'Over the years I have come to the conclusion the bush is bad for most people’s intelligence. I’m not sure what causes the change in personality, but the bewitching effect of a campfire has something to do with it. For some reason when people sit down next to a fire at the end of the day ridiculous conversations follow. This holds true whether you are a weekend warrior or genuine bush type. Everybody becomes an expert at everything, be it science, astronomy, politics and especially bush lore, with self-appointed info-gurus sprouting so-called ‘true-stories.’ It’s under these conditions that myths are perpetuated. I have heard many various iterations of the one about the lion going into a tent at night and rifling through the stores while a terrified camper cowered in the corner. It never happened! What about the story that cornered honey badgers will always go for your testicles? I have seen hundreds of honey badgers at night and its never happened to me! What about the one which claims that if you camp near a river it's likely that a hippo will charge out of the water and stamp out your fire! It took thirty years of waiting before that did actually happen to me.
Manuel de Andrade, my uncle who was in the safari business, was a master at winding people up with such stories. I remember him telling us, one night around a campfire next to the Zambezi, that ‘all anthills on the Mana Pools and Sapi floodplains of the Zambezi leaned sideways in a way that always pointed towards the opposite river bank!’ I laughed and laughed when I heard him tell us that certain he was pulling my leg. The next day I looked carefully at every anthill we passed and was flabbergasted to find that he was right! They did all lean in exactly the same direction - towards the other bank. That’s the problem with campfire stories - one never knows which ones are true and which are not!
In all of my paintings of the floodplains of the Zambezi I deliberately leave out anthills because they just look wrong all leaning as they do towards the opposite bank of the river. I don't want people to think my paintings are telling tall stories!'

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