Twenty-five kilometers on foot, two bulls lost
Sunday, 27 April 2014
A bull roan that spooks when Tum raises his camera. Eight kilometers in to a small pan where two bulls — one young, one old — had crossed together. The trackers say they are traveling, not feeding — they will not lie down today. Send for the cruiser; follow them until the last.
A new cruiser this morning — the first one needed a wash after the clay. We drove northeast past yesterday’s pan to check one that had been full of sign last season. Just short of it a twenty-five-inch bull roan. Tum moved to lift the video and the bull was gone.
Eight kilometers into the trail on foot, two elephant-bull tracks: one middle-sized, one bigger, both with mud-caked feet that hid the edges. At the pan we read them clean — a young bull, and an old one. Both walking south- southwest. Felix decided to follow.
We reached the pan at twenty to eleven. The bulls had not stopped. Nine point eight kilometers further Robert called the line: both bulls walking the same bearing, feeding very little, heading for another pan he knew of. They were traveling, he said — they would not lie down today. Send two of the trackers back for the cruiser, have it meet us at the next pan, and keep going.
We kept after them until three-thirty. By then we were very far south — further than the meeting point. Felix sent the old man on to change the rendezvous to the main gravel road ahead. Fifteen more gemsbok crossed close to us. At four-thirty we stepped out onto the main road: twenty-five point eight kilometers on foot from where we had started. The cruiser came at twenty-five past five. We had seen water everywhere the whole day.
