Rhino walk, amazing birding and our first leopard!!

Ngomqibelo 28 August
We wake up well before the 5:30 alarm, for today we join the rangers doing Grade 2 walking assessments. A Grade 2 walking qualification will allow the rangers to walk guests into dangerous game. Rhino. Single elephant bulls. And breeding herds of buffalo. Today Kristal and I will play the guests, together with rangers Craig, Paolo, a guy whose name I forget and Seth.



The Cruiser rumbles up to the house. We are smiling like kids at Christmas as we jump on the vehicle. Seth, one of the few Grade 3 trackers in the country and long-time Phinda ranger, will do the assessment.


He pulls off and a short way along the road we spot a hyena in the middle of the road. Spotted hyena. Sightings of hyena at Phinda are rare. With no lions in the neighbouring Mkuze Game Reserve it is something of a haven for hyena and most of the hyena reintroduced to Phinda quickly made a duck under the fence.



We’ll walk rhino this morning. But before we pick up tracks we bump into a rhino bull in the road. Although heavier than all of us and the vehicle combined he doesn’t challenge us but takes off into the block next to us. We carry on, looking only for tracks, not animals. The soft, red-brown sand tells of all the animals that passed in the night and then we find them. Tracks of a female rhino with a calf. Perfect! Males range for miles and we could be tracking them for days.



Mark, a ranger for Madikwe, will lead the walk. To pass the walk he will have to lead us into the sighting and get us out without the animals knowing that we’re there.


The man with the rifle is the boss, do what he says if it goes down. Mark is the man with the rifle, “…unless things go horribly wrong and then I will take over.” says Seth. We try not to wonder too much what “horribly wrong” might look like.


The tracks move from the road into the block. So do we. Single file: Mark in front, then Paolo, then Kristal, then me. The other rangers follow behind us. The bush is thick and branches crackle with the sound of a fleeing nyala. The patchwork coat of a giraffe moves slowly behind a bush just 30m away. The Zulu name tells us where this tall creature is looking: Indlulamithi or “past the trees”. I love it!


The sandy soil soon fills up with grass and the tracks become difficult to follow. We wait as Mark searches around. The temperature is rising as the sun climbs up through the bushes, but only Mark has a darker khaki sweat-line on his back. Pressure.


We pick up the tracks again and they lead us to a big, open patch of sand. Mommy and baby have lain down under the trees. Less time walking for them earlier means less time walking for us now.



We’ve been walking for close on an hour now. Three times we have lost and regained the tracks, but it feels like we are getting close. Mark shushes Seth who whispers to one of the rangers at the back.


“Did you see her?” Mark whispers excitedly. “In that thicket ahead.” Nope, no-one did. Mark is not so sure any more. “Perhaps it was a rock” Seth revs him, and winks at us when Mark looks away.



Mark checks the wind with his ash-filled sock. “We’ll skirt around to the East so the wind is in our favour” he says. We move off, excited, not quite expectant, but hopeful. And then there they are, through the dense bush, some 70m away. Hard to make out and the guys at the back didn’t get a view. So it doesn’t count.



We move further around into a more open section. There are dry twigs everywhere and we tread carefully. One wrong foot and we will have wasted this walk for Mark. He signals us to stop. The wind is in our favour. We make no sound. Behind the scraggly grey branches, you can just make out two solid grey figures, moving. The view is quite good, but Seth is still not happy.


Mark moves to push forward, closer. Seth prods him with his walking stick .Uh-uh. Quietly. We move back and skirt further round. The bush is very open now. We have the perfect spot. We watch on as the rhino move into towards us, unaware. They are a mere 30m away. Seth softly quizzes Mark on what he should be concerned about. The rhino bull we saw earlier might come back. The mother will be more skittish than usual with a calf. Rhino calves, like all youngsters, are inquisitive and may come towards us if it picks us up. Mark gets most of these and the other answers on his own.



No-one mentions the danger of lion. What was that rumble? Mark looks back in the direction of the sound. Seth’s stomach. We all chuckle. We’ve been watching the rhino for 5 minutes now and it’s time to go. We tread in the footprints ahead of us, carefully and quietly.



We make it safely and silently out, but the walk is only done when we get to the vehicle. “Three questions hey?” Seth reminds Mark.



