A haven called Tanglewood

Wendy Jackson discovers a slice of heaven, and it’s not just for humans, either!

Hidden below the high cliffs edging the Country Club area of Kloof is an animal and nature sanctuary called Tanglewood Farm: 160 acres of pristine forest and grassland sandwiched between Kloof and the factories of Westmead.

Bill and Joan Walker of Msonti Road, Kloof, bought the property in 1982, and formed the Walker Family Trust to protect it.

Living on the farm with her son Jan is the Walker’s daughter, Caryl Combrinck.   Caryl, who was associated with Crow, has built up a reputation for caring and rehabilitating injured wild animals and has turned Tanglewood into a sanctuary.

Progressed

Recently she rescued an injured blue duiker, weighing just 400g, from Durban North. She named it Jem, and bottle-fed it: at the time she was also bottle-feeding Gizmo, a grey duiker. Within a few weeks Jem’s weight had increased to 600g, and Gizmo had progressed sufficiently to be lying outside, on the edge of the forest which surrounds her home, but visible from the kitchen window.

Watching Caryl interacting with wild animals is extraordinary. She converses with them as though they’re human. “It’s time for another bottle,” she announces, standing at her kitchen door, and Gizmo obligingly stands up and trots in into the house.

“No. Outside,” she says, and soon the buck is waiting obediently in the garden.  It sucks its bottle dry in minutes.

“Back to the forest now,” Caryl instructs, and again, like a good child, Gizmo wanders back to his resting place under a tree.

Meanwhile, Jem, stick-like legs propped on the kitchen counter, happily sucks on his baby bottle.

Caryl has saved many creatures, from owls to buck to genet cats. “We don’t re-locate them,” she says. “When they’re ready, they just merge into the forest or grassland. If they’re still around, we tell them to move off!”

The farm is home to a variety of game, zebra, ostrich, impala, reedbuck, bushbuck, red, grey and blue duiker, and a herd of blesbok.

“Those we’ve cared for usually come back,” she adds. “Sometimes it’s just to show off their babies, or to give birth. One blesbok, which was having a difficult birth, called for help outside our kitchen door. Happily we could oblige.”

Not surprisingly, she gives all her “babies” names. She talks of Pixie and Lollipop, the bushbuck, and her other 21 babies.

Although her late husband was part of their move to Tanglewood when the original farmhouse was renovated and partly rebuilt, Caryl and her son Jan, now at Kloof High, have lived there on their own for many years. Her photo album is testimony to Jan’s upbringing in an animal haven. There are pictures of her son holding a baby monkey in a tissue box, another of a dassie which house trained itself to sit on the toilet.

Her life revolves around the farm. She regularly hosts school tours. “It’s important for children to be aware of the nature around them.”

That Tanglewood is unique is underlined by the recognition it has received.

In 1985 it was declared Natural Heritage Site No 10. Since then the SA Heritage Programme has registered more than 200 sites countrywide.  Recently Joan and Bill were presented with a mayoral award for their conservation work in eThekwini Municipality. Joan is also a well known wildflower artists whose book Wild Flowers of KZN is in its second edition, and which contains paintings mostly obtained from specimens found at Tanglewood.

Tanglewood is one of our area’s hidden treasures, a haven for animals and humans alike, where a remarkable and caring woman has broken through into that world where people and creatures of the wild can live and communicate in harmony.

Contact Caryl on 083 513 1144 or 031 700 2080, or email caryltanglewood@gmail.com