My uncle Gus Mills died this morning. He was an amazing uncle, but also my original nature inspiration. When he married my aunt at the start of the 1970s, their “honeymoon” was spent setting up a caravan in the Kgalagadi, and she raised two of my cousins basically camping out. He was an expert on carnivores, and taught my huge pile of cousins and I to chant “Hyaenas are beautiful!” as often as possible. He worked in the Kruger during my childhood, and I will never forget his passion for nature that had us up at midnight observing bushbabies, and up at 5am observing big cats… Right up until a few years ago, long after retiring, he was still studying cheetahs and living as far from “civilisation” as he could get in his 70s. I’m devastated, and I hope people don’t mind me sharing here.
He and my aunt wrote a book called Hyena Nights & Kalahari Days about their time there.