rear-wheel drive 1300cc Toyota Corolla. There, at the mouth of the Umfolozi River, at a spot long treasured and guarded jealously by the fishing crowd, the KwaZulu-Natal Parks Board has built several log cabins which can be rented if one makes a reservation many months in advance. The only electricity is provided by a generator which is shut off at 9:00pm. I had read an article about this magical place, Mapelane, in the Johannesburg newspaper, and made a decision then and there that I had to visit it.
I have the original negatives of the photographs I took all those years ago. A few days ago I scanned them, and have brought this magical spot to life again.