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6-11th April 2009
A Walk Across Hwange National Park
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The Highlights:
The team completed 120km in 5 days and 2 hours, unsupported and unassisted
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Camp
stirs at Ngweshla camp-site at 05h00 for a big day ahead. A superb sunrise greets us as we head out in convoy of four vehicles bound south
west for Josivanini. A lone elephant bull on the Ngweshla plains stands as a lone sentinel bidding us bon voyage. Gavin and I reflect
in the chilled Hwange air on board the FOH Cruiser as we cover the Manga loop before stopping at Manga 3 for a tea break. Here excitement
builds as we say farewell to the gravel park roads and head down the grassy track which runs south west to Josivanini. Very few have traveled
this road in the 21st century apart from the odd Parks vehicle and the lion research team to most this road requires special permission
from Parks and has been unmaintained for nearly a decade. Fortunately Jungle Jane Hunt who works with the Hwange Lion Research team
and probably the most knowledgeable person on Hwange, had given us vital information about this 4x4 track and the area we're about to cover.
Several times we find fallen trees across the track or an impassable muddy rut both of which required getting out and charting a small detour. The vlei lines we passed through were magnificently thick as if they'd never been fed on by a single elephant, and were banked by gentle slopes of thick woodland. Suddenly we draw up at Secheche, a stunning and large waterhole set in the heart of a large open plain. The backup team enjoy two nights here later in the trip, with regular herds of elephant, zebra and other antelope visiting to quench their thirst.
We
chatter excitedly in anticipation of our long-awaited, six-day walk. The thick bush we rumble through hour after hour humbles us into
periods of quiet contemplation, changing often from Teak forest to Mopane woodland then sand veld, open stretches and back to teak. Game is
scant as to be expected in these areas where no permanent water exists from May to December each year, but elephants travel mega miles in
the rainy season and we frighten small groups and several bulls from roadside pans and they trumpet and lumber away at pace into thick
recesses of bush. We even surprise a honey badger who, caught unawares in daylight, almost knocks herself out on a stump before bumbling out
of sight! Someone points out the 'Shepherd's Bush' (boscia albitrunca), not found in the popular eastern parts of Hwange but certainly in
abundance here where it flourishes like it does in the Kalahari.
With no advance warning we pull up at Josivanini Pan with the now dilapidated thatched lodge peeking its roofs amongst the trees beyond. What a thrilling sight - a pair of white rhino are standing along the water's edge, clearly regulars to this watering hole, but not used to humans and 'street-wise', the pair swiftly trundles off into thick cover. Time is ticking and wolfing down a hearty brunch, Gordon Putterill, our guide, briefs us for our hike. You could hear a pin drop as the reality dawns on us of the full dangers of such an endeavour.
We may well run into armed poachers Gordon begins, so we need to be alert therefore I've also bought a revolver along in case anything happens to me or my rifle. Of course we'll almost certainly have close encounters with the big game, elephant, buffalo, rhino and possibly lion. Should one of us get injured by such an encounter we have a pretty comprehensive medical aid kit along with us, but realistically we would still have to carry out any injured person to the back up team, some 20km away or further if we have too...
Sobering
news indeed by the looks on team members' faces and the back-up team of families and friends. Dr Ken Jenkins fittingly prays for our
protection.
Emotional goodbyes are made all round and the team of Gordon, Matt, Steve, Gavin, myself and 7-foot Stewart (Spook) board the Land Cruiser for their last motorised lift for the next six days. The track going west beyond Josivanini became vague and just an old fire-break along an ancient elephant track what a fitting place to start our traverse of Hwange...
Finally at 15h05 the six of us walk across our first fossil dune, sandy soils covered by thick but immature Teak forest. Finding our feet, our packs are to capacity with 20kg of food rations, water, snacks and essential equipment. I'm glad Gavin cut me a hiking stick as I stagger along adjusting to my new backpack, wearing long hiking pants and bush shirt, feeling a bit 'encapsuled' like an astronaut on the moon if ever I could imagine what that's like.
To be honest the thought did cross my mind, We're in a national park with 25,000 elephant, I can barely walk with this weight... How on earth do I have a chance to get away from an elephant or buffalo? Gordon you're our man, surely that's what we're paying you for?
