D50….Elephant Graveyard.

It was a hot night. There was no aircon and the rooms sweltered. The boat resumed its journey at 3am in the morning, having moored up on one of the islands for the night. Our mooring was surrounded by the tips of dead trees poking above the water, still standing from 1959 when the lake started to fill, some 7 years after they started the construction of the massive Kariba dam. It has created an enormous man-made lake, many times bigger than Lake Geneva, and it provides a lot of Zimbabwe’s power. It was a surprise that the captain left in darkness given these largely hidden hazards. But he obviously knows his hometurf well. We are now well underway, everyone is up drinking tea or coffee in the lounge, and, not unusually for boys (!) there is not a word spoken, just the sound of the generator in the background.

On arrival in Binga, at the Westerly end of the lake, we disembarked and started the tricky business of unloading trailer, cruiser and bikes. I won’t dwell on detail but it was a precarious exercise and could well have ended badly….steel, water, a drop off, poor footing, a crumbling and steep slipway, bare feet and extremely heavy bikes is a poor combination. Still we got away with it and had an enjoyable 200km excursion along decent Zimbabwe roads in surprisingly gentle temperatures.

And then the park. Hwange. 14,000 square kilometres. Huge. As you will be aware by now there are no parks in Africa where bikes are permissable. They are just not appreciated by the wildlife. So we left them at the park gates and proceeded on the customary open landrovers for another 4 hours…as I said its a big park! En route we saw countless buffalo, one herd of several hundred, and many, many elephants. Mother nature has not been kind to these enormous beasts. There has been poor rainfall this season and so food is sparse. Most of the elephants that we saw looked underfed and some desperately so. We stopped for a sundowner on the way at a waterhole. Two grey lumps disturbed the eye on the far side. They were the rotting carcasses of two elephants that had struggled with lack of food and dehydration in the last 10 days.

We had just alighted from our 2 vehicles when a female elephant and her 2 children surprised us from behind. She was in a shocking state, with rib cage and hip bones protruding from her thick grey skin. She walked towards us. The local guide advised caution. We retreated and stood by the side of the vehicle. She came slowly to a rest a mere 4 or 5 metres away and gazed at us. Her two children were more nervous. But as time went by all settled down and we were able to enjoy her company without too much tension. Sadly she is unlikely to see the year out and her offspring, most likely, will have to fend for themselves.

During the course of our journey through this wonderful park we came across eight dead elephants. This very dry season has exacted a severe punishment indeed on the resident wildlife. The smell of such a large dead animal is an assault on the senses but one is more affected by the plight of these magnificent animals. You may remember that in Gorongosa the number of elephants had collapsed after the war from 3000, I believe, to 200, and that they had recovered over 10 years to about 300. But then there is Hwange. They have 40,000 elephants. They literally are around every corner, just, as they once were, all across Africa. J