Elephant Song – Okambonde Plains – Hoanib – Mudorib
Today we tried to leave Magnus and Elephant Song for the fourth or fifth time – I’ve lost count. We had grown to love this campsite with its amazing view over the plains towards the mountains, and the distant glimpses of Stompie’s herd as they take their weekly journey up and down the Hoanib.
The first time we ever stayed here in 2020, I hated it. I had just emerged from my first real experience of wild camping. We had spent three days just by ourselves, and it felt confined to be in even a fairly basic bush camp like Elephant Song.
This year I loved it. I loved the view, the chats with Magnus, watching elephants, springbok, and the dusk and dawn squabbling of Guinea fowl who would appear as a flock in the dry river beneath our pitch.
We were now beginning to run out of time if we wanted to return in a leisurely fashion to Windhoek, as opposed to a mad dash along main roads. Before we left, I wanted to have another chance to say goodbye to our elephants. Yesterday, hadn’t panned out, after getting stuck in the mud. So, I wanted to say goodbye to the ellie’s properly.
Yesterday the ellies had been travelling west down the Hoanib, but Magnus believed they’d changed direction. He had seen them on the plains in front of camp. Clearly something had caused them to retrace their tracks back to the plains.
We broke camp a little earlier than usual. Said what surely was our final farewell to Magnus, and drove to where we had first found the elephants yesterday. We were disappointed to find no fresh tracks. Magnus said he thought they were heading towards the north side of the Okambonde Plains, which was well away from where we had seen them in the past.
We drove towards the north edge of the plains. The landscape was amazing, we were among the sand and dunes which we saw in the distance from Elephant Song. We would watch sandstorms flare up in this area every evening. We drove up a side canyon, but found nothing except old tracks, and some interesting stones. We went into another side canyon which was claustrophobic and spooky, but we found fresh tracks.
After two hours we found them. They had moved about 10 km out of the valley, up a canyon. We think they had found water. They were having a dust bath when we got to them. It seemed an unusual place for them. It was quite contained, and not the kind of place we had previously found them in. There was old spore so clearly they had come here before
Nigel got quite close to them, much closer than we would have got when we first saw them, but we figured they knew our smells and sounds by now. We watched them for a bit. They walked off close to the vehicle, and we sat quiet with the engine off. We waited and then followed at a distance.
I’ll let Nigel describe what happened next (this is taken from his contemporaneous description to the WhatsApp group we kept with out friend while we were in Namibia):-
“I thought long and hard before posting this. Some may think it was a reckless thing to do, getting out of the vehicle. I had, in fact, spoken to a wildlife guide who told me that elephants can’t climb up steep inclines and when he followed them on foot, always kept near a bank for a quick escape.
Also, as we all know, elephants can’t jump!!!
First hand encounters with wildlife are both thrilling, exciting and frightening in equal measure. Being born and raised in Africa, I have had my fair share. Today’s encounter was no different.
Being away from the safety of a vehicle with wildlife, especially the kind that can do you serious damage makes you feel a vulnerability like no other. It’s an adrenaline filled moment that lives with you for years.
Eventually they (sic the elephants) wandered off into a riverbed, we continued to follow them from atop the 8 metre cliff which ran along the sides of the river bed.
It was at this point I decided to get out of the land cruiser and walk along the cliff top, filming them as they slowly moved along. Frances had got out as well and was about 15 metres ahead.
It was thrilling, to be out of the safety of the land cruiser in the presence of such powerful animals.
Frances was further ahead and standing by a large bush photographing them.
At this point, I started to become concerned that we probably should move back to the vehicle. I was quite confident that the ellies could not scale the 8 metre sandy cliff so felt safe(ish)
I turned to Frances and told her to move back to the car. As I turned back ‘Stompie’ the large matriarch was no longer following the herd but instead was looking directly at me with her trunk slightly raised. She had heard me call to Frances and now had my scent!
A split second later she started her charge at me. An enormous bellow, ears out and moving towards the cliff at speed where we were walking.
‘Run Nigel’ Frances shouted but I was already at full stride heading for the land cruiser.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her disappear below the cliff face. All I could think was ‘she’ll not get up the cliff’. Then to my horror, she appeared, top of head first followed by her eyes then ears then her front legs. ‘Hell’ I thought, she’s actually getting up the cliff!
I reached the car, the once open driver’s door started to close shut in the wind, my eye fixated on the locking tab, no way, I’m going to get locked out!
I grabbed the door and swung in. Stompie could not indeed get up the cliff and was now down in the riverbed kicking up a major tantrum, dust, ears and swinging trunk.
Frances has seen all this goings on and retreated into the bush and kept perfectly still. Stompie was looking at her.
I got the land cruiser started ( thank goodness the key fob was working) and tore across the cliff face. Frances jumped in and said ‘thanks for coming to get me!’”
Back to me (frances)
We are not proud of this. We always pride ourselves on not disturbing the animals we watch. It is not clever to upset them. I believe that more than seeing us, it was Nigel’s shout which upset Stompie. I had seen that with the lodge workers vehicle yesterday, and the French guys air conditioning a week ago. I believe that Stompie’s family (I can’t speak for other elephants as I don’t know them) were OK with humans, as long as we were seen but not heard.
After the experience, we felt the need to go back to Elephant Song and confess to Magnus. He was great. He told us of his close encounter. He talked of keeping the windows up when we met ellies, but I had always figured they should get our scent. A few days later, Philip, the guide at Twfelfontein, said that’s what he felt and did as well. He also had an elephant story which I’ll come to later.
So, we said another goodbye to Magnus. This occasion really was the last, until next year, although he has kept in touch through WhatsApp.
We drove down the Hoanib rather sadly. We revisited places we had seen the ellies before. We knew it was the last time this year. It is such a beautiful place. We don’t know why the elephants turned back when they did, instead of going down the Hoanib. At the time I thought it was perhaps because they had a very young calf and the lions were at the west end of the valley. However, two days later Magnus sent us a WhatsApp of the Hoanib in full flow past Elephant Song. It was magnificent but would have been scary if you were near it. Perhaps the elephants knew the rains were coming. Each evening we had watched the clouds get larger and larger but it hadn’t rained while we were there.
We had wanted to watch a flash flood. In YouTube clips it has seemed an incredible thing to watch. But, after Magnus sent us the video of it happening, a few days after we left Elephant Song, we realised how inconvenient it would have been. We wouldn’t have been able to leave Elephant song, and would have been panicking about getting to Windhoek in time for our flight home.
We found the bull elephant at around the same place as before. We watched him eating from a camel thorn tree, standing on his hind legs to reach up with his trunk for leaves which, to him, looked tastier.
There was baboons with babies in some trees. We hadn’t seen many this trip, which in a way was good. Baboons are terrible thieves and you do not want to set up camp near them.
We drove past the President’s Waterhole where some vultures were drinking. Vultures are ugly but also impressive because of their size. We watched them take off in a clumsy fashion, making several attempts to leave the ground. We paraglide, and I have to say that, if I launched in the same way the vultures did, I would be ridiculed.
We made camp in the Mudorib, in the spot on the side of the valley which was a little protected from the wind, but which we the hyena had visited when we were here before. We realised that we had come to like the extra luxury of a bush camp with its showers and sinks. In particular, the fact that we didn’t have to go to bed shortly after sunset, because in a bush camp it is safe to be outside in the dark. Somehow bush camps are easier. I didn’t used to feel this way, and I don’t know if we were getting old, or were tired from camping for the last 20 days.
Desert Wonderers 