We
can see plenty of signs of elephant strewn along the elephant path we're on, as well as buffalo dung. We start a gentle descent the other
side of our wooded dune, arriving in mopane woodland and numbers of small pans that run between the fossil dunes. We're excited to be in
this unique part of Hwange where thousands of years ago the Kalahari swept in, formed sand dunes which over the millenniums has then been
won back by teak forest. Our plan was to traverse a dune as quickly as possible along elephant trails, then walk along the pan lines where
the game and activity should be, zigzagging our way north-east towards the eastern border of Hwange.
Day 1 ends as Gordon stops around 17h30 at an interesting pan with a family of 10 knob-billed geese. Choosing our sleeping place carefully away from the obvious busy game routes, it's time to hang and try out our 'mozzie net capsules', custom made for us to give us some protection from scorpions, spiders, snakes and other night 'invaders' who might care to visit. No tents on this trip due to the weight!
Stewart our 'gadget man' does the honours of making sat phone contact with our backup team at 'Josi' to say we haven't been 'tusked' yet, and we fall asleep listening to the distant roar of lion.
A
lone elephant bull visited our pan during the night, his large roundish padded footprints the only evidence he was there. Departing at 07h55
following the pan line, we barely avoid walking into another large elephant bull 20 mins on a kink in the path and shadow unbelievably
masks the 5-tonne behemoth like dominos we piled up single file in response to Gordon's violent hand signal for us to retreat off the
trail into cover of some bushes. Elephant eyesight really is poor over just 20 metres, but hugely compensated for by their lengthy nose
this particular fellow picked our scent up as he lumbered abreast of us and with a shaking of mighty ears paced away into thicker bush away
from our hiding spot... our first encounter!
We followed very fresh buffalo spoor to within minutes of finding the old 'dagga boy', but then sadly it was time to cross another fossil dune at 90 degrees to get into another pan line and maintain our steady north-east journey. The change of vegetation was palpable as we descended the dune from thick teak into magnificent Acacia woodland swathed in waist-high grass. The breeze was swirling but then one of us spots our first 'elephant' nursery herd some 25 cows and young ambled ahead of us enjoying a banquet of variety.
Gordon, with a gleaming eye, gets out his sock of ash and simultaneously wrestles off his backpack, urging us to do the same. With swirling wind, time is of the essence to move in close to this herd before they pick up our scent. Moments later we're jogging behind Gordon ever closer to the grey goliaths and then silently they've detected us, infra-sonically communicated 'humans' to the whole herd and they're off, moving east away from us at a much faster pace than we could have imagined, 100 tonnes collectively moving with little to no sound and then... nothing. They've melted away into emerald foliage...
Lunch
beckons with the sight of an attractive large pan filled with white egrets and more Knob-billed ducks around noon and we need no invitation
to strip off and enjoy the swim on another stunning hot day.
Gordon hollers for me to take a few pics of him wallowing in the pan his face changes from wide grin to wide-eyed shout of surprise as the first leech attaches itself to a butt cheek! Collapsing with mirth, I snap away and then encourage Gordon to model a succession of bleeding wounds left by the second, third and fourth leech. The 'sucks' look more serious than they are as the little blighters inject an anti-coagulant which means the blood just keeps on comin'.
Lunches became a real draw card. After a refreshing swim we'd laze under shade for a few hours for a cat nap or more stories. Our menu included fresh cucumber, tomato, snack bread or vita snacks, cheese triangles, biltong or dry wors, and lots of tea courtesy of our current muddy pan.
The afternoon walk was heavenly, thick teak on dunes to our left, and variable woodland interspersed with Shepherd's Bush to our right. Successions of flowering lilies in the pans we passed, gnarled old Leadwood (Combretum Imberbe) stumps and giant healthy leadwoods loomed over us as we covered a steady 4km/h.
At
15h55 Gordon looks back beaming and gives us the 'flapping ears' sign to indicate an elephant bull ahead of us. He feeds totally unaware of
our presence downwind of him. Downing our packs quietly we stalk up to the giant, Gavin videotaping and, all holding our breaths, we get
within 15m. Thrilling stuff! It only gets better as another bull materialises to our right and the two treat us to an intimate gesture of
intertwining trunks as they meet and greet, then picking up our scent, as one they lift their heads and shake their ears defiantly in our
direction. We need little prompting to scurry in the opposite direction and we go our separate ways...
