It’s now 16 years since I arrived on the shores of England from Africa and last week I leant a good lesson: You can’t relive the past.
It’s a pretty obvious lesson, but one we tend to forget. Management was off to Amsterdam for a weekend break with two friends and so I thought I would do some wild camping and wilderness fishing in the Welsh Brecon Beacons nature reserve.
Wild camping in my youth was on the beaches of Mozambique where we pitched a tent in the dunes, but rarely slept in it, and spearfished for supper. It was idyllic; deserted beaches, endless sunshine and an abundant ocean. It wasn’t unusual to shoot two fish with one shot as a shoal flicked past.
Those days are obviously gone. If you sleep rough on the beach in much of Africa, the chances are you will wake without possessions.
But I discovered that wild camping in Britain is a far cry from Africa. Squatting on the dunes watching the sun dip over the ocean is another planet to sitting on a soaking canvas chair in dripping woodland.
All this I knew, of course. I just didn’t realise how much of another planet.
Technically, it’s spring here but no one told the weather-gods that. The first night was below zero and as I didn’t have a four-season sleeping bag, I went to bed wearing two pairs of hiking socks, thermals, tracksuit, two woollen jerseys, a beanie and gloves.
Much of the night was spent shivering.
But even worse, what I didn’t bargain for at my ‘interesting’ age was the increasingly frequent urge to … er, answer calls of nature. This was hardly helped by some glasses of robust red around the campfire beforehand, and when you throw in negative temperatures, fumbling with tent and sleeping bag zips – well, it was a restless night.
When I woke the next morning, stoking the fire to get a gallon of coffee going, I noticed my tent was covered in frost. I took a photo and put it on WhatsApp for management and the brats to see, expecting some sympathy.
There was none. Management replied with some photos of Tulips, while the brats’ kindest remark was how many sticks was I rubbing to make such a puny fire.
But I wasn’t downhearted as I faced a full day at the Beacons Reservoir in hill country where only fly-fishing is allowed and any trout you hook is truly feral.
However, the Welsh idea of a wilderness is not the same as those of us from Africa. For a start, the reservoir was right next to the main road through the reserve, and no matter how much you pretend, cars screaming past 10 meters away is not a wild place.
The far bank looked more promising, where if you shut your ears and only looked west, you may think you were in big sky Canada.
There was only one other guy fishing and I asked how to get to the far bank. He said I had to wade across some rapids and then walk about a kay through swampy marsh. But once he noticed my accent, he was more keen on talking about rugby, particularly on newly-imposed racial quotas down south. He was all for it, he said, as Wales may now beat South Africa for a change.
Anyway, I crossed the rapids; I got bogged down in swamps; I lost several flies in spruce pines on my backcast; and I caught a couple of trout that were not exactly trophies. But because they are wily and wild, they gave me enormous satisfaction.
That night I returned to the campsite, and instead of relaxing on a Mozambican dune overlooking a cyan sea, I was on a wet chair wondering if I should put thermals on now or later.
But I had the last laugh. Management sent me a WhatsApp of her and her mates giggling away at the famous Amsterdam Ice Bar, where you pay a home mortgage to get a frosted beer in a glass sculptured out of ice.
So what? I replied. I was doing the same here in Wales for nothing.