By Bruce Fordyce
“Ex semper aliquid novi”. Writing in his book on natural history 2300 years ago Aristotle observed that there is always something new and surprising coming out of Africa.
This proved to be the case at our Christmas Eve parkrun at Delta Park Johannesburg. A parkrun is a free organised 5km run around a park. The concept was started in the UK by a South African, Paul Sinton –Hewitt a few years ago. There are currently 117 parkruns scattered around the World and about 25000 registered parkrunners. Delta Park is the first parkrun in South Africa.
On 24th December a festive group of runners dressed in Christmas gear welcomed some visitors from the U.K. and the De Charmoy family, Noel, Lian and Kelly from Auckland New Zealand. Noel and I are old friends and he used to second me in the Comrades before emigrating to New Zealand. Noel ran a 6:50 Comrades marathon back in 1978.
After the welcomes the parkrun was started and we set off to run the hilly 5 kilometres around Delta Park.
Perhaps Aristotle was correct or perhaps it’s because we South Africans are still bitter about the rugby World Cup but we somehow contrived to welcome our All Black friends by planting a large Rinkhals (spitting Cobra) in the first 300 metres of open grassland. A few minutes after we had set off Kelly hobbled back with a bite above her ankle.
Kelly was rushed off to hospital where she was treated and discharged a couple of hours later. It seems the Rinkhals only caught her a glancing sideways blow and may not have injected any poison into her leg. We were also told that in many cases venomous snakes are reluctant to exhaust their precious reserves of poison preferring to save venom for their prey. In other words they often bite without expelling poison. The Rinkhals much prefers fat rats, toads and other snakes to skinny kiwis.
Today Kelly is fully recovered and she has an amazing story with which to entertain friends for the rest of her life. (Incidentally there are no land snakes in New Zealand)
That’s Africa for you. Aristotle was correct. Interesting things happen in Africa. Kelly’s snake adventure reminded me of the Madikwe Mambas runner who had to seek refuge up a tree when three lions suddenly took an interest in her while she was on a training run in the reserve. I also recall Zola (Pieterse ) Budd having to scale a tree on Naval Hill in Bloemfontein when a male Ostrich took a dislike to her.
I wonder what similar incidents the Runner’s World runners can relate. They could make fascinating reading!
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