THE UNSPOTTED LEOPARD

      Tijger! Tijger! vlammenvuur

In het berg van ’t nachtlijk uur*

      Quinton Martins is mad. Not in some superficial, mildly nutty way, but rather with a deep and abiding insanity. His madness began in 2003 when he became obsessed with the idea of finding the Cape mountain leopard. Most Capetonians know they exist – their tracks are occasionally spotted in the mountains, and a farmer kills one every few years, to much public consternation – but no one ever actually sees them. As such, they only half-exist, occupying a place at the borders of public mythology.

      In 2003, Quinton began looking for the elusive cat in the Cederberg, a mountain wilderness only two hours north of Cape Town. For weeks at a time, he’d hike alone in the remoter parts of the berg, searching for any sign of leopard. His passion grew into a master’s thesis, and then a doctorate. He poured all his time and money into finding the cat. Sometimes he’d lug a backpack filled with sixteen cameras high into the mountains to set up camera traps with infrared sensors. A week or two later, he’d return to retrieve the film (unlike digital, there were only thirty-six shots to a roll) and set the traps in new positions. There were months of blank film strips, or shots of small, unremarkable mammals. Then one day he was in his local camera shop collecting photos and, as usual, he idly asked if the latest batch had any shots of cats.

      ‘Ja, I think there’s a nice one of a spotted kitty,’ said Zelda, the shop assistant.

      It was as though Quinton had stuck his finger in a light socket. Before he was fully aware of his actions, he’d vaulted the counter and run through to the back room. Sure enough, his camera trap had captured the image of a male leopard, destined to become M1, the first in a long line of cats that would consume Quinton’s life.

      It was nine months before he glimpsed his first leopard, and another year before he captured and collared one. He ran out of money and sold everything, including his car, to keep the fieldwork going. He had to hitchhike from Cape Town to the berg and do his research on foot, covering thousands of kilometres in the mountains with temperatures well below freezing in winter and as high as 47°C in summer. He carried no tent, just an old sleeping bag. When it snowed, he sheltered in caves or rocky overhangs. Madness.

      Since childhood I, too, have had a thing for leopards, the most elusive of the Big Five. I wanted to meet Quinton … and hopefully one of his spotted friends.

      Driving up the N7 one spring morning, wildflowers lined the road through the undulating Swartland. It led up over the Piekenierskloof Pass towards the ramparts of the Cederberg, home to Quinton and his leopards. After the orange orchards of Citrusdal, I took the Algeria turn-off and crossed the chattering waters of the Olifants River on a causeway. This is the symbolic entrance to the most beautiful mountain range in Africa.

      I stopped and got out to drink from a stream fringed with white sandbanks. Before me stood Grootberg’s ochre buttresses, the berg’s main portal. The road snaked between slabs of Table Mountain sandstone towards a saddle in the clouds, each ridge leading me higher and deeper, past Algeria, over Uitkyk Pass and finally into the lovely, sequestered Driehoek Valley. The floor was covered in sedges and marshes, the walls with boulders and protea bushes.

      I was now in the heart of the Cederberg Wilderness area, 71 000 hectares of mountainous terrain, impossibly rich in fynbos and home to the rare and endangered Clanwilliam cedar tree and snow protea. This alpine fastness is still frequented by smaller wildlife such as grey rhebok, klipspringer, honey badger, caracal, Cape fox, porcupine and Cape clawless otter, while raptors such as black eagle and jackal buzzard circle in the thermals overhead. The streams are home to the richest variety of endemic fish south of the Zambezi, most of them endangered. The prettiest of these is the Doring fiery redfin. With its sleek, spotted body and scarlet fins, it looks like a cross between a leopard and a daisy.

      The Cederberg’s allure is enhanced by its rich human history. These mountains were once the realm of San hunter-gatherers, and possess a wealth of rock art stretching back at least 8 000 years. This is, in fact, the Louvre of the Cape. Some of its most famous paintings, such as the iconic rain elephants – a row of ochre pachyderms thought to be a rainmaking site of shamans – are found at the Stadsaal rock formation, close to where I would be staying.

      I’d booked a cabin on Driehoek Farm, and brought along enough provisions for a lengthy spell of self-catering, which for me means lots of braaiing, so my vehicle was essentially full of wood and meat. A farm road led to a cluster of buildings, some thatched and whitewashed in the Cape manner, loosely arranged around a green commonage. Sheep filled a field, a vineyard clung to the slope and the battlements of the central berg rose up on all sides. It was ruggedly idyllic. A pack of dogs, led by a white Labrador, bounded up and escorted me to reception. We passed an inflamed male turkey, ogling a dowdy female and gobbling appreciatively. He made a valiant attempt to mount her, but she was having none of it. The Labrador barked encouragement while I knocked on the door. It was opened by Lizette du Toit, the farmer’s daughter. As she signed me in, we got chatting about leopards.

      ‘Farmers used to set gin traps to kill predators, but with Quinton around things have changed a lot,’ she said. ‘You must ask him about Houdini, the old leopard that took fifteen of our sheep. My dad wanted him dead.’

      Lizette told me that Driehoek was established in 1832, making it the oldest farm in the Cederberg; it has been in the Du Toit family for five generations. She showed me