It’s time to sit back and read this beautiful story of how one of my guests was moved to tears during what I now rate as the ‘Most beautiful Elephant sighting I ever had’…
We left on the afternoon safari straight towards Kuduspoort Main. We had to go far and travel without stopping to get to the area where elephants were seen that morning.
On the way, I heard on the radio that the elephants have been spotted again. I got a feeling of excitement but did not want share the news with my guests yet, as I was scared that they may be gone by the time we got there. Finally, we turned onto that particular road about 50 minutes after we left the lodge. We started looking. I did not mention that the elephants have in fact been seen again, but my guests understood that we were there for a very good reason…to look for elephant!
Suddenly, we spotted the first one, moving across the open plains. Everyone was so excited, but I was not happy. We certainly did not travel so far to see just one elephant! So we carried on searching. Then, there it was, we had struck ‘gold’. A whole herd of 26 elephant playing in the sand, including a couple of juveniles as well. We sat and watched them quietly for quite a while. As we left the sighting and I turned around, I got a fright when I saw that one of the guests was crying. Very worried, I asked her what the matter was. She answered to say nothing was wrong – but ‘my dream has just come true’.
What a beautiful moment for any game ranger – and one that I will treasure forever!
Evan Vermeulen
