9th November 2000
Rain 54mm
We saw the weather lurking to the west when we left camp, but it looked like is would just pass us. Asking the tracker, Elvis, who was with the film crew, he was adamant it would be raining soon.
We picked up Tololo moving along the Kapen river and then south onto a recently burnt area.
The storm had surrounded us by sunset, impressive lightning striking on a regular basis several times a minute and turning darkness into day. Then the rain struck, hard and constant. We had our canopy up as it started but Dale carried on without his, luckily only having one camera box to keep covered.
With the area being fairly open we were able to keep up with Tjololo even with our cover up. He kept moving as the rain pelted down. Not just moving but using the disturbance to hunt. Next he was following up on the herd of buffalo and followed them for some time hoping to find a youngster. But there weren’t many of those around as they’ve only just started dropping calves a few days ago.
It was stunningly impressive to see Tjololo and the buffalo herd momentarily lit up with each lightning strike. Except for the one strike, which hit while I was filming and was almost a direct hit where we were. Deafeningly loud, the flash and thunder hit us at the same time. It was right there!!!!!!! We had actually a few days ago seen a tree shattered by lightning only a few hundred meters from where we were. A rather scary thought.
Having followed Tjololo for several hours in the rain as he kept hunting, Richard and I were fine but Dale was soaked to the bone and freezing. Tjololo headed into thicker bush so we called it a night and were back at camp before midnight.
0 Response to “Tjololo 9th November 2000”