Rhino sightings make Africa special
Seeing rhinos in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya makes the landscape come to life even more than seeing elephants or big cats.
So how do you see wild rhinos? Let me count the ways.
First, it helps if you are in Africa, though India, Nepal, Borneo, Sumatra and Java have them. I have not seen those.
In the photos above, I drove up on my own in a rental car to the rhinos in South Africa. The Zimbabwe sighting was on an $85 day tour from Bulawayo. The Kenya rhino was at Lake Nakuru outside Nairobi, during an included Toyota Land Cruiser outing during a longer tour.
I have also driven a rental car onto rhinos in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, where park rangers worry about poaching.
My photos above of South African rhinos were taken in KwaZulu Natal state parks, not national parks. The one with the impressive horn (Hluhluwe Nature Reserve) lumbered out of the bush right in front of me after I turned from pavement to gravel. The other with no horn (iSimangaliso Wetland Park) grazed along the road with a mate at dusk. I swear I could have reached out the car window and touched them both. I saw rhinos three days in a row there, in those two parks that are nearby to each other.
The rhinos from Zimbabwe (Matobo Hills) were part of a group of six. After finding a cow and calf earlier, our guide wanted to show us petroglyphs. I told him no, find us more rhinos. We were on foot when two armed rhino guards led us to them. They were armed against poachers, not rhinos. Rhinos have an undeserved reputation at being aggressive to humans. Since rhinos are grazers, there’s really no benefit to attacking humans, unless they are surprised or protecting young.
The Kenya rhinos (Lake Nakuru) were just part of the tour, where we also saw lions a few miles from a town. The park is fenced.
Rhinos can be either easy or lucky to find, but you need to be where they live. Don’t miss the chance if you’re ever out that way.