KRUGER’S LIVING LEGENDS
ʻYou have to tell me if you spot an elephant,ʼ I told my boyfriend, Jason, in the passenger seat of my Jimny, affectionately known as Halfloaf.
ʻI agreed to no such thing,ʼ he folded his arms over his chest and looked out the window.
Jason is a lover of all things wild and wonderful, with two exceptions: he hates a mosquito, and he really doesnʼt like an elephant.
Years ago, during a live safari while working as a cameraman for WildEarth, an elephant cow had come out of left field in full charge. She didnʼt have particularly big tusks but she pierced through the side of that vehicle like it was a tin can. The whole thing was over in about 15 seconds but the experience has stayed with him and he has the footage to prove it. (To add insult to near injury, that video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube).
Heʼs not hysterical, but heʼs happy to breeze past breeding herds and big bulls, so I knew much of the spotting would be left to me.
I was on a search for Krugerʼs giants, the parkʼs current and emerging tuskers, in a tiny car with a very reluctant assistant.
We rolled through Phalaborwa Gate on a hot Decemberʼs day, and headed for Letaba. All roads pointed north, as the best bet of finding any tuskers would be up between Letaba and Pafuri. Of the 31 known tuskers, about 20 tend to traverse these regions so we wasted no time heading into the elephant stomping ground.
We got off the beaten track as soon as possible, and turned on to a 4×4 route. Weʼd had particularly
