Did you forget to shut the gate?

Visitors to Leopard’s View will know that we do not have an electric fence around the lodge, but only a small wooden picket fence built early in our time here to keep the browsers out of the lodge gardens; in particular, the duikers, who are very common in our area and will eat anything.  

The gate across the entrance has always been sufficient to keep out anything larger, but one night about ten days ago the gate was left open during the night and in the morning we walked into the lodge to find evidence of a visit by an animal very much larger than a duiker. The piles of dung around the paths and the damage to the plants and fence showed who the culprit was! 

 

 

 

 

The elephant had arrived around midnight and walked around the garden sampling a bit of this and a bit of that.  Luckily, he had left the trees alone and tried the smaller plants instead.  He kept to the paths on the whole, although there are places where he left a tell-tail footprint in the flower bed.  At 6 am he was still around the lodge – although by now outside the fence which he had stepped through and broken to get out.  At 8 o’clock he finally strolled off after drinking from our overflow tank.   

The remains of the beautiful bourganvillia outside the
kitchen

We thought that would be the end of the story, but that evening when we received a call from our staff to say the elephant was back even though the gate had been firmly closed.   As we arrived two minutes later we saw him in the gardens.  The sound of the vehicle was enough to move him off and as we watched he stepped very daintily over the fence and went off into the bush - quite amazing to see.  Unfortunately, this time he had taken a fancy to the group of palms by the small bird pool in the middle of the lodge.  The next two mornings we spent repairing and re-building the potential weak area of the fence – just in case he decided to return again.  As yet we have not had another visit, but they say an elephant never forgets!

Walking over to the water tanks for a drink

 

A salute! ("It was me!")