BETWEEN A PALLET AND A HARD PLACE

Enter Pallet Land in the bizarre universe of hovering cuboids. 

Here, great monoliths float around low to the ground to meet and stand side by side in rows as one unified monument. A monument to the export of labeled packaging that just so happens to have perishable products inside them.

In this world the Pallet Gods rain down great vengeance and furious anger upon the irreverent servant who inaccurately describes the content of said pallet. 

When one of these monoliths topples, every demographic scurries to rectify the pallet lest the prophicised pale horse apocalypse befalls those who disobey. The community chastises the one responsible for damaging a pallet's integrity for such an offence is a cardinal sin. Harsh public humiliations pursue details left asunder.

Every man, woman and bombdog strain under the yoke of grinding whatever grist the mill requires to retard the inevitable decay of a pallet - burning the fat off their souls in the process.

I have come to appreciate these silent giants. They tell stories. Some proudly display the scars of their travels. Others brag pristinely before the long voyage beyond the equator - yet to endure abrasions and knocks the future may or may not afflict them. Some are maimed and tired midway. Lemons in A15C's from the outset slouch at the prospect of the ordeal ahead. Some half finished pallets mold in their delay never seeing the light of day to begin with - never being issued an ID.

The most magnificent of all would be Blueberries in 3.6kg bulk trays. 

Seafreight towering majestically over their zippy airfreight counterpart. Both beautiful nonetheless. 

Come Blueberry season my job is to go out ahead of the quality team to assess pallets on stock in a coldstore. A defect recon of sorts - I report my findings to the appropriate department involved. They will then prioritize and execute their strategies based on these findings. I inspect every pallet across 5 rooms adding up to roughly 2300 m2 of floor space. 

This facility boasts a tempo of 300 tons every 48 hours.

After checking pallet base and labels I cut a few straps to be able to lift the pallet cap and have a gander at the fruit underneath.

Some use a box cutter for this but my preferred tool for the task is a trusty old CRKT BEAR CLAW designed by Russ Kommer for the Alaskan Search and Rescue community. The concave cutting edge, combined with an index finger hole, ensures efficient slicing capability through ropes, slings and straps.

Someone put shame on their family by dishonoring the blade though. They had broken 6mm of the tip clean off. With my limited experience in knife making using the stock removal technique I reshaped it into what is now effectionately referred to as the CAT CLAW.

Cutting pallet straps under tension requires some foresight as to where the loaded article might project. I do not recommend a sprung buckle to the nut in 0 - 3°C + wind. Elroy the Don took one to the eye which is now permanently disfigured.

Around the time the steel tips of my safety boots start burning my toes and the cold from the aluminum ladder cuts through my freezer pants my mind tends to drift toward warmer days.

Like this one time midwinter in the Gamtoos. 

My bivi buddy, The Ranger, insisted on a site that had the properties we pre-approved through strict specifications. A magnificent location in the upper region of tidal influence on the Gamtoos river. 

We set minimum standards to adhere to and we complied. What we failed to account for was a super-moon that night and consiquently it's tidal affect. A trickle of water down my neck early the morning alerted us to the fact that we had officialy bivouacced below sealevel. 

Through our travail we graduated that day, elevaitng our status from Mere Bafoon...

... to Riet Rot!

Thoughts fading back to Pallet Land... I had to use my brain again. A specific pallet required a human. Bowed in obedience before it I fumbled through windblown documents on a clipboard. My peripheral vision had not yet fully recovered when a cuboid hovered in silently from behind.

I got caught and rolled like dough between the 2 pallets.

Spinning inside the vortex a portal opened to the other side. I merged with the pallets at a molecular level. Chromosomes unknown to science bound to my genetic ladder and their spirit flowed within my blood. 

I have become Pallet Rat.

I am he.

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HOW TO KILL A GAME BIRD WITH A SPEARGUN

This one time I drove out to Cape Infanta before dawn to meet the sunrise over the bay I wanted to spear fish at. Just before crossing the Breede River, for the last time, to follow the final leg of dirt road past Malgas I had a bird strike. I promptly pulled over and recovered the poor pheasant, respectfully placing it in a coolbox I had in the boot of my car. 

Later, arriving in Cape Infanta, I learnt that digital fuel guages have a habit of failing over corrugated dirt roads. I was out of fuel and needed help to get back after my dive. Parked above Ronde Klip, where many years ago I spent a few days chasing a swell to the mythical wave that breaks there, I set out a lookin'.

In search of a local I meat a wandering young dude smoking a thin, pungent, hand rolled cigarette on the beach. "Ja bru, no worries. I'll sort you out with some go-juice. Just come over to my caravan around the bend after you go take a look at the Great White on the rocks." - he said exhaling a giant plume of interstellar-mind-vapour with a shuddering gag reflex.

I walked the couple hundred meters to a rock shelf I knew well and there it lay. Washed up at high tide but decapitated. Two figures stood guard from a grassy rise above with the shark's head resting beside them and with a hook in the corner of it's mouth. From a distance, grinding disks cutting through bricks and hammers pounding steel scored their presence. 

