We have reached the point where access to Wifi is unusual, and access to Wifi with the bandwidth to upload photos is even more difficult to come by and so posts are being composed for upload when access becomes available.
We have reached Palmwag Camp which is up in the hills and miles from anywhere and yet it shows that considerable investment has been made in trying to make the remote desert a more attractive spot for visitors with a campsite, air conditioned chalets a couple of good swimming pools and some cold draught beer – all chilled from a field of PV solar arrays!
The two of us set off on a game drive – starting at 6am - with a group of French tourists who are doing a similar tour. We are in search of rhino, but we only find desert giraffe,
and Oryx
Either there are a lot of these, or there are a group of them that cover a lot of ground. They a;ll look the same, but . . . We are travelling in the back of a Toyota Landcruiser which is not the most comfortably appointed;
but on the other hand, it does manage to cover the ground.
The ground is parched as there has been no rain for two years. There can be a few spots in an evening, but nothing to make any difference to the drought. You drive through parched riverbeds and see dry gorges like this which show that there was regular water here once.
We stop at a desert camp where the game wardens are based to ask if there have been any rhino sightings and they agree to some and help us find them as they had seen them yesterday.
It turns out that one of the wardens is already out and we find him striding through the brush. The wardens walk off up a valley leaving us at the side and then they walk down until they see the rhino and beckon us to join them SILENTLY on foot which means walking half a mile from the vehicle, and there we can view 33% of the Black Rhino population on the Palmwag Game Reserve!
There was no charge from the rhino, but the game wardens got a good tip!
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