6th July 2000
Whenever the action gets hot, the conditions get harder with 3 blowouts last night caused by tree stumps hidden in the grass. Not only are tyres now costing us dearly but all the hidden stumps are doing untold damage to the vehicles, mainly to the body work. Luckily these cars aren’t here to be pretty but to carry out some very rough work. If that wasn’t enough Dale also broke a spring. This all means lots of running repairs in camp instead of sleep.
Early evening Tjololo met up with his unfriendly neighbour, Masuli (named after the way his eyes look at you). Masuli pushed him south of the Rock Drift donga and then stopped.
Staying with Masuli, he went checking out warthog burrows and flushed a couple of pigs but without success. He then changed to kudu and charged in on an adult male, which luckily for him got away. This animal would be about 3 times his own weight with a lethal pair of spiralled horns. We later lost him going after some kudu cows through a donga.
Tjololo was heading back north of the Rock Drift donga before dawn and killed a subadult male impala. Having dragged it to the base of a tree, he was suddenly surprised by 3 hyaena and scrambled up the tree with the carcass but got hooked up in the branches on the way up. The carcass was now dangling only inches from the hyaenas noses. Half clambering and jumping a hyaena managed to grab the impala’s hoof. Next another hyaena had grabbed the other and as they both hung on with all their weight and feet off the ground, Tjololo hung on dearly to his prize in the tree. Not making any progress the hyaenas then chewed off the hooves leaving the carcass now out of reach and giving Tjololo a chance to haul it into the upper branches.
We were beside ourselves with laughter at the hyaena’s antics and I was finding it difficult to keep the camera steady while filming.
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