Just got back from the most exciting and yet scary drive. It all started with the fact that I was driving if that doesn’t tell you something. Helen, my boss, hurt her foot and all the other staff at GVI are on Christmas holidays so Kaggie, who is also training, and myself have been doing the research drives taking turns driving and working the radio. Kaggie drove the morning drive and I the afternoon. I was very nervous to begin with because it was our first time out on drive without any help and the radio is very daunting because the other lodges depend on us to locate the animals and call in sightings for their guests not to mention they are very strict when it come to radio procedures such as how things are described and using Shangan words for the animals so guests can’t understand what is going on. Kaggie and I started out looking for the female lioness and cubs because we didn’t find them in the morning. We were driving along the Northern River road and come to a puddle, well what I thought was a puddle. It turned out to be as deep as the Grand Canyon and we were Stuck! Even in low range 4 wheel drive and Differential lock turned on there was no getting out. We maneuvered back and forth for a few minutes in the hopes we would find away but it was of no use. Kaggie got out to tear off some branches and put them under the tires with the hopes of getting some traction. Just as she was in front of the vehicle a herd of Elephants decided to show up for a visit.
As beautiful and intelligent as Elephants are they are extremely dangerous and unpredictable. I would not feel comfortable driving that close to a herd of Elephants on solid ground with escape routes all around us and here we were stuck with nothing to do but pray that they didn’t get angry at us for being there. The young calves were very curious coming right up to the vehicle. This brought the females who came and sniffed us but carried on around us. Then a big Male, Mr. M, noticed us and came over. He pulled a big limb off a tree right in front of us to eat then preceded to suck the muddy water from the lake we were stuck in and spray himself with it. I was sitting behind the wheel with my foot on the clutch and the gears in reverse in case he decided to charge us for then he would at least push us out so we could quickly reverse away. We sat there for at least 45 min with Elephants all around us. Elephants were making growling noises on either side of us, a large female was browsing off a tree behind us while the young were showing how tough they were by trumpeting, not to mention Mr. M in front. Finally, they moved off without incident and Kaggie and I got out to work on getting unstuck losing a shovel in the mud in the process. Luckily the tree that Mr. M pushed over allowed for some traction and it wasn’t much longer before we were out. We drove on only to encounter another puddle thankfully we could drive around but then further down the road a massive tree had been pushed over and lay blocking out way. The only option was to turn around and go back. Not only through the puddle but also towards the elephants!
We managed to get through the puddle with some fantastic driving skills on my part and we never encountered the Elephants again. I almost forgot to mention that I had to call in the daily activities at 4:00, which was right in the middle of our encounter with the elephants.
Photos: Mr. M in front of us (taken from the driver seat, you can see the hood of the car along the bottom), a young calf walking by, and Kaggie and I once we escaped the puddle!
More photos on FACEBOOK
No comments:
Post a Comment