After introductions the two conservationists speculated that fishermen at Skipskop had caught and played the shark to death, then cut the line for the body to drift on the current around the point and tide carried it up the bay. Construction workers near by noticed it at dawn and cut the head off to sell the jaws on the black market. They granted me the privilege to inspect the head at their feet and the carcass below. "Just no photos." - they said.

The razor sharp teeth made a high pitched ring when plucking at them and I had to be careful not to cut my fingers. They were overlapping in rows of acute triangles rolled backed from the front of the jaw and into the pallet inside the mouth gradually decreasing in size. The ampulae of Lorenzini on it's snout where hollow at about 1 - 1.5 or maybe even 2mm in diameter with the jelly like substance inside sunken to a depth of about 10-20mm. At touch, the eyes rolled in their sockets like any other fish but I can not imagine pressing one's thumbs in them would deter this animal from attack. The rims of the eye sockets were as tough as the edge on a steel tumbler. 

Shifting the head on it's side I could see a cross section of it's inner workings. I ran my fingers through the gill rakers. A cluster, hundreds-worth of 1 inch long and 3-4mm in diameter, phallic protrusions in 5 rows a side, lay neatly awaiting to extract oxygen. The gullet felt like the only vulnerable spot on this overwhelmingly rigid beast.

Descending the rise I investigated the carcass. Just absolute evolutionary, apex dominance lay there (albeit headless). It turned out to be female by lack of claspers. The peduncle was wider than it was tall. The trailing edges of the dorsal-, pectotal- and tail fin seemed to have a condensed fibrous texture. Tightly stacked like hair but making up solid blades. The skin and it's resistance seemed concrete. Nowhere on this animal was softer bar the gullet. Pure in it's form. Evidently unique. Whatever this thing decided to consume - it did.

Finding the dude's caravan and knocking respectfully, he opened the door shrouded in a massive extraterrestrial-brain-cloud. A domesticated black crow followed him everywhere while they exchanged compliments that seemingly wafted on clouds of pungent bliss. "Nah, hop in my bakkie real quick, bru. There's a pump in Malgas by the hotel. We'll take this outboard tank and hook you up with some go-juice. Don't stress my bru."

Cleaning the 5 litre tank of rust flakes, I bode farewell to the crow and off we went. Along the drive to Malgas, the dude had many stories to tell accompanied by relentlessly vehement oppinions about scattered topics.

At Malgas' daylight underworld, deep colloquialisms were strung together toward a common result, appreciated for it's unique contribution to an experience but ultimately left behind as a secondary memory. We had Petrol and we weren't abducted by aliens in our pursuit. 

We fueled my car up once we got back and parted ways with thanks. I had unfinished business to attend. So I scoped the dive I had planned from hill above Ronde Klip and committed. Slightly divided in conviction, I swam out past the Great White. Later, over a reef, my mask fogged up and I swam to a nearby pinnacle where I could stand upright, waist deep, above the surface. While spitting on the lense and rubbing it a Humpback whale breached. For the rest of the dive ghostly whoons of whale-song emanating from the great blue beyond reverberated deep within every vesicle of my body. 

After beaching I had absolutely nothing to show for the day. Driving back I nodded off acouple of times behind the wheel and opted to pull over for 40 winks under a roadside Bluegum. Dreaming of the big one that got away, I thought: "At least I got a pheasant for tonight's meal."

...and that's how I killed a game bird with a speargun.

SKULL-CANNON-SAND-CROSS

The Alexandria Dunefield between Colchester and Cannonrocks forms part of a larger dune complex that is the largest ecology of it's kind in the southern hemisphere.

The Sundays river estuary snakes it's way through it on the western end.

The estuary supports all kinds of critters from crustations to popular angling fish species to free roaming big game and impressive bird species like Goliath Heron and Pied Kingfisher.

No one angler is the same and neither are their boats.

A partial whale skull rests in the sand facing the ocean it once inhabited.

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Towards the eastern end of the dunefield, Cannonrocks boasts a set of cannon and an anchor believed to have belonged to a Portuguese merchant vessel.

Beyond Boknesstrand lies another stretch of beach.

For 3km's it leads to a promontory halfway between the Boknes Lagoon and Boesmansriver mouth.

A replica of a Dias padrao at the site of the original, erected in 1488, can be found on the summit. After noticing a northward trend in the coastline, Dias and his officers concluded that they had successfully rounded the Southern tip of Africa and decided to head back to Portugal from here. This effectively opened the route to the East for Vasco da Gama and is considered the oldest European monument in South Africa.

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PIONEER & CLIMAX

During a 3 month bivvy streak in the upper reaches of the Gamtoos wilderness I spent a lot of time collecting dead fall in the riparian zone for fire to cook with and combat the frigid, night time catabatic breeze.

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Forest Elder ( a climax species ) burnt hotter and longer than any other wood to be found.

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Leopards in the area also favor Forest Elder bark over every other tree in the area. Almost every mature Elder has a mark of some kind.

White Stink Wood ( a pioneer species ) burnt cooler and quicker. It's smoke had a foul odour about it that clung to skin, fabric and hair for days, even spoiling the flavor of food prepared over it.

Would this be the reason behind the name?

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SEPTEMBERS IN OCTOBER

Recent fires in this area cleared vegitation to reveal mesmerizing textures at ground level consiquently granting September Bush opportunity to display their splendid stylar magnificence.

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