Please find the overview of my Garden Route trip here.
All the excitement of the morning did not mean the end of the animal fun for the day. Our next stop in the heart of the Klein Karoo was Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of the world. Oudtshoorn is famous for its many ostrich farms, with a population of over 200,000 ostriches and accounting for 80% of the world’s ostrich products, and we were visiting one of these farms to check out the ostriches from up close. Ostriches are of course the world’s largest bird and are known for their inability to fly. Ostrich farming is big business: historically their feathers were an extremely valuable commodity, rivaling the price of diamonds on a per kilogram basis, but also their leather, which is the strongest commercial leather in existance, and their meat, as I had experienced a few hours earlier, are means of revenue.
An eccentric ostrich farmer gave us a tour of his farm, including ripping some feathers from an ostrich (this does not hurt them, it is like trimming your nails) and letting us hold a baby ostrich. Although it is only a myth that ostriches put their head in the ground to escape danger, these birds are still quite stupid with a limited brain volume. For example one of the ostriches was continuously pecking at the farmer’s pants, even though a few tries should have learned her that jeans are not particularly edible. The farmer said that they are too dumb to realize this, and that the ostrich might indefinitely continue to try pecking his pants if he let her have her way.
After learning all kinds of ostrich trivia during the tour things got even more interesting when we got offered the chance to ride an ostrich! Ostriches actually used to be ridden in ancient times all over Africa and Asia, and this tradition was also practiced among the native people of South Africa. The farmer showed us how to hold the ostrich’s wings for support and steering, and invited the daredevils among us to saddle up. Only a few people felt up to the task, but I definitely wanted to have a go. As befits real gentlemen the farmer and his aides would run along the ostrich to stabilize the female riders, but the guys were left to fend for themselves, much to the delight of the audience as none of us fared particularly well. I got up on the ostrich and tried to settle my weight and hold on tight. However, after the farmer and his aides had spurred the ostrich on with a slap on its rump, my weight quickly shifted too far forward and I got thrown off within seconds. I fell sideways on my elbow resulting in a nice abrasion nestled snugly next to a paintball bruise. To make matters worse, when trying to break my fall with my hand I landed in some ostrich shit. The abrasion was not too bad though, and the garden hose took care of the shit. After having seen us struggling and having some entertainment at our expense, the farm aides gave an example of how it should be done and held a little ostrich race around the farm.
Giddy-up!
After the excitement of the ostrich riding there was another surprise waiting for us at the farm: two giraffes! These young giraffes, an unrelated male and female, were cast out by their mothers and the farmer is nurturing them to release them back into the wild once they become old enough to fend for themselves. For a small fee we were allowed to feed the giraffes milk from a bottle. Once called the giraffes quickly appeared from between the trees and went straight for the bottle. When holding the bottle we had to make sure to stand firm as the giraffes would push quite forcefully forward to drink as fast as possible. While one person was holding the bottle and feeding a giraffe the other people were allowed to pet them from the sides. We were instructed to always stay at the sides of the giraffes as they can only kick forwards and backwards, as one of them actually did at a given point, barely missing the person that was holding the bottle. After the giraffes had both competed for the final drops of milk the male one’s hormones started playing up and the farmer smoothly ushered us to safety behind the fences.
Gimme gimme gimme!
What a day we had! After all that excitement we returned to the hostel in Sedgefield to get a good night’s rest, as the following day would again be action-packed.