Thirty-five kilometers, champagne in the dark
Thursday, 22 May 2014
We have not given up on the ninety-plus. The small pan near the border in the southeast — only young bulls. A big old bull a kilometer out in a clearing on the drive back — not him. The Jackpot Pan and the second pan — no bull worth the chase. So we walk south of the Jackpot, three and a half kilometers, to what Felix names Jackpot-the-Third. And there, waiting — a massive old-bull spoor from the prior evening, with young-bull tracks running with him.
We had not given up. We walked to the small pan close to the border in the southeast — only young-bull spoors. On the drive back on the dirt road, a big old bull at the edge of a clearing, a kilometer out. We stopped, glassed — not our bull. We hid the cruiser and walked to the Jackpot Pan: no decent spoors. We walked to the second pan from yesterday: cow, calf, young-bull prints only.
Felix decided we would go south of the Jackpot to a pan a bushman had mentioned. Three and a half kilometers on foot. He named it “Jackpot Pan the Third.” There we found what we had come for — a massive old-bull spoor from the prior evening. Two young-bull tracks ran with him for a while.
Ten to nine, taking his line. Three hundred meters out, cold dung. He walked southeast, mostly on an elephant road, not stopping to feed — which told us he was traveling far. The two young bulls peeled off at five and a half kilometers. At thirteen and a half the bull entered a thicket, and then a raisin-berry patch, and began to feed. We lost him several times there, and then he joined a herd of cows and calves.
Ten to three. We sent Chou up a tree to glass. He could not find them. We were a long way from the cruiser — three hours on foot if we followed our line in. We made the call to cut straight back through thick bush to head off the dirt road. It was the wrong call: three kilometers an hour in that stuff.
We turned north to cut the dirt road. An elephant road appeared and led us nearly straight to it. By the time we hit the cruiser it was pitch dark.
Thirty-five point five kilometers for the day, including the three morning pans before we had even taken a track. The longest day and the hardest.
Back at camp. A long hot shower. A few glasses of chilled champagne at the fire. A good dinner with a fine bottle of French red. Already I was looking forward to the next safari, this coming July. Time passes quickly hunting elephants in the bush. This one had been hard and it had been honest and it had been, in its own way, successful. I could not wait to start again.
