A thousand kilometers for nothing
Saturday, 26 April 2014
Five days in and more than a thousand kilometers driven. New roads, new pans, new country — and still not one spoor worth the long walk. Today neither Felix nor I saw a single animal.
A young kudu bull less than five minutes from camp, on a new road we had to cut open to a sun-pump pan in the northeast. Fresh tracks of three to five young bulls. At the pan, a group of young bulls drinking — no old-bull sign.
We drove east to another pan. Nothing. East again to the Botswana fence, then north to the park boundary. Eland-bull spoors days old. A very big bull-roan track. Not a decent elephant spoor between them.
After lunch, north along the border fence to the park boundary, then a left. Fresh young-bull sign. Cows and calves. A big old-bull track a couple of days old. A couple of cow roan along the road. Dark clouds again; more rain coming.
Five days in. More than a thousand kilometers on the clock. Not one spoor worth the chase. In two years hunting here this has never happened to us. The country is soaked through — there is water everywhere, and the elephants do not need to come in to the pans or water holes we know. They can be anywhere, and so they are.
