CAUTION: Running over elephant dung can puncture your tire.
This was a new fact we picked up while driving around Kruger National Park, but neither of us can remember which reading material gave us the information. It was not in any of the brochures we received upon entering the park or on the guides we purchased. Kurt thinks it was in a pop-up bubble in a GO! Magazine we borrowed from a friend.
Thankfully we didn’t learn first-hand what elephant droppings can do to a tyre (RZA spelling), and our bakkie smushed through piles and piles of the stuff for several days before we finally learned that elephants eat thorns, which pass through relatively intact and lay in wait to find their way into an unsuspecting vehicle.
Driving in Kruger became an entirely different experience once we began swerving around manure piles that occasionally stretched halfway across the road. Of course, it’s possible we were avoiding rhinoceros poo, but I have not yet developed a discerning eye when it comes to all things scat.
In fact, the little I know about African scat is the cartoon version from the book WHO flung dung? that I picked up at Kruger for my grand-nieces, Adeline and Clara. And yes, if you’ve been following me and remember my Wooly Mammoth scat post featuring the creepiest spider in the world, you know I like learning about it.
In any case, poo becomes the least of your worries when you find yourself coming across a large bull elephant. I’m leaving the photo captions tell the story of our first elephant encounters.
So now I’ve given you two out of the five “Big Five.” To answer yesterday’s quiz, the big five are: lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and cape buffalo. (Yeah, that last one stumped me, too). They are called “the big five” because, as several of you guessed, this phrase was given by big-game hunters, for “the five most difficult [most dangerous] animals to hunt on foot.”
Congratulations to Rose Blackman of On the Go Fitness. All comments from yesterday’s post, right or wrong, were put into a drawing for a Kruger Postcard from me. Please send me your address so I can mail your card!
Come back tomorrow to see our photos of leopard in Kruger!
Love, Marla
The last picture? Wonderful. Sorry to say, glad he chased you off. Like Lori, love when nature rules their own domain.
you are so funny. My first lion jam happened in Kruger in the 80’s. We had to stop for about an hour until the lion pride of six that were sleeping in the road decided to move back into the bush. I love when nature rules.