Walking with the Rhinos

We left Antelope Park early on Tuesday morning for Bulywayo where we stayed at an awesome campsite with NO tents. Tokoloshe has had a bit of a bad run and had broken its wheel shaft, so we spent the morning drive on Eeyore - another Absolute truck - and met up with two safari guides for our day trip through Rhodes (as in Cecil) Motopos National Park. We headed into the park on small safari vehicles looking for Rhinos that we could approach and sit with (seriously, sometimes you begin to wonder what the hell you are doing....). The vehicles were fantastic with a bait seat up the front - and no windows or walls in the back - we were in the open for the whole day. We learnt a lot about the bushmen (mostly all now living down in the Kalahari Desert...), had a look through some of the caves where they had left paintings, went to a local village and met with the leader of the village (a super eccentric and incredibly lovely man who would jump up and down and pump your hand when you told him where you came from while screaming "ah, New Zealand, New Zealand!" and laughing his head off) and eventually entered the National Park to locate some Rhino. Our tour guide was called "Stretch" and was seriously Africa's answer to Steve Irwin. We would be driving along at top speed when he would all of a sudden screech to a halt and we would all look around wildly for the Rhino and then he would pick up some turd off the road, sniff it and say (verbatim) "White Rhino shit. Only about an hour old. We're getting closer." I kid you NOT!!!!!! It was hilarious! Needless to say, we found the Rhino, three to be exact - Mama, baby girl and big brother, and got within about a metre and a half which was AWESOME! As we were there, the baby girl wanted a feed so the Mama lay down and she fed her while we watched. It was pretty cool. Right on sunset we also found a massive bull Rhino and sat with him for a few minutes before heading back to Bulywayo for the night. Bulywayo was a strange city - driving through on the back on the safari trucks in the open air, you could have been anywhere in New Zealand, except that it was dead quiet, all of the houses (and some of them beautiful sprawling estates on gorgeous grounds) sported cages over the windows and the decks - even in apartment blocks. Obviously something that can't be openly discussed lest we are given a lesson in fear with guns in the bush (true story - happened to a tour leader). Anyhow.