Day 17.

 This morning, we had a rhino walk at 6am with Claudia and Andrew. When we left, it was still dark out, but not as cold as usual. It was really cloudy this morning, so it trapped the heat in. I barely needed my thick jumper. We drove around for about an hour, til we found some fresh tracks. We had originally followed some tracks on foot for a few minutes, but they weren’t fresh, so we turned around and then drove around to find others. We finally got on a track and got out to walk it! We walked for over an hour, following a trail through the bush. We were learning to read signs such as poo droppings, mud droppings, scratch marks, prints, and urine trails. We actually found a cool spot where they had probably spent the night. It was full of tracks going everywhere and had body impressions as well. We eventually came out of the block, with no sighting. We walked down the road for a bit and met back up with Andrew. We drove around to try to find where they came out, but although we found some more tracks, we couldn’t locate anything really fresh. The blocks of bush in that area are huge, so they could be essentially anywhere. We had seen two elephants earlier in the day, a male and female that were really calm and just walked around us to continue their journey. Just as we were checking one of the last dams for rhino tracks, the bull elephant came charging out of the bush! He was in musth and irritated, and showed it by flapping his ears and raising his trunk. Andrew was on the tracker seat in the front of the truck, so Claudia quickly reversed down the road because he was much too close to this angry ellie in musth. But then, Riff Raff (the bull ellie) decided that was a jolly good fun game to play, so he began to charge the truck. He realized he could make us back up by advancing. So we stopped reversing and the rangers began to shoo him off by yelling sternly at him and banging the truck. We had to make him know that he couldn’t mess with us. He mock charged a few times, as well as tossing his head and trumpeting. It was such an intense experience, seeing this two ton animal heading straight for our vehicle! After a while, Riff Raff backed off and moved into the bush, throwing sand with his trunk as he went. Not a happy ellie. He came around to the side of the truck to sniff us, and started moving around behind us. I was in the back row, so we just sat really still and he got fairly close to us, just checking us out. Then he decided we were no fun, so he moved down the road. We had just come from Solar Panel Dam, so we figured he was going there to drink. We turned around and headed back. We found him, lumbering down the road. He saw us following, and turned straight into the bush. We turned off our engine and watched him, as he began to bully the trees around, as if to prove his strength to us! It was the craziest thing, because he first starting pushing a merula tree straight towards us, though it was too far to hit us. Then he stopped, moved around the tree, and promptly pushed it over at a right angle to us. It fell directly across the road. Then he moved back to the far side of the tree, so he had essentially created the tree as a roadblock between us and him. Then he sat happily munching the merula leaves and watching us through the branches! We wondered if he pushed it that way on purpose because he knew we couldn’t follow him anymore. Or if he did it because he knew that the openness of the road would give him more access to the leaves. It was so cool, to think how intelligent these creatures are! We watched him for a bit, and eventually we turned and headed back home. It was definitely an unexpected event on our rhino drive! On the way home, we crossed paths with a puff adder, but weren’t able to catch it to get close pics. When we got home, I headed into the kitchen to make lunch. Wolfgang and I were on food duty, and today’s lunch was jacket potatoes. I put all the potatoes in the oven, then worked on preparing everything else. Wolfgang made a supposedly delicious tomato and onion salad (yuck to me), and also a green salad. I heated up chicken stirfry leftovers, beans, and grated some cheese to go on as well. Then, as the potatoes cooked, I made chocolate oatmeal cookies for everyone. We had a lovely lunch, with cookies after, and just leisurely ate. The longer lunch took, the less time we had to dig up tree stumps for the volleyball court maintenance! Haha! We did maintenance from 2 to 3, with bush camp there to help as well. It went quite fast. Then we cleaned up and showered for our 330 drive. We were supposed to do just a monitoring drive, but we got a call that our new bull buffalo was being delivered today! So we all headed out to the Buffalo camp. We waited there a while, for everyone and the bull to arrive. Then, we all squeezed into one truck, and followed the procession in. The release of the bull was unceremoniously quick. He basically burst out, looked around, and trotted into the bush to disappear. After a while, all the other vehicles (Makalali, Garonga, managers, buffalo transporters) left, and we headed in to find the herd. We located them without telemetry (cause we had forgotten to bring it) and watched them for a while. After counting and observing, we headed out. We had gotten word of two male lion on a certain road, so of course, Lukas and I (and most everyone else) were keen to head out there.  