Four
of us have GPSes excluding Matt and I. We eventually depart at 08h30 as Gordon and the other three are engrossed in GPS lingo, rechecking
positions, comparing to the 1:50,000 maps we're carrying, double checking our route for the day ahead, etc. A lot more work than I realised
and one has to be patient! Its an amazing fact that the maps we have were made 40 years ago but were amazingly accurate and all the dotted
red track lines we followed were ancient elephant trails established over hundreds of years and abundantly clear when the aerial photos were
taken for the mapping in a dry October, decades before. Without these great engineers of the bushveld it would have been incredibly
frustrating and taken days longer to achieve the distances we did, even though in the end we effectively walked 120km zigzagging to cover
70km as the crow flies.
The long dangerous walk through 8-foot teak across dunes seems interminable today. Gordon breaks the monotony with sharing some info on golden orb spiders we encounter and other types as well. We sample a tiny and rare melon but find it bitter and spit out to be safe.
The
bush changes again and again and we surprise two magnificent kudu bulls who leap away from us. The spoor of more life presents itself on the
pathways in a flurry now, warthog and giraffe, civet and genet. Around mid-morning Gordon points out an attractive little Agama lizard
basking in the sun quick as a flash Gordon pounces on the little guy and we get a detailed download from Gordon on Agamas. It's not just
the big stuff that hold fascination out here, and having Gordon widen our limited understanding on nature's bounty is truly a huge bonus.
A small herd of zebra bounds away from us as we draw up to a thickly vegetated pan, and we creep around its bush edges before to our delight we spy a pair of white rhino on the other side, just some 40 metres away! When you walk in a park of 14,500 sq. km which only has under 40 white rhino this was no small treat. The rhino pair are very alert and with changing gusts of wind lose no time in heading for thick cover. Gordon leads us after them discreetly at a jog, our method being to move when they do, so our noise is covered by theirs. We come up trumps in being just 20 metres away from these wonderfully powerful and rare mammals what a privilege!
Day 3 ends with whooping hyena singing us to sleep.
Our
destination is a group of pans marked 'Togo' on the map, some 20km away. We genuinely feel we're likely to be the first humans in this
middle section of Hwange NP which is even more remote than usual by its distinct absence of any roads. Blisters have arrived for most of us
by now but the team gallantly 'zinc tape' them daily without any moans - comes with the territory I guess.
We strike up a good pace this time through 'cathedrals' of mature teak forest towering over us and deeply shadowed, and the unique find of a migrating terrapin who clearly decided the rainy season was over and she needed to find more permanent water.
We reached attractive but bizarrely named 'Beaver Pan' mid morning and while Gordon nearly stumbled into a Mozambique Spitting Cobra, Gav and I almost have an elephant bull on our laps as he sneaks in from behind us! The Hwange bulls were remarkably gracious to us in encounters overall and once more this fellow retreats away from his much tinier counterparts. The muddy water at Beaver requires more of our 'Aqua tabs' and then we're off once more, now sighting giraffe, sable or roan or even possibly gemsbok spoor?
The late afternoon session brings a real highlight, another nursery herd of elephants this time taking an afternoon bath, oblivious to us. Pure magic as we steal closer then watch in awe as the herd moves as one with tails elevated horizontally swiftly and silently exit in seconds.
We make the decision to stop 2km short of Togo and we celebrate under full moon with cigars and a 'sip-supply' of Scotch, now our nightly ritual around the fire although its never cold. We all try our hands at fire-making for the five nights out twisting a stick at pace into another softer wood block to get a tiny coal; shavings of magnesium from a flint, a magnifying glass onto dry zebra dung the latter two methods definitely being the easier!
A pair of young elephant bulls surprise us by coming in for a drink across the pan under moonlight and reminding us to 'mark our trails' once more on all the incoming game paths into the pan an accidental stomping we just don't have the medical kit for on this trip...
We
stroll down the Manga vlei line and it's not long before we spy a small family group of 'Ndlovu' (Ndebele for elephant) having their morning
wallow. Well trained now, we drop our packs and sneak in close as they are ambling away for feeding time.
Gordon stops to point out a fast-disappearing olive grass snake that crosses our path and then we stumble upon a dream pan packed with weed that somehow filters the water into what tastes like spring water to us. We drink copious litres and fill up all bottles and 'camel packs', thrilled to avoid chlorine pills.
Passing close to 'Manga 3' waterhole, two magnificent sable bulls tear away into thickets of green and then we head for a huge teak tree for our midday respite. The shade offered by this magnificent teak which we know must be hundreds of years old is easily 20 metres across and we doze and never want to leave. Hwange is casting its spell on all of us and our other lives seem far distant.
