Manyari had a lonely night.
The rest of the pride had abandoned her. They were at Nyamasikana pan at sunset staring at a herd of buffalo bulls. But didn’t have the courage to attack. These youngsters needed Manyari.
Manyari rested most of the night, calling softly all night. But nobody responded to her plight. Where had those youngsters disappeared to? Have they gone looking for the rest of the pride?
In the early hours Manyari knew she had to get moving. Very slowly and painfully she got to her feet and moved off in slow motion. But once she warmed up, her pace improved, so much so that I’m confident she’ll be able to keep up with the pride when she finds them. But her injuries are going to take months to heal.
She rested up in the hills north of Lojaan soon after sunrise.
I drove around through the areas that have recently been burnt and scattered around were all these big elephant bulls feeding in the burn. Did some of these plants taste better now that they’ve been ‘cooked’?
13th September 2000
From behind us Dale shouted, “Was that air?” We roared with laughter, but did Tjololo deserve this. He was in that precarious position busy with his ablutions and not having fed now for a week there seemed nothing else he could pass but air. But interestingly enough he was still passing stools after a week. (I’m sure most of you don’t really want to know about that).
Tjololo was still intent on moving around his boundaries marking and only in the early hours did he venture into his heartland and move into serious hunting mode. He wasn’t able to get near some impala or a duiker but he rushed in on a kudu cow and they tumbled into the bushes. Tjololo couldn’t hold on and it got away. By dawn he was back at almost the very same spot we left him yesterday. If we hadn’t been traveling with him all night, only working days, we’d have assumed he’d been sleeping all night.
My tyres took a serious bashing last night with 3 blowouts. We didn’t have enough spares and Dale had to rush back to camp and bring others. He pulled the short straw, ‘cos it meant we were able to sleep for an hour plus. Goodyear have promised to help us out. Hopefully that will be soon.
This weather sure is all over the place. Only the night before I was wearing all my winter clothes and last night I wore my shorts all night it was so warm. I just love this hot dry weather.
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