Northwards along the Lebombo Mountains to Pafuri.

[Flutterby]

And the same to you!!

[100ponder]

Munywini is such a special female elephant that she deserves her own chapter in our travel tale.

After the Magic Valley, we turned north towards Tsokwane and observing a great variety of game along the H1 we got lost in our own thoughts as we slowly trekked kilometer after kilometer further north, stopping every so often, even for the smallest "something" attracting our interest.

As we were seriously camera-hunting big tusker elephant, we made a point to stop and ensure each and every elephant observed was surveyed for tusk size. We were passing yet another breeding herd of elephant quite far into the bush on out left hand side when Lettie, looking back over her shoulder at a elephant clearly taller than the rest, suddenly called out STOP ! Through a small open passage in the thorn bushes, we could see that this was an elephant female with phenomenal tusks :-



Soon we could see that her tusks were really long for a female and that she also had a very small baby at her feet who would suckle every time she paused to pluck a tit-bit off a tree :-



A few more cars would stop but, as the herd was still quite far out into the dense bush they would pull off after a minute but this was enough to cause the big cow to hesitate approaching and crossing the road.



After a while she realized that we were not going to leave and and she left the baby in the care of her three quarter grown daughter :-



She then boldly walked into the middle of the road to block traffic still approaching at quite some distance.The young cow caring for the baby now brought the baby to the road for the crossing but, the baby halted at the edge of the tar sniffing this foreign "thing" for quite a while before his big sister could convince him to step onto it and toddle across it.

The big cow who has all the time assumed a threatening stance in the middle of the road then took her baby back from his big sister and together they quickly disappeared into the bush.


It was later to transpire that this matriarch of note was named Munywini by Aat Fuik on his TUSKERSOFAFRICA website. ( http://www.tuskersofafrica.com/ )

[Richprins]

Very good student of the behaviour there, 100p!

She is a big old lady!

[Lisbeth]

What a wonderful and touching sighting

[nan]

superb sighting and nice observation

and photos too

[Pumbaa]

Wonderfully captured, 100ponder

[Flutterby]

Great sighting and pics.

[Alf]

The little baby is so cute

What a special sighting

[100ponder]

Thanks all for the compliments !
The good photos are all by my wife, Lettie. I normally position the vehicle for her to take care of the photos.

[Lisbeth]