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Our next stop was Rhino Camp, a joint venture between the Save the Rhino Trust and Wilderness Safaris, based deep inside the Palmwag concession. To get there was supposedly a 3 hour drive, but with our knackered car...7 hours later....! I kid you not! Anyway, we had fun, afterall since when do we get to see giraffes & springboks on a major road here in the UK?
We were met at Palmwag lodge by our own personal guide for the next couple of days, a Czech guy called Rosta. We piled our luggage onto his truck and began a 3hr drive deep into the concession and million miles away from civillisation. All I can say is WOW. This is such an unspoilt spot. The concession is not open to the public and so the wildlife lives as free as it did before the days of poaching and the subsequent developement of National Parks. Plus there is a noticeable absence of other safari vehicles.
We arrived at the camp at 630pm, or rather the camp peered out of a small area of bush. If you didn't look hard, you would miss it. 12 Meru style tents are cleverly planted amongst the trees and blinkin' eck are these tents luxury! Well they were to us! We were the ONLY guests at camp and so we were given the honeymoon tent - woohoooo a massive bed!
Something I came to admire about Rhino Camp is its focus on the environment. They have a general policy of not harming the envirnoment and therefore there is no running water. Instead you get given a bucket of hot water upon request, this is then pumped into a bucket which is strung up in your outdoor bathroom and with one twist of a knob, hey presto you have a hot shower for 3 minutes! Genius. Anyway, dinner and then early to bed as the next morning we have to be up early to track black rhino......
630am on NYE and we were on our way to meet the trackers, who had already located a couple of rhino. As we were driven to the north eastern corner of the concession, an already blisteringly hot sun was cooled by the prevailing SW winds from the Skeleton Coast, only 40km away. After an hour of driving the trackers radioed and told us to stop, with the aid of binoculars we could just make out their jeep in the distance and with walking boots on, we set off on foot to meet them. 40 minutes later we met up with them and they led us along the final stretch.
We came to a stop on top of a ridge looking down on a spring and saw a mother and baby black rhino emerge from the trees! Special! It really was a special sighting as we were able to get close due to the fact that we were above them. The air was so silent that we could hear their every footstep and snap of branch as the fed. 20 minutes into the sighting and El coughed. The mother didn't notice, but baby did; his ears flapped continuously suggesting he had heard us, but as he continued to graze he clearly hadn't smelt us - thanks to the fact that we were up-wind our prescence was not confirmed. However, 10 minutes later the wind changed direction and he became agitated. The very second this happened the trackers walked us away. One of the principles the trust adheres to is that the rhinos must not be moved, had we stayed put a few minutes longer the mother would have moved herself and her baby out of that particular area.
Having reached the vehicles the trackers decided we'd try our luck in a different area. After just 15 minutes driving were were told to stop. Just ahead of us were another mother and baby, taking shade under a tree. We were able to leave the vehicles and walk V-E-R-Y slowly up-wind of them, with an open uninterrupted view. This time we were in the open and so all too quickly the appeared to notice us, but this mother is known for being more relaxed and so were able to stay put. Mother meandered off and baby very cutely trotted behind her. Every 10 yards or so they would stop, turn to face us, assess the danger. We were keen not to scare them away from shade during the heat of the day so we backed off and left them to it.
Time for lunch....on our hunt for a shady spot we came across a small herd of desert adapted elephants, again following the principles of the trust we kept our distance so as not to disturb them. After lunch, we headed back to camp for a welcome siesta. Tea and cake at 5pm was followed by a bush walk with Rosta to watch the sun set. We'd had an awesome day and to experience it on our own was something else. Unfortunately our little bubble was about to burst with the arrival of 11 further guests, so we savoured the last few moments of quiet.
We didn't meet the new arrivals until pre-dinner drinks around the camp fire. These guests deserve a postcard entry of their own....suffice to say 5 of them arrived on their very own plane with their very own pilot....
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