I just got back from a few days of field work in the bush. We started out in NG34 and found all three of the buffalo on that side in the same herd. We followed them for the rest of that day and camped in a nice little spot. There were lions roaring in the distance and we saw three sets of tracks on top of the buff tracks later the next day. We had no signal from any of the collars the next morning, but the herd was quite large so we were able to follow their tracks for a while, and then we just kept heading south east as they had been going.
Eventually we got a signal and made our way to the main road towards Sankuyo, where we found the spot where they had crossed the road. I got in touch with the concession manager for NG43 and got permission to go in, then we bashed our way through the mopane till we found them.
There were buff tracks all over that area and we saw a couple of groups split off from the main herd. They seemed to join up for the 8 km walk over night, then split up when they reached their destination, although that might just be circumstantial. NG43 is filled with mopane and not much else, but they definitely chose to move into that area, and then move continuously to be able to graze in the small open areas.
We stayed with them for another night and then headed back to camp the following day, as we had managed to forget part of the disc pasture metre (used to sample grass). So we spent one night in camp then headed back out for the vegetation sampling. That went ok, though my car was starting to over heat a bit at the end of the first day of vegetation sampling. We had some fixes from the collars for overnight, so were able to work out what they had been doing from their tracks. Despite not looking for them, we still came across four herds or small groups, all quite relaxed with the vehicle, so presumably most of them are getting used to us following them, which is great, but unfortunately not always helpful, as we can be 20 m from them and still not be able to work out what they're doing because of the dense vegetation.
We finished the vegetation sampling and foolishly decided to bash through the bush for the 5 km to the main road instead of driving up the concession road that we knew went all the way up to Sankuyo. Unfortunately, that was a grave mistake. By that point, the car was overheating continually, so we had to stop every 10 minutes to let her cool down for 15 minutes, making for very slow progress. We also managed to choose the worst kind of mopane to go through, with all of the dangers associated with mopane - dense small bushes so we couldn't see the logs, stumps and sometimes the big trees, and quite frequently, large pans and sometimes just large expanses of mud cunningly disguised as grassland. We managed not to get stuck in the mud, but we did fall into a big hole or burrow, so we had to jack ourselves out of there. I discovered that my winch (whose solenoids sit at the front of my bull bar) was damaged beyond repair. Soon afterwards I hit a stump that bent my bullbar in such a way that I was unable to open my bonnet (which didn't help with the overheating). Eventually we made it to the road and the car was ok on the main road, but we had to stop 4 times between getting onto the flycamp road and reaching HQ. We spent 7 hours to get around 35 km, which should have taken under 3 hours.
The camp mechanic has helped me to clean my radiator thoroughly, and hopefully the overheating will be cured. We tied the bull bar to a tree and reversed until the bonnet could be opened again.
We will be heading to Maun tomorrow to try and get some extra bars put on the car to try and protect her a bit more and for a few other things. But at the moment, Laura and I are just glad to be back in camp and away from the mopane!!
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