Although Elephant look a bit thick skinned, they need to undertake a daily skincare routine to prevent any parasites and flies from biting them. Rolling around and plastering themselves with mud is one way, dusting themselves with nice cool sand, another. This also serves as a coolant during hot summer days.
Elephants will gather around a shady spot where the sand is not as hot and dig into the soil to get to the even cooler sand to dust their bodies.
They just simply suck up a load of sand into their trunks and spray it where it is needed. Surely, a great way for keeping cool when water isn’t that close by…
From the same group of paintings where we had the dancing man, we find various human figures all appearing to do different things.
This figure looks like its running, but not at full sprint. Judging from the bow and arrow he is carrying, it could mean that he is out on the hunt.
Back at last only to be showered yet again. Is this another cyclone and more floods on the way? Time will tell. Didn’t risk going out. At night it is difficult to tell the condition of roads and dongas, and with the continuing rain we could have found ourselves stranded, if not washed away, for a few days.
No water in camp with the pump having been washed away in the floods.
We managed to get out in the morning and hoped to cross at Rocky Crossing only to find the flood-plain still very much under water. The Maxipiri river in the north is also flowing strongly so who knows when we’ll be able to cross to check on Tjololo and Tjellers. Many roads are still impassable and flowing. Even the game is sticking to the roads as these are the only areas that are relatively dry.
This could provide for some interesting behaviour as the predators are sure to be hunting along these routes. This evening we hope to progress further with our exploring the rest of the property.
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