Still in Damaraland, but at the northern edge, we drove to the Palmwag Concession to camp for two nights. We needed to stay a couple of nights so that we could enjoy a really special activity in the early morning of our full day: rhino tracking on foot! We’ve seen rhinos in the wild before, but usually from the safety of a game drive vehicle. Once, in Chitwan National Park in Nepal, we did rhino tracking from the back of an elephant, but elephants are pretty big and safe too. Tracking rhinos on foot sounded pretty exciting, and just a bit unnerving.
After an uneventful drive, we arrived at the Palmwag Concession in the early afternoon and immediately signed up for the rhino tracking drive the following morning. We were given our safety briefing right on the spot. In addition to the usual instructions to wear neutral coloured clothing, we were also told to keep extremely quiet and to avoid strong scents. Apparently, rhinos make up for their notoriously poor eyesight through acute senses of hearing and smell. The only additional instruction was one that seemed like it might be a bit hard to follow; don’t run if a rhinoceros charges you. We certainly hoped that we wouldn’t have to test that one out!
We set up camp, had a BBQ dinner and set our alarms for an early start in the morning. We left camp at 6:00 a.m. in pitch darkness, bleary eyed but scent-free. We had to drive for about 45 minutes to the nearby Torra Conservancy. Our driver/guide displayed an uncanny ability to spot antelope and giraffes in the dawn light as we sped down the gravel roads. We reached the Torra Conservancy, a community based rhino conservation project, just before sunrise. While the Palmwag Concession certainly has rhinos, with an area bigger than the island of Bali, spotting any of them would have been a daunting task. The Torra Conservancy is smaller, covered with the rhinos’ favourite food, and patrolled by two sets of rhino trackers. Not only are there rangers hired by the community, there are even more rangers from the Save the Rhino Trust (https://www.savetherhino.org/) at work too. Our tracker, Michael, who jumped into the Land Cruiser with us, was from the former group.
Off to search for rhinos, we turned from the main road, onto a secondary road, and ultimately began following a trail barely even there. And then it was time to start tracking on foot. Our tracker nonchalantly jumped out of the vehicle, and with only a pair of binoculars in hand headed off to the top of a small hill a kilometre or so away. Our vehicle circled around the hill and after just a few minutes of bumping along our eagle eyed driver spotted a rhino. After radioing our tracker to come to meet us, it was time for us to get out and try to catch up to our rhino on foot. It took some time because the ground was covered with thousands of rocks the size of bowling balls that slowed us down but didn’t seem to deter the rhino at all. But eventually he found a particularly tasty bush and stopped so that we could get to within about 75 m. We were going to try to carefully inch even closer, when suddenly Michael rejoined us and casually mentioned that we’d best head back to the vehicle because there was another rhino behind us, heading our way! As we quickly tried to navigate the field of bowling balls, without making any noise, the “don’t run” rule was repeated, with additional instructions to just sit down behind an euphorbia bush to hide. Behind it but without touching it! Though a favourite food of the rhinos, the euphorbia’s milky sap is highly toxic to humans. These instructions were getting complicated!
Fortunately, neither rhino showed much interest in us, we made it back to the vehicle without incident, and the newcomer rhino wandered off but stayed close enough to the driveable path for us to follow in the Land Cruiser. Since the sun was well up in the sky by now and the temperature was climbing, our second rhino decided to settle down to sleep away the day in the shade (which is what the black rhinos do so that they can feed in the cool of the night). But we were able to get some decent photos, including one that showed that this rhino was missing its large front horn.
Our rhino ranger explained that the horn had been deliberately removed to prevent poaching. Rhino horn is made of the same material as humans’ hair and fingernails and so will grow back over ~5 years. But in the meantime, the rhinos are unattractive targets for poachers. Measures such as this, coupled with the efforts of the SRT and constant patrols by the “rhino rangers”, mean that the Namibian community conservancies are virtually immune to poachers, while the rest of southern Africa (mostly in national parks) endures losses of over 500 rhinos per year. We were happy to find out that our rather steep fee for this tour was helping to fund some worthwhile work.
As our second rhino settled into the shade for a rest, we did the same; drove off under a tree for shade, snacks, and tea (although no nap). Then it was time to bump our way back to the highway, drop off Michael, our tracker, and head back to camp. But our driver had one last animal sighting for us. Just 10 minutes before the camp gate he stomped on the brakes, reversed about 100 m, and said “I thought I saw an elephant!”. And sure enough, an old bull who frequented the area was in the trees. He was so well known to our driver and the lodge staff that he had a name, Jimbo, and warning signs at the lodge to not get too close to him if he wandered in to use the swimming pool as his own private watering hole.
Content with our two rhino sightings, a bonus elephant, and many other antelopes and giraffes, we headed back to the lodge for our siesta and a dip in the pool (which we did not have to share with Jimbo that day!). And that is ….
See images on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720315971169
