Morning Game Drive – In Search of Black Rhino

Day 6 – November 24/Monday

Happy Birthday Mike! It’s Mike’s 42nd today and I have quite a few things planned unbeknownst to him.

Awhile back at a conference, I had met a guy from Singita who put me in touch with Jason, the Managing Director of Lebombo who helped arrange Mike’s birthday activities and it was going to be something to remember.

I did indeed sleep like a baby and awoke only when the 5am wake up call came. At least the phone ringing wasn’t some horrible jarring bell, but was more chime like - peaceful, like you'd expect to hear in the bush.

We headed down to the lobby to grab a little coffee and African Rusk and hooked up with Dierdre.

Today’s mission was to find black rhino and sable. To do that, we had to drive north about an hour to get to the part of the concession where these animals typically roamed. In order to shorten the travel time, we put a roof on the truck so we could drive the Kruger Park road and then hop back into the concession once we were further north, probably cutting off an hour of travel time.

This part of the concession was the most like Jurassic Park yet. Huge cliffs and mountains with lush grass growing. A fire had swept through this part from Mozambique which Kruger extends into, leaving most of the trees standing, but destroying all the ground brush. As a result of torrential rains nine days earlier, the entire area had come to life, with a lush green carpet of grass juxtaposed by jagged, hard brown rocks and cliffs.

As we drove on, I found six inch black sticks across the road. Inquiring about them, Dierdre told me they were millipedes. When the time was right, and we had enough open land around us (which meant we were safe from predators), we stopped to view them. They were incredibly strong and it was surprising how sticky their feet were, gripping incredibly tight to whatever surface they touched, like my hand here.

As we continued driving, we saw the usual menagerie of wildlife and then stopped for our morning coffee and snacks. Incidentally, these stops also served as bathroom breaks. So you found the closest tree or bush, stepped behind it, and did your thing. Not a big deal but at night, it could be quite eerie as you never really knew what was lurking 10 feet away. We’ve all seen to many movies so your mind tends to play tricks and you think about what’s happened in the movies. Just a tad bit creepy.

Since we hadn’t had any luck with black rhinos or sables, we drove up a rocky ridge with a great view through the trees to a lush valley below. Leave it to Themba. Down below a mother and baby Rhino awaited a close up view.