In retrospect we left a bit late at 15h00, planning to find small but vaguely-marked water pans on the map. The first GPS point is barren and not even a pan, so was the 2nd and 3rd and by 16h30 the reality and real possibility of finding no water until tomorrow was imminent. We climb trees in vain to try and see open clearings but for 360 degrees around us there's just a green sea of teak. We pray that we'll find water before the day is through. Its still hot and we make the tough decision to risk walking after dusk to trudge 4,5 km to what is marked as another pan, but clearly no guarantees.
The
short teak forests are plagued with short thorn and unattractive scrubby bush and unusually we have no welcome elephant trail to follow now.
We all are weary but trying to beat the sunset which we're walking directly due east away from. You can feel the sombre moods and even
Gordon shows irritation as his shins get lacerated by thorns. No water means no dinner as food only drives your thirst to new heights.
Another indicator that Hwange can't be toyed with, it's easy to die out here, I even see a dead toktokkie beetle.
Taking the back position in single file, we suddenly find a very well-used elephant path going in the right direction, roots and bark strewn across it for kilometres as we walk, and from my sixth position at the back I can see the effects of blisters and sore knees on my compatriots and am feeling likewise. Literally at last light around 18h10 there is huge smiles and high fives as we hit a large clearing. In the last light three great hulks of grey are pacing away from slaking their thirst at what we respectfully dub Good Friday Pan', in fact two notably wide but shallow pans we're ecstatic!
Full moon and the usual large leadwood to sleep around, we only ponder after swimming and many cups of tea how different it could have turned out today...and a lone bull majestically slips in to drink close by. I'm woken by a splashing at 02h00 and lift my head sleepily to see another family of elephants drinking within 40m of us this is heaven. A mother and calf still hasn't detected us and she exits the pan and walks slowly towards us to within 20m before thankfully she picks up our 'mark' on the game trail and turns tail.
Breaking
camp we have three elephant encounters in 25 minutes! The first bull is coming straight down 'his' path as we leave the pan and we move
aside into shade to let him pass. The second we smell strong in 'musth' before we see him, and on high alert we skirt him within 25 metres
but thankfully he detects us and doesn't stick around.
Ascending a section of Dopi vlei we spot a small family group of elephants feeding lazily in thick bush. Gordon takes us within metres of a feeding female. For a panicky moment another bull approaches from our south-east, sandwiching us between this group and himself. We breathe out as the bull changes direction away from us and the feeding family still hasn't picked us up, what a start to the day!
The terrain is glorious, gentle hills lining the lengthy Sumamalisa vlei. The wildlife picks up nicely with giraffe and several other elephant bulls along our way. We enter swathes of stunning camelthorn forests (Acacia Erioloba) we float along in heaven on earth, copious piles of elephant dung that we have to step over and then mischievously sneak along behind gentle bulls loping along on the path ahead.
We begrudgingly approach the touristy route, Kennedy Vlei, and see our first other humans for six days. A man stops his car by Kennedy 2 pan and walks straight towards us. A friend of Gordon's, he breaks our tranquil world by telling Gordon his sister and family have been in a terrible car accident in SA, and one of Gordon's nephews has tragically died.
It's a really tough time, everyone reeling from the news. Realising Gordon can only get back to his family tomorrow, we jointly decide to cut short our last night out and finish the walk this afternoon. As we leave some clients from a nearby lodge on a game drive, stop and encourage us by offering to sponsor our walk. Following the vlei line towards The Hide safari camp, our final destination, we enjoy our last few hours out in this amazing wilderness.
A young and true to form young elephant teenager exits a pan in front of us ahead of his family herd. His poor eyesight stops him detecting us until a mere 25m away and then he squeals and mock charges us with much bravado, before turning tail. Our back up team comes out to offer condolences to Gordon and boost us for the final few kilometres home its our hardest day as we're over the 20km mark and 100 long km under our belts already doing this without foot blisters is one thing....
Sunset arrives and we stop for team photos under the windmill at Kennedy 1 Pan which is fitting as we're raising funds for this legendary 80-year old park. There couldn't be a grander finale, an elephant bull on the edge of the vlei, frolicking zebra stop to gaze at us as we pass by on our final kilometre down Kennedy vlei into camp and another exquisite sunset bathes us in last light. The smiling faces welcoming us in, hands and cold beers extended, families reunited, photos... and then the stories start!
If you'd like any more info on the Friends of Hwange Trust (www.hwangetrust.com) or how you could help please email beck@africanencounter.org We appreciate any support!
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