Rhinoceros.. Just around the corner..
Another beautiful misty morning on Kapama, my tracker, Phanuel, and I set out on Safari with eight guests in anxious anticipation to find some animals. A few of the guests were quite excited to look for some Rhinos during the drive.
The sun was coming out from just behind the clouds and during the first few minutes of our drive we saw some Kudu,
quite a large antelope, not too far from the lodge and the guests were quick to point out the difference between male and female, as they learnt how to distinguish gender of these animals on a previous drive.
We continued to the southern section of the reserve when Phanuel picked up on some Rhino tracks in the road. We stopped, and he pointed them out to me. I showed everyone on the vehicle and quickly explained how to identify Rhino tracks. Immediately there was a sense of excitement as we started tracking the Rhino to find where they might be. We followed the tracks for a while and at one point they lead into an area of some thicket. We circled the area and found the tracks coming out on the other side of the thicket on the road again with the Rhino moving in a westerly direction.
As we continued west we found some dung on the side of the road. It was evidently Rhino dung, and it was still fresh as a lot of the guest started pulling their shirts over their noses to try and hide the smell. We could see the dung beetles starting to roll their balls with the dung. I explained the contents of the dung being predominantly grass, as that is what White Rhino eat. After a brief explanation we followed up on the tracks and continued on our exciting pursuit of the White Rhino.
Coming around a bend in the road, Phanuel said to me that the Rhino seem to be making their way slowly to the water. So we quickly decided to make our way to one of the dams nearby that is more or less in the same direction to that in which the Rhino were walking, because we assumed they may be making their way there to lay in the water, mud wallowing and cooling down. As we came closer to the water Phanuel suddenly turned in his tracker seat and looked to me and softly said "Rhinoceros.. Just around the corner."
I looked at him half shocked, as if not expecting those words to have been spoken. Approaching the corner, I slowed down almost to a complete halt, and as we came around the corner from behind the bush shrub there they were, right next to us, about 10 metres away from the vehicle. Everyone was colourfully stunned and in complete awe of these colossal animals beside us.
It was such a unique feeling to witness these big animals grazing ever so peacefully in their natural habitat, right beside us. They were not at all bothered by our presence, and later continued to the dam, as we predicted. We then left them in peace, and continued on with our faces full of smiles, as we were humbled by the great experience we just had.
