Walking with rhinos

Thirteen of us decided to go on a rhino walk in Rhodes Matobos National Park about an hour away from Bulawayo. As we were about to leave, Norman, our guide, told us he couldn’t guarantee rhino sightings as they are pretty difficult to find. We were disappointed as it was quite an expensive full day trip and the rhino walk was the main reason I was going.

We spent the morning learning about plants and ended up passing through farmland so we amused ourselves by looking out for the ‘Domesticated 5’ (something we made up to pass the time, similar to the ‘Big 5’ but we decided it contains cows, goats, dogs, chickens and the elusive sheep!) Clearly we didn’t see any sheep hence why we likened it to the elusive leopard.

We climbed up a steep rocky outcrop to an overhanging rock filled with Bushman rock art – the highlight was a delicately painted termite with clear wings.

After lunch by a bilharzia-ridden lake,

we were back on the search for rhino. We got out at many different viewpoints but saw nothing. In the late afternoon, just as we were losing hope of ever seeing any rhino, we got out of our vehicle, walked through the bush and found five rhinos in front of us.

The first thing that I noticed was that they have been dehorned

and later Norman told us it was done between September and November 2010 in an attempt to deter poachers but as per my rhino poaching post, sadly poachers still slaughter dehorned rhinos for the small stump that remains. Poaching was at its peak here in 2010/11

and the black and white rhino skeletons we saw in the park are testament to that. The black rhino died of natural causes but its horn disappeared ‘mysteriously’. The white rhino, however, was poached – it had AK-47 bullets riddled through its skull and saw marks on the bone where its horn would have been hacked off whilst it was still alive.

These five white rhinos were quite happily munching on grass

and we got closer and closer until we were about 20 metres from them. ‘Swazi’, one of the males who had evaded capture for several months being one of the last to be dehorned, sat down in front us – a sign he was comfortable despite being aware of our presence.

At one point, however, he stood up

and some of us (myself included) freaked out a little but he didn’t start coming towards us. Nonetheless we backed away giving the rhinos their space. It was pretty incredible being so close to them and I really hope future generations will have a chance to witness these beautiful creatures.