4 September - Road Maintenance (and Animals)

It is 3 am and I am laying in bed listening to rain that is dripping from the gutters outside while my body gently aches from the work done repairing roads yesterday morning. We had returned to the heavily rutted track from last week, scoured the edges of the scrubland for large stones along the track and used these to fill the some of the remaining ruts before digging out mud as before to fill the gaps. Enele, a regular guide here but newly returned from leave, occasionally threw a stone into the scrub to help keep black rhinoceros away; the first time caused me quite a stir as I was a few yards into the scrub, pulling out a particularly good selection of stones, when I heard noise in the undergrowth before realising what it was.

That afternoon the rain I am now hearing set in as we drove around. We were spending the time trying to track a cheetah with the radio detection equipment but had no luck whatsoever. We did see a couple of black-back jackal, foxlike and trotting across the grassland, an old rhinoceros, giraffe and some elephants plus, of course, a variety of antelopes. We tried to identify the elephants we came across but the tears and nicks in their ears that we use are generally so indefinite and open to interpretation that we rarely have a consensus of opinion.

                    

The drive back was long and quiet as we did our best to shield ourselves from the cold and the developing drizzle. Open sided vehicles are great for spotting animals but they do have their disadvantages. We can not complain though as the rain is desperately needed. The drizzle continued into the evening as we passed the time after dinner playing pool and chatting before it was once again time to get my head down.