The Thing About the Hunt....

The sound of insects is almost deafening. Nothing stirs except the slosh of our Wellingtons and sweat slowly slides down the brim of our pith helmets. Trudging through the muddy, sparsely treed grassland, we are on the lookout for the hardest prey to track - Man. Just kidding - the Mighty Elephant. Senses heightened, suddenly Evan stoops and spots a scuff mark in the dirt, clearly caused by an oversized upper incisor (photo 1). Quickly looking around, Dan locates gargantuan footprints leading off into the distance (photo 2). We put our f$#@ing game faces on. We're now in the Green Zone. The hunt is afoot.

Rushing off at a breakneck pace, startling bush buck and kob, we are in hot pursuit of our ivory-tusked payload. For such a large animal, Elephants are surprisingly adept at evading the untrained hunter, but for seasoned safariists such as ourselves (photo 3), their attempts are pitiful. We are soon on the scene of an Elephant smorgasbord. Risking life and limb, we leave the treeline to approach our quarry.

Alerted by a disturbed flock of birds (and perhaps our noble stench) the Elephants flee on all five limbs. But not before we got a few good shots at their retreating rumps. Point Umoja. Game over?

A sound sleep followed the previous day's triumph and we were awoken by a soft snuffling outside our window. Quickly donning our finest hunting garb - fruity briefs and parachute boxers - we throw open the sash and behold! The hunters had become the hunted. Snuffleupagous maximus? No! Warthogius smellnostrainus? Never! Redassimus baboonicus? Not a chance! Just feet from our balcony, our stealthy opponent had us hemmed in (photo 4). Point majestic Pachyderm.

The thing about the hunt is, despite our safari skills and pith helmets, we're still no match for nature's big boys. Dan's lost three monocles this week alone. Evan's snuff box is dangerously low. And Peter is awaiting the next steamer to London town.