We start making our way back, winding through the dense silver-cluster leaf and monkey orange trees of the broadleaf woodland. We reach the road, and I point out some tracks. Perfect for Mark’s first question. Five minutes for each of us to ID the tracks and we have to whisper the answer to Mark, who stands back from the group. It’s a tough one! One by one we give him our answer. Those who guess the same animal stand together. I’m worried that I’m not standing next to Seth. Porcupine is both Seth’s and the correct answer. Mark describes the tell-tale signs on the track.



As we wind our way through the next block, to the vehicle, we are quizzed three more times. Nyala dung - it’s longer than impala. The toe of a rhino calf – even Seth went against his better judgment and guessed kudu. Tok-tokkie beetle and dung beetle – I didn’t even guess an insect I’m embarrassed to say.



We’re back at the vehicle. A great experience for us under the belt. The fourth of six Grade 2 walks passed by Mark. And the best rhino sighting they had in the last week of walking.


They drop us home and we head off to Hluhluwe to replenish our supplies. We arrive back, in good time to join a game drive with Zulu ranger Sam. His guests decide to rest up rather and so we follow their lead and do the same. A quick visit to the Forest Lodge bird hide and then a nap by the pool. Aaaah…. The trees on either side of the pool frame the scenes on the open grassland ahead of us, seen through half open eyes. Nyala and impala mow the lawn. A troop of baboon move off into the trees, the male stopping to play “king-of-the-hill” on his own, atop a little termite mound.


After today much more of our time walking in the bush will be spent looking down. Knowing what animals were over here is just as exciting as anticipating what animals might be over there.


Ngesonto 29 August
It’s a good day to catch up on sleep, and we roll out of bed at a very lazy 10am. Pancakes for breakfast, tuna sandwiches packed for lunch and we are ready for our day trip to Sodwana Bay.


It would be silly to pass Muzi Pan without stopping for a little look-see. We turn off from the Sodwana Bay tar road, dodge the potholes that threaten to swallow up our wheels and pull up to the bridge overlooking the spectacular Muzi Pan. Some of the best birding in the world! Masses and masses of water birds beckon to us from the shore, some 200m away. We mingle with Nguni cows down on the floodplain as we move in for a better look. The baby goats feed, between bleats calling for Mom. A local stacks thatching reeds, harvested just ahead.


The binos are out, and the bird book is close at hand. A Kittlitz Plover scurries around on the grass, while a flock of African Openbills (Storks) lift off from the pan and take to the skies. A handful of Pink-backed Pelican waterski in to land and a purple heron looks like he might have caught a little snack. The majestic Collared Praticole swoops and dives. The drab, English names belie the beauty and diversity of what we see before us. Big birds, small birds, black and white, and colourful, flying, walking, hopping, bobbing, diving. It is truly a feast of natural beauty.



The grass is cropped short, and the tracks leading out of the water are from hippo who come out at night to help the cattle tend the lawn.


We drag ourselves away from the pan, leaving the colourful African Jacana to tip-toe about his business on the water. It’s already 2pm and 40km still lies between us and Sodwana.


Just past Mbazwana we start winding East, towards the coast, past community veggie gardens. The farmed land gives way to lush bush, growing thick on the second highest vegetated dunes in the world. Three Samango Monkeys dart across the road into the shadows of the greenery around us.


The deep blue water turns to emerald green as the waves heave in front of us, exploding into a spray of white. Delicate ghost crabs dart in and out of sand tunnel homes. And we lie on the beach soaking up the Zululand sun.


The sun sinks down through the evening haze as we head home. We exchange Zulu greetings with the gate guard at 1-7 gate, past Forest Lodge and onto Qondile Road, the road home.


The light from our car is swallowed up by the empty road and forest ahead of us and then a shadow in the road ahead begins to move. Is it? Yes, it is! Our first leopard! It’s a small male and he is just beautiful. He ducks into the bush just a few metres head of us and skirts around us. The car revs, and the wheels spin in the soft sand, turning us around to follow him. He sprays the bushes ahead of us, marking this area as his home. A radio collar swings from his neck, explaining why he is so relaxed – habituated to the Phinda Leopard Research vehicle. A better end to a Sunday in Africa would be hard to expect.