Having had the luxury of a bed so far I now had to bite the bullet & move onto my luxurious camping accomodation. Before that was the small matter of the 250 miles to Serowe. I was heading for the Rhino Sanctuary there. Due to ongoing cross border poaching, rhinos mainly from the north (Chobe) were moved to Serowe where they are protected.
The GPS did not pick up the Sanctuary & with no signs I was relying on directions. "Go to the gas station & turn right, then third left & carry on....No, it isnt, its left then third right". I left with a full blown argument underway. After much guesswork, I arrived. "The road to the campsite is very sandy, you may want to leave your bike". Worth a go. I was back in 5 minutes having managed fifty of so very undignified metres of battling to stay upright in deep, powdery sand.
Having pitched the marquee, it was getting towards dusk. I was on my own & was being watched. I could see barbets, shrikes (crimson), starlings (Mere's), quail & the great named go-away bird (grey) from the tent. In the background were impala passing through in the bush. "Beware of the night animals" I was told as I headed off to watch Matrix 3 in the restaurant.
Woke to a sound of ruffling outside the tent. A hornbill was rooting around & looked unimpressed. Not surprising as I was stiff as a board. My blow up mat had punctured. Rule one of camping for beginners. Do not pitch your tent where there are lots of thorns.Or ants. Or baby scorpions.
I was booked on a drive around the sanctuary to see some Rhino. I was the only one on the Landcruiser. The thick twisted bushland opened up into wide plains with zebra, wildebeest, springbok, steenbok, impala. Even a giraffe wandered by (also introduced). Vultures glided around in circles above. A Kori bustard ran away into the distance. Everything was bone dry. There had been no rain since March. The sand was feet deep. All activity was around the boreholes maintained by the sanctuary. Birds everywhere but no rhino.
Given the rhino no show, my driver offered to take me out again in the afternoon. Given I had a couple of hours to kill, I reverted to the time honored pairing of beer & bird watching. A new babbler (southern pied) & the bearded scrub robin made appearances. Noticing other people pointing, I turned to see a rhino heading straight towards me. I was told latter this a black rhino from Zimbabwe called Noddy who had been hand reared. He was now free to roam but liked to make an appearance to check out the sanctuary's array of human life.
On the second drive, sadly the main event, the larger white rhinos failed to make an appearance. Mind you with my powers of observation they could have been doing a Mexican wave & I would have missed them.
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