Day 21 – White Rhino.

Umfolozi is the oldest game park in Southern Africa. In the early 1800’s it was the personal hunting preserve of King Shaka and later that century earned National Park status. So the animals and terrain have been unimpacted by humans for a long time.

After a good breakfast we started off single file on foot. Nunu was our surprisingly small and young Zulu guide, and Richard, guarding the rear, was enormous, barrel chested and about 60. Both carried arms. We crossed the river early on. About 60 metres wide it had a sandy bottom and was little more than 2 feet deep. We had only been trekking 10 minutes when we came across fresh rhino tracks. There were 2 rhinos travelling together. We followed briskly as we didn’t know if they were grazing or on the move. 5 minutes later we were called to a very sudden stop. Absolute silence and no movement was called for. The 2 rhinos were 20 metres away in thick bush and clearly visible. We remained motionless for minutes while we ascertained which direction they were going to take. Fortunately this turned out to be parallel with us not towards us. We backed off and positioned ourselves just off their trajectory and waited. They came towards us calmly grazing without any knowledge of our presence. Again they were within 25 metres. Even the guide confessed that it was a remarkably close encounter but at the same time a fantastic experience.

An hour later we were again summoned to freeze on the spot. This time it was a group of 5 white rhinos. Not to be messed with. We backed off immediately as they were close again. And then the got wind of us. They left quickly….fortunately in the opposite direction. 8 times out of 10 in that situation a black rhino would have been aggressive and started to charge. Fortunately they were white. Later on that day we did chance upon a lone fresh set of black rhino tracks in heavy bush. We were instructed to head for cover immediately if it charged. Luckily we didn’t meet!

Midday we observed a pack of wild dogs stalking some impala. And then the hunt began. The impala fled and the pincer movement of the pack closed in. Unfortunately it then all disappeared from view and we were left wondering the outcome.

The day ended back at the river. And what should we see but a few white backed vultures sat up on a tree. We saw impala tracks and wild dog chasing tracks. We could see where the dogs had cornered the impala on the river sand bank. As we made our way to the waters edge there were the 10 wild dogs all lying down on the beach, bellies full.

An end to an extremely memorable day. Over the day we had seen a total of 10 rhino. J