New Delhi, May 17 -- We were heading back to the lodge in the Manyeleti Nature Reserve when the ranger called out "Teapot!" and pointed to the sky. After a day of learning bush-walk signals and identifying edible plants and animal spoor-the giraffe's is 23cm long, the elephant's looks like stodgy table legs and the rhino's is surprisingly elegant-I thought the ranger was testing our knowledge and I'd forgotten some call.

He'd been sweeping the skies looking for the Southern Cross, or Crux, a cluster of stars I'd asked to see, which can only be spotted south of the equator. It's a group of five stars that holds many stories of adventure and exploration, as it guided early sailors before the time of GPS, and many countries in the southern ...