African Wildlife and Environment Issue 67

I walked to the fire, stoked the coals, and put the full blackened kettle on for some boiling water. The camp attendant was doing his rounds, waking up the trail group. After a cup of coffee and dunking rusks, we set out on the morning walk, as the sky blushed pink in the east. The dew was turning all the spider webs into bejewelled necklaces, and there was a chill in the air, so when we exhaled there were puffs of condensation. The smell of animal dung hung in the air, and while walking on a narrow game path I heard a sploshing sound and glimpsed a round shape walking towards us. With a start I realised that this was a very large hippo, and the sound I had heard was the hippo scattering its dung with its tail all over a bush next to the path, marking its territory. I shouted for the group to step off the path into a shallow drainage line, and the hippo came storming past. It passed very close to me! It was opening and closing its mouth almost relishing the thought of taking a bite of some human flesh. Hippos are extremely dangerous outside of the water, and it was only the quick reaction of my trail group moving swiftly off the path that averted a potentially dangerous situation. We had been walking for less than ten minutes, and this close encounter should have sent us scurrying back to the trails camp, but we soldiered on. The sun was now well and truly up, and we were walking south east so we had the sun in our eyes. In the path I saw the two distinct drag marks of a rhino that had been marking its territory. As I stopped there to show the trail group, I saw the reddish smudges of twigs chewed off at 45 degrees angles and realised that we were looking at very fresh black rhino dung markings and tracks. As I was explaining the marking behaviour of the black rhino to the very attentive trail group, I heard the whirring, hissing call of Red-billed oxpeckers coming from a Tamboti thicket behind where the people were standing. As my eyes focused on this area, I was squinting into the sun, I saw a shape that made my blood run cold. There was the biggest black rhino bull I had ever seen with his head raised high and staring intently in our direction. I furiously gestured for the people to get behind a tree that had been pushed over by elephants. It was not enough cover, but was better than nothing. We felt extremely exposed and like a runaway steam train the black rhino huffed and snorted, and came running full tilt in our direction. A charging black rhino is possibly the scariest thing you will ever see in your life, apart from perhaps the whole All Black rugby team bearing down on you after taking the rugby ball from a high kick. I mustered up a loud “voetsek” shout, but unfortunately it came out like a teenage girl on a roller coaster ride. Fortunately the big black rhino bull just wanted to scare us, and believe me I am sure the entire trail group, including the ranger and his assistant, felt that the rhino had more than achieved that purpose. That magnificent sight as it thundered

Photographs: Bryan Havemann

23 | African Wildlife & Environment | 67 (2017)