Last day on safari in Meru

I’d heard from both Andy Campbell and Phillip Mason (who runs Elsa’s Kopje) that there is a particularly big Bull elephant in Meru and we made it one of our missions to try and see him. One evening along the Rojewero river we discovered this old boy but he was not the one we were looking for. This guy was pretty big in his own right and the strong musky smell of his urine told me that he was in musth, a sexual condition which only mature bulls get into when testosterone levels rise by as much as 60% in their bloodstream.  External signs are a flow of secretions from the temporal gland on the head and perpetually dripping urine which soaks the inside of the back legs. Elephants in this condition can be very aggressive so I kept an eye on him although he was a gentleman throughout.

Further along the Rojewero the next morning we visited the hippo pool where this raft of hippo were snoozing.  They are quite used to visitors here and although they kept their eye on us we were able to photograph them from quite close on the bank.  The big bull had just put his head on the neighbours back and you can easily see the gape which allows him to open his mouth extremely wide.

On our last day we decided to take the long drive down to the Tana river which runs along the eastern boundary of the park to see if we could find any crocs to photograph.  We explored down the riverside track for a few kilometres but the track had become so overgrown from lack of use that we turned back so as to save some of the paint on my car! After a picnic lunch at Adamson’s Falls which has a jumble of amazingly smooth and weathered rocks we headed back. That evening we again found our musth bull elephant who gave us a great show while he had a drink and a mud bath. At one point as he walked down to the marsh he shook his head and displayed to us before continuing on his way.

This was our final evening on safari and Fraida and Bob celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a romantic dinner under a full moon and a bottle of champagne at Elsa’s Kopje.  The safari was an anniversary gift to each other and we hope to see them back here in the future!  Congratulations!