Carol’s Column

Love at first flutter in Klein Karoo’s Cango Valley

South Africa is the place of the extraordinary. I realised this while at the Indaba tourism show in Durban last week which brought the best of what we have to offer the local and international market together under one roof.

Serious stuff this. Safari operators, national parks, hotels, resorts - all the heavies sitting at their booths displaying their varied attractions.

I was striding through safari country, all around German, Japanese and American tour operators twittering in appreciation, when two large men caught my eye.

Beneath a large sign which read "BUTTERFLIES" sat Dougie Bester and Danie Lategan, the epitome of true Africa in their khaki bush outfits, broad-shouldered and rugged. Their slogan said, "The butterfly farm. The first and only one in Africa. Conservation, education and fantasy."

A butterfly farm in Africa? I'd visited butterfly farms in lush Borneo, Malaysia and even on Rhodes Island, but in Africa? Even more extraordinary, this butterfly farm was situated in the Klein Karoo.

A few kilometres before the Swartberg Pass en route to Prince Albert in the Cango Valley, Dougie and Danie have created their butterfly farm in the stark, dry Karoo where even sheep and ostriches sukkel for nourishment.

"Ag, do you know that we have well over 740 butterflies in southern Africa and at least 20 are indigenous to our valley," said Dougie, a Boer from the tip of his weathered nose to the scuffed toes of his velskoen. "Although it's a semi-desert area, we have no frost and all the ingredients to breed butterflies - humidity, temperature, air and light."

"We've been in farming for a lifetime," said Danie, breaking into a wide smile. "Ostriches, cattle, sheep - you name it."

But butterflies?

"Long ago, Cango was a place of butterflies," said Danie. "And so we're bringing them back."

Butterfly breeding's not easy. Each species of butterfly needs its own specific plant before it will even contemplate breeding, so indigenous butterfly bushes and flowers are being planted in profusion. Slowly, a complete ecosystem is being restored. You may not have realised that the sex life of a butterfly is complicated. "Our first success was with the mocca swallow butterfly," confided Dougie. "We bought six pupae and waited for them to hatch."

The story is of a true romance. It seems the pupae took several days before there was any sign of life. Nailbiting. Danie and Dougie took turns in babysitting. When suddenly, as a rooster crowed and the sun swooped into the sky, a pupa split and out popped a resplendent male mocca swallow butterfly.

But alas, he was alone. The other pupae remained silently sealed.

"We could see he was depressed," said Danie.

Then voila. Another pupa split and a female emerged. But all was not well in the Cango Valley. Danie continues: "She was deformed with a crooked wing and she could hardly fly. We thought he'd take one look at her and fly in the opposite direction. You know what guys are like."

But love conquers all. The male mocca swallow butterfly gazed upon the crippled female and it was love at first flutter. He leapt upon her and seven days later she'd laid 40 new eggs on a sneezewood plant.

They in turn hatched and soon there were thousands of mocca swallows flying through the dry Karoo air dipping on to sneezewoods for nectar.

So take your choice. Now you can visit a game reserve or a butterfly farm beneath the hot African sun, which, if you think about it, is pretty unique.

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