GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 11 2009 | By: gorillasound

Kingo’s home range is on the other side of the Mondika river to our camp. To cross the river we have a bridge. Over the actual river it is a proper bridge; planks on top of tree stumps, and over the swampy part of the river it is just long branches laid in parallel. With the rain comes higher river levels and much of the swamp bridge is under water.

On Thursday night some of us were woken up by an elephant in the river. He was just splashing around and eating vegetation. I don’t think anyone was particularly concerned, it’s the sort of things elephants occasionally do. However when we woke up we discovered the elephant had destroyed our bridge! There is one elephant that comes frequently, often in the evening to feed. He just steps over the bridge as it is only 20-30cms above the level of the river. We’re not sure if the elephant that night didn’t see the bridge or couldn’t be bothered stepping over it, but he’d knocked all the planks off the stumps.

Luckily we had the construction team from Bomassa on site (they are building us a new dining room, store and office). So they very helpfully stood around and told our trackers how to fix it. But very nicely the swamp section has been added to so we can nearly cross the river without getting wet feet!