We got to the spot, and off-roaded to find Xinpoko and Masana being lazy boys in the falling dusk, napping in the thick bush. We sat with them for a bit, and they began to lick their paws and stretch, a sign of getting mobile soon. Sure enough, they got up and began to move. We had to get out the block the way we came in, so we lost visual, but we were able to relocate lying in the middle of the road. Then they moved again. We followed for a while, and they looked as if they might be hunting. Sniffing and looking around. A Makalali truck joined us, and we let him go ahead with his clients to follow them. Then, suddenly, they vanished, like ghosts! We drove around for a while, and followed a road, just looking, almost in vain. We had gotten so far without seeing them, and suddenly, there they were. Laying in the grass and road! They had moved SO quickly through the bush, and lay ahead of us waiting! We stopped and watching them for a while, and Masana gave us a little excitement by sniffing the air very intensely with his nose high in the air. We thought he might be scenting something to go hunt. We just sat in the dark and enjoyed them being so calm and so near. In a bit, they decided to move again. The Makalali truck had rejoined us, and we let them pursue, as we headed back to camp. It was only around 6 at the time. When we got near to home, Claudia called and told us there were ellies near camp. As we pulled close, we could see and hear them. Since they are not nocturnal, you can’t shine your headlights on them, or it will temporarily blind them. So we ended up turning off the car and lights and sitting in completely darkness, just listening. It was amazing. The stars were incredible and the ellies were just munching away next to us! We sat there for probably 15 minutes and just enjoyed it. They finally began to move off to the side and behind us, so it was safe to drive again. We got home without an incident, but soon discovered that there was a bull in musth chilling in our camp! He was standing right behind the fire pit, on the tree line! We were told to walk carefully around the camp, looking to make sure the ellies weren’t nearby. I went into the lounge to let Kira onto my computer, and Claudia called us to follow her. She led us on the back porch, and we stood not 15 feet from a huge male ellie. Since we were on the porch with a roof, he could not reach us, even if he charged, so we were safe there. It was incredible. We just watched him calmly eat a bougenvillia tree. Suddenly, he seemed to just snap. He turned and charged into the camp, towards the fire pit and the pathways to the volunteer housing. Andrew began to yell at him and try to get him to move back out of the camp. We all ran through the building to the porch on the front to watch Claudia and Andrew shoo him backwards to the tree line again. He went behind the building, and Andrew followed him. Just then, Kelsey, Tom, and Lukas decided to leave to go back to bush camp. They informed Kira, who had gone into the office to get her things. I poked my head in to make sure she had heard they were leaving, and I heard yelling from the yard. I turned to see the male elephant not 4 meters away from me! He was 2 meters from Lukas, who had Tom and Kelsey behind him. They started backing up to go into the office with the rest of us, as Lukas yelled and shooed the ellie to back up. He had apparently charged around the back of the building and into the front yard right at them! They got him to back up and move, and Andrew came to assist. They got him to almost the road from the driveway, and he finally calmed a little out there. He was so close to them, so suddenly! And he demolished some small trees in the process! Well, we all thought the excitement was over. I headed into the lounge to my computer for a bit. But then I heard yelling again, at an elephant! I hurried to the door, listening to Andrew yell to Claudia that the male was back and in the middle of camp! He had come around the opposite side of the kitchen and barreled towards the chairs and fire pit, where Stewart (the new volunteer from Scotland) was sitting. I watched Andrew back it up, then Claudia and Andrew chased him out of camp by banging pots and yelling. He backed up all the way out to the road, then just stood there and flapped his ears at everyone! Eventually, he calmed down a bit and moved off. It was definitely an exciting elephant night! Then, we had a yummy South African dinner of some type of bangers, cabbage, and beans. It was very traditional, a little spicy, and although not something I would have ever chosen, actually quite tasty. We sat around the fire and talked, with no more ellie incidents to deal with, until about 9.

Riff Raff, peering through his roadblock Merula.

 Buffaloooo!