Forgotten places

I have just returned from a few days down the South coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal. I enjoy it there, the seas, beaches, lagoons and rivers are places I often frequented in my youth. There is something about land and water when they meet, that line of beauty that roars with the thunderous rhythm of the waves. The rivers open to the white saline tides that push themselves inland. The lagoon, tepid warm where Legavaans (monitor lizard) wink at you as they warm their cold blooded bodies on hot baking stones. To drift up river is to journey to another land, an explorer of old discovering new and exotic life forms. How bizarre to feel an innate fear grip you when floating in uncharted brown muddied waters beneath the canopies of well branched trees. To watch the mullet skip on top of the water afraid of what lurks below. The Cicada’s (Christmas beetle in the R.S.A) rich, shrill music beating the thick humid air. Something sounds in the bushes, I cannot see. These places of natural wonder, our earth, our sea.