Pm Drive: 19 April 09

29/04/2009 04:09:14 PM

We left the lodge in search of the big Elephant herd which had last been seen close to the Red Walls in "Buffelskuil" Valley. The conditions were cloudy and overcast and I had my doubts whether or not we would be successful in our efforts as on some cool days the herd often take advantage and move further away from their normal water sources.  We first headed for Park View, an elevated area of the reserve with a good vantage point over the Valley and along the way saw Eland, a Kudu and her calf and a number of birds.  At the lookout I scanned the area but could not see any sign of the Elephants.  We descended into the Valley and moved toward the Red Walls.  I caught a brown tinge out the corner of my eye high on the western slope of the Valley and straight away reached for my binoculars to see if it was what I thought.  On focusing it became clear that there was infact a big Black Rhino bull feeding amongst the thicket.  He looked to be moving slowly towards the Valley floor and I decided to leave the area and give this shy beast a chance to get closer to a road for better viewing.  Filled with excitement at our recent finding we moved northwards once again through herds of Zebra and Hartebeest before finding fresh sign of Elephant in the road.  A few hundred metres further we came across the herd feeding next the road and had a good look at a calf no more than 4 days old.  The herd slowly moved off the road and into the riverbed and we left the area to go back to where we had left the Black Rhino.  We found him just 50 meters from the road and upon our arrival he took an interest in the noise of the vehicle and started to approach the vehicle directly!  We all held our breath as he came up to 8 meters of us giving us a great opportunity to identify him.  With his front horn badly broken off in a fight with one of the reserve's other large bulls and a middle notching in his right ear, we had no trouble identifying him as "Umagga".  He approached the vehicle once more, but on this occasion one step was all he had to take before he caught our scent and he trotted off to a safe distance, where he stood for a while before beginning to feed again.  We returned to camp after a sundowner feeling incredibly lucky to have had such an intimate experience with one of only 4600 Black Rhino remaining on earth.