IT was thanks to Bruce that we were let into the secret of where the carmine bee-eaters were nesting and joined the elite group that was sworn to preserve to colony by keeping quiet about it.
These spectacularly-coloured little birds nest together in vast numbers, usually in holes in the banks of dry rivers. But dry rivers have a habit of becoming wet from time to time and the resulting erosion can change the nature of the banks completely.
Having found a good nesting site, the colony will return year after year until erosion takes its toll and they have to find somewhere else.
The presence of rubber-necking sightseers is also not good for the colony, so we were grateful for the never-to-be-forgotten experience and – incidentally – one of the few photographs that survived when the floodwaters of the Fafa River swept, armpit-deep, through my cottage in 2000.
We said our farewells to the bee-eater colony and hit the road towards Savuti.
We had hoped, when we left Serondella and the monkeys, that we might also have left our Calamity Bug behind.
All went well until just beyond Ngoma, where we hit another memorable hole and John’s 25-litre water carrier broke its moorings and came crashing down from the roof. There was no way that we could hoist a full drum of water back up there, so we had to lash it onto the bush guard.
People had often laughed at the size of our extended bush guard and, to be perfectly honest, it had been due to a draughtsman’s error, but we were now very grateful for it. Without that extra platform on the front of the vehicle, we would have been forced to jettison drinking water.
A bit further on, the radiator boiled. This was not really surprising. If we were feeling the heat, why shouldn’t Samantha? It was probably a good thing that our noses were permanently blocked with dust, because none of us had remembered to pack any deodorant.
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