Operation Dumbo Drop

Our pilot Andre d’Hotman shares this story:

We received a call recently from Moholoholo, which is just outside Hoedspruit near the Kruger National Park telling us that they had a 2 week old elephant that needed to get to Knysna urgently. This little 70kg lady was found wondering around a water hole alone. It seems that she had some how been abandoned by her mother and the herd, she was very weak and had been taken to Moholoholo which is an animal rehabilitation centre to try and get her strength back. Moholoholo however are not used to dealing with elephants so they had called Knysna Elephant Park for some help. It was decided that the best would be to transport her to Knysna where she could be around other elephants and the necessary equipment to get her back on track.

The thought of an 18 hour drive with an elephant was just too much so we got a call to see if we could help out. Now you would think it should be pretty straight forward just fly there and fly back but things are never that simple. There was a 6 hour flight with an elephant to consider and you can’t just stop at any airport to take a break. We had to try keep this a low key as possible so we had to pick small airports but that presents the problem of fuel. So after a lot of planning and some helpful locals all was organised all we had to worry about now was the weather which was also making life interesting as it was building up for rain.

Eventually with a small break in the clouds we took off from Addo Elephant Back Safaris heading for Hoedspruit. 5 hours and one fuel stop later we landed at the small dirt strip in Hoedspruit.

While we waited to be picked up we refuelled the plane from the drum we had brought with us and moved some seats around to make sure we would be perfectly balanced for the flight back.

With the first sight of the baby elephant any doubts about what we were doing went out the window as she was just the cutest thing you could imagine. I think the thing that struck me the most was that for how sick and weak she was she loved her head to be rubbed and once you started she made sure you didn’t stop with a little nudge of her head to remind you what you were doing.

The next morning the weather was bad so we had to delay our departure a bit but finally by mid morning we were on our way sitting just above the clouds at 8500 feet heading for New Tempe near Bloemfontein which was to be our refuelling spot. The clouds gave way to blue skies over the Free State which made it very bouncy and tested the stomach of even the hardest pilots.

We landed at New Tempe and off loaded our precious cargo much to the surprise of the locals who seemed to appear out of every corner of this small airport. After refuelling and a stretch of legs we boarded again for the last leg to Plettenberg Bay. As we got closer to the ocean it cooled down and smoothed out and we landed with a crowd of people to welcome us back. After a little walk around the Plettenberg airport she climbed in to a vehicle for the short ride back to her new home.

Waterbuck sighting

There is a large variety of game species at Addo Elephant Back Safaris and over the past 7 years they have settled in nicely and become very accustomed to people on foot, Elephant back and vehicles.

That is all except for the waterbuck who have taken a liking to the southern mountain and spend the majority of their time there, only sneaking down late at night or very early in the morning to feed around the lodge.

These odd hours make them by far the most elusive animals to see on the property. While on an afternoon drive with Jim and Joanna we decided to venture up the mountain and see what we could find. As we reached the top we spotted some eland in the distance and decided to get out the vehicle and walk to the end of the cliff to get a better look at the eland. 

As we approached the end we noticed 3 waterbuck below us. For about a minute they where totally unaware of us till their sixth sense told them they where being watched, that’s when Jim got this picture.

A few seconds later they disappeared in to the dense bush below and we started back to the vehicle feeling very proud of ourselves and thanks to Jim we had proof for any non believers back at camp.