Thursday 7th February 2013 +2hrs GMT ­ Durban ­ Tala Game Reserve ­ A Clapped Out 4x4 and the Amorous Adventures of a Black Rhino ­ Part 1.

Our 4x4 open-safari vehicle proved almost as cantankerous as the hippos and Cape Buffalo.  Paul our Ranger and driver claimed that it had just come back form a full service – there was a strong suggestion that the bill should not be paid!  It arrived with Paul revving the motor to the metal, clouds of half burnt petrol exhaust exuding from the back and back firing like a machine gun!  Persuaded that it was just cold we climbed aboard and for the first 50 minutes Paul struggled with a motor that stalled whenever the revs dropped below maximum.  In fact many times he had to go in reverse just to clear the engine which clearly needed new piston rings and a monumental decoke.  Paul kept cheerfully saying that it was an old engine that needed to be coaxed what he really meant was that it needed a ‘heart transplant’ or at the very best a quadruple piston bypass!! It reminded me of a big heavy Volvo that I once possessed it too needed maximum revs of a diesel engine to move it in any direction.  After one particular stop when Paul had totally flooded the engine, much to his and our relief another equivalent vehicle came into view carrying some Reserve workers.  Having taken a quick look under the bonnet we were courteously invited to swap vehicles and the rest of our drive went ahead without mishap.

You might have thought from this that we had a pretty lousy trip but Paul had an uncanny ability to find the major animals and although we had coughed and spluttered our way around we did see a remarkable range of game.

As the subtitle to this posting indicates it has to do with the amorous adventures of a male black rhino – that’s right they are the species with the narrow mouth and stronger jaws that are more suited to the bushy vegetation of the veld. So I will set the scene here and then just add a caption to the photos for subsequent postings.  I will also send these postings in reverse order since I suspect that most of you read the latest one first which is of course the last in the sequence and that would spoil the denouement! Oh Dear I clearly have been doing too many crosswords!!

So the scene is as depicted in the photo – a group of 7 black rhino – a male and his harem having a quiet snooze on a mud hill – well quiet until the backfiring monster, belching exhaust and full of those wretched tourists lurches up the hill and stops 20 metres from your snout.

What is a guy to do confronted with such a situation? See the next instalment.