Sunday 21^st October

We awoke at 6am this time for a bird watching walk.  Once again we were down to walk with the school party, unfortunately they decided that staying on bed was a far better option that coming out so only their teacher Paul joined us which meant a quiet outing and hopefully more sightings.  We saw so many bird species.  I think the count was up in the 40’s by now, and included kingfishers, woolly neck storks and marabou.  Don’t tell Sarah, but the highlight for me, apart from just being out in the bush, was seeing the elephant taxis taking people to work and crossing the river – complete with babies.  They walked right past us and I could have touched them they were so close.  As Sarah rightly knows these are lethal wild animals so it is risky being so close, however elephants are treated and used like working horses here, and each has a handler that is with it all its life so we have to hope this reduces the risk as much as possible.

We were out for about 1 hour and a half.  On the way back we saw the baby rhino that is being raised in the conservation area as it was bitten on the head by a tiger when it was little, and is now being cared for there.  They do hope to release it in the future.  This was a really lovely walk and thankfully no leeches this time.

Back at the hotel we had breakfast on the veranda and lounged around for a while before heading down to the river front to watch the elephants having their baths.  Our bird watching guide came with us and took us to the quieter end of the bank.  This is a big tourist attraction, and although I didn’t get in the water with the elephants I did get to sit on one and to feed it Bananas, for a small fee to the handler.  Our guide seemed to know the handler and he offered for me to ride with the elephant back to its quarters, which I didn’t hesitate to do.  It was a little unnerving as the handler just wandered behind chatting with the guide whilst the elephant wandered off with me on its back – it definitely knew where it was going.  All my lessons up at Grove Farm Stables had certainly not taught me anything I could apply to an elephant apart from how not to fall off!  Back at the quarters we fed the elephant bundles of straw wrapped around rice and molasses.  The Indian elephants are very different from the African elephants we had seen whilst on Safari in Africa with Sarah.  They have a beautiful pink pigmentation around the edges of their ears, the bridge of their noses and under their trunks.  The ears are also much smaller.  The handlers had metal hooks that are used to control the elephants, although I didn’t see our handler actually use it on this one.  When they drive the elephants they have rope stirrups around the neck and use a combination of these and pushing behind the ears to steer and control them.

Back at the hotel we chilled before lunch.  Then after lunch we took the hotel jeeps to the Elephant Back Safari.  Whilst I went out on the elephants, Sarah went with our guide to see more birds.  We climbed aboard using towers of steps and sat in a wooden Howda which is the platform on the back.  This is supposed to be one of the best ways to see wildlife as they are more tolerant of the elephants than jeeps or humans on foot.  We set off and spent the first few minutes adjusting to the gait of the elephant it was not comfortable particularly going up or down a steep slope.  I shared the ride with teachers Paul and Jen (I said they crop up a fair bit!).  The guide sat on the elephant’s neck and again had a stick and a hook and rope stirrups to control it - not that ours used his.

We saw Crocodiles first and then a rhino that was so close, about 5 m away.  It did not flinch and just loitered eating foliage.  It disappeared into the bush and then reappeared wearing a garland of vines around its neck – priceless.  The bonus of being on an elephant is that is can literally go anywhere and if the bush gets in the way it just stands on it or pulls it up.  I’m not sure how eco-friendly this is but it’s effective.  We continued on and saw Samba and Spotted deer that didn’t run as we approached, and we saw monkeys overhead.  We were out for about 1 and a half hours in total and it had given us the best sightings of the Rhino so far.

We returned by jeep and it dropped us off by the river to watch the sunset.  Unfortunately here the sunset goes in seconds and if you blink you miss it – which we did on this occasion.  We stayed down by the river with our guide and took a drink to relax, then headed back to the hotel via the shops where Sarah bought her prized Bird identification book and began ticking off all the species she had seen - the count was well up by now. 

After dinner we met back up with our guide to do a night walk to see if we could see any animals coming down to the river.  We are still not sure if he was allowed to do this with us, but we asked and he said yes so off we went.  We tried various points along the river but with no success as it was still a bit early.  We settled near a bar that had a fire going and sat around in deckchairs to keep watch.  We watched until 11.30 and we saw lots of Rum and Vodka and conversation but no animals, so we gave up and retired for the night.