The shade was hardly the shade today. Well the term didn’t really mean that much as temperatures soared over 40 degrees Celcius in the shade. (104F)
Driving around in the midday heat in my open vehicle is hard to discribe. I don’t know of situation where the heat is so intense. It was like opening the oven door and being hit by that barrage of heat. Except this is continuous and sucks all the energy and moisture from ones body. Actually I just shouldn’t have been driving, as parked in the shade was a lot more comfortable.
Our little elephant herd was in very much the same place I’d left them last night. But they must have been to drink somewhere in this time as they couldn’t possibly survive without water in these temperatures. And again for most of the day they stayed in a small area feeding and resting all day.
The little calf just followed as he should. Life for him was no more than follow my leader. AND drink when he wants.
This little male calf is only about 2 weeks old and will probably become a key player in our elephant film. BUT HE NEEDS A NAME. So if you have any suggestions for names, please submit them under the “Recent Comments” tag.
While he was lying shaded up under his family I headed south to Hartebeest pan and sure enough some elephant bulls were making the most of the mud. They would leave the waterhole for about an hour, feed close by, then back for another cooling off session. Made sense to me but I just wasn’t prepared to go that far too keep cool.
Back with our elephant family at dusk and they headed east into the hills. I could only follow on foot, which I did at a distance as I wanted to see where they were headed. Sure enough they cooled off at the seep at Chimbiya (:map:). There wasn’t enough water for drinking and they continued east in the hills, leaving me to return to my vehicle and back to base.










































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