Zimbabwe's Rhino Walk

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Tuesday (2/8/10)
We enjoyed the luxury of a nine o'clock start and after a hearty breaky of scrambled eggs and baked beans we set off on our Rhino safari with our extremely enthusiastic guide Andy. After a chilly 45minute trip to the reserve we dismounted our jeep as Andy started tracking some rhino prints with rifle resting on his right shoulder. Through the rugged bush, Andy pointed out various prints, poo and plants and how to decipher their sex, age and direction.
We ran out of tracks so returned to the vechicle until we came across some more and it wasn’t long until we we trecking through the bush again in single file behind Andy and his gun. Not far from the road two young male rhino’s we tucking into some lunch behind a few bushes. Unable to get a clear shot we crept through the grass for a closer look unfortunately scaring off the rhino’s in the process. Not to be discouraged Andy continued on their tail for a few more brief looks before they were out of sight. Back in the vechicle we bumped along the road stopping for lunch at a beautiful spot by the river right by the sign that said don’t get out of your vechicle (but apparently it was ok!). We feasted on salads on a huge rock on the side of the river and watched the mother hippo with her two kids wallow in ithe shallows. Back into the jeep again briefly before we set off on foot, under the now hot sun, we crossed dry river bed and with Andy’s brilliant tracking skills located a posse of four rhino’s. They were unfazed by their audience as we got within 15m of them and took turns taking photo’s of one another. We wandered back to the jeep grinning from ear to ear.

We began our journey back stopping at the mother and child rock and rhino skeleton. We exited the game pack and headed to the buchmans caves in the reseve with paintings dating back a couple thousand years and spectacular views of the reserve as the sun lowered. We wound our way through the reserve past the dam and back to the main road. Jez and I crawled into our sleeping bags for the freezing hour trip back to camp.
Back at camp our crew Jack and crew had whipped up an awesome stew with rice, hungry and cold we demolished it and sat around the camp fire recounting the days amazing events.

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