Walking With Rhinos!

Dierdre had mentioned a wildlife walk at some point during our game drives and now seemed to be the time.

It was quite simple, follow her (her leading the pack, rifle in hand) and we were going in for a close up view. And follow her quietly. No cameras, no binoculars, nothing.

What did we do? Barrel down the hillside, making a lot of noise with our feet, chatting a bit. She stopped us and asked us to gather round. The rules were 1. Single file so she could defend us with the gun if need be (she couldn’t defend us if we were all over the place); 2. No talking so as not to alert the Rhinos whose huge ears along with their sense of smell is how they detect things; 3. Walk slowly and deliberately, avoiding stepping on dry, brittle grasses and sticking to walking on the rocky gravel. Plus, rolling your foot from the outside to the inside to minimize the noise your boot makes when stepping; 4. When she snaps her fingers, you stop – immediately; and 5. When she says run, you run. When she says climb a tree, you climb a tree.

Now that we had it all down, we continued downhill. We had probably covered 75 yards when Dierdre snapped once. We all looked up and stopped in our tracks. She motioned with her hand and turned around and mouthed “stand still”. The baby rhino had heard us and was intently looking, not sure where the sound was coming from. Baby Rhinos have much better eyesight than older rhinos so she would be able to see us while the mother rhino couldn’t. However, if we stood still, she wouldn’t be able to detect us. So after about a minute, the rhinos went back to feeding and we continued down the hill.

Not more than 10 yards later, Dierdre snapped again. We all stopped. Now both Rhinos were looking, not our direction, but looking. They knew something was up. We stood rooted, like 8 tree trunks spread out amongst a stand of trees. Not sure what was going on, we stood while the Rhino and baby moved around a bit. Hearts were racing, not sure if the rhino would charge our way to protect the baby or flee. This is the stuff life is made of. Exhilaration. A touch of fear. A touch of wonder. After a tense minute, mother and baby run down the valley away from us.

Dierdre explained that although they didn’t see us, they smelled us. And that was their first sign that something wasn’t quite right. Most likely they heard us as well. And those two things were enough for mother to protect her young by fleeing, the most common tactic used by rhinos when in danger.

So back up to the truck, uphill the whole way to continue on our morning drive!