In the Northwest corner of Namibia lies a hostile land - parched, rocky and utterly inhospitable. Devoid of water, scoured by heat and sparsely populated by deadly bushes, the ancient desert of Damaraland and the Kaokoveld is home to a handful of extremely hardy and highly specialised mammals. Unique amongst these is the Black Rhinoceros, Diceros bicornis.
These monolithic beasts are extremely rare, even in their local range. Teetering on the brink of extinction for decades, the species has seen a modest improvement in numbers recently but there are still perilously few and the animals face an uncertain future due to the dual hammer blows of climate change and poaching.
Black Rhinos historically have been found across much of Sub-Saharan Africa, outside of the tropical montane and jungles of the Congo. Now their vanished populations hug the two coasts of Africa, with the highest concentrations located in Namibia, Tanzania and Mozambique. A number are held in captivity in institutions around the world but an expedition to see them in the wild can easily come up short.
Damaraland is an unforgiving place - one of the most hostile environments on the planet. Just getting there was an adventure in its own right. Most journeys to Namibia start in the capital Windhoek, and ours was no exception. Arriving to summer storms and humidity with torrential downpours after a crippling five year drought told us our time in Africa was going to be an unusual experience.
We picked up our off-road safari truck, laden with all the tools of the trade - sand boards, shovels, redundant electrics and satellite communications. After a frenetic dash around Maerua to pick up provisions and litres upon litres of water, we had a boerewors and rusk-laden kitchen ready to hit the Namib desert.
The early hours of a drive out of the capital are misleading. Finer sealed roads than most other African nations, abundant roadsigns and pleasant shaded picnic stops every few kilometres make all the internet research seem redundant upon arrival.
We were not fooled. The road gives way in short order to potholed, flooded monstrosities. Driving through knee-deep mud in ongoing rainstorms, only to come out onto boulder strewn sandbanks quickly make one grateful for the many self-rescue devices these vehicles come as standard with. Progress is slow, excessive speed is impossible and the roadside wildlife is enough to halt you for hours at a time with warthogs and mongooses dashing back and forth at every opportunity.
After nearly a week's journey north through a series of colossal wildlife reserves we were finally out of the rain on the gravel-dusted roads out of Kamanjab, heading west to the Grootberg pass and down into the checkpoint village of Palmwag. As we navigated the winding mountain pass signs of desert elephants were abundant, but it was giraffes that screeched us to a halt as we rounded a corner.
These giraffes are outstandingly camouflaged against the large red boulders of the desert in this part of the country and sighting them even up close can be a real challenge. We were treated to a sunset meander across the road and into the mountains before we finished our cautious descent into the Palmwag concession.
We set up for the night at the local oasis campground, known for elephant visitors. The trap camera I had set up caught a few desert kudu and the ubiquitous black-backed jackals, but nothing larger. We knew from contacts that Black Rhinos could be found with difficulty on long trips into the Damaraland region from Palmwag and we hired a guide to navigate the perils of the rocky wasteland that awaited us.
After a disgustingly hot and sleepless night, we rose at 4am to the solid blackness of the African night. A brief breakfast of fruit and yoghurt courtesy of our tortured onboard fridge, and we met up with Hakusembe, our D-land guide. We made our introductions and set off into the rusted mountains as the sun came up over the Torra Conservancy - our gateway into one of the wildest places in all of Africa.
Hakusembe immediately showed his worth driving over the painful boulders and gravel banks. There are no roads here, only directions. The journey is a shuddering, unseated affair and the sun rises quickly to catch inexperienced white skin off guard. We donned factor 110 and hoped for the best. There's no shade out here, nowhere to escape the sun.
The only vegetation for miles around were the Nam melkbos, the Damara Euphorbia bushes that shower the landscape and that have a rounded, unwelcoming appearance. The plant is lethally toxic on contact, exuding a deadly white latex in large quantities when touched. Hakusembe was gracious enough to stop me from touching the plant in my ignorance - a warning I took only just in time. He then regailed us with stories of poachers and war veterans poisoning the local water springs with offcuts to kill the animals drinking from them.
Bizarrely, the desert adapted gemsbok so iconic of Namibian vistas and our quarry, the Black Rhino, are immune to the dangers of the latex poison and can happily feed on the bushes. Rhino visits to an area are highlighted by overturned Euphorbias which Hakusembe informed us were due to the younger rhinos testing their strength and prowess - after all, turning over a 4 metre wide nest of melkbos fixed into the dry desert ground is no easy feat.
The eyes are easily tricked out in this environment - the midday mirages are so intense and the waving of heat coming off the desert rocks distorts view from even relatively close and presents a real challenge for photographers despite the good lighting. Fixating on objects in the quest for rhinos, we made sure to break our gaze occasionally to admire the spectacular, untouched and thoroughly wild scenery that surrounded us.
Meandering in our landcruiser into a particularly dense patch of melkbos, the call of nature demands an occasional break made all the more complicated by the need to search behind each bush for resting lions and leopards. Though few in number, their unpredictable presence is always a possibility and a fatal mistake to ignore out here. As soon as we'd finished checking, a cry from Hakusembe was just audible over the raging wind - two grey shadows hidden among the melkbos: black rhinos.
My heart jumped. This was the rarest mammal I had ever seen in the wild. The stuff of children's imaginations and the most exotic BBC documentaries. To be in the landscape, feeling the desert wind and watching, through gritty binoculars, the haze bounce off the boiling skin of the distant rhinos it's hard not to break out into a smile and a gasp. I repeated it to myself to make it official - "Black Rhino. Two Black Rhinos." A mother and her teenage offspring to be precise.
The rhinos were in the distance. We had carefully positioned ourself to be upwind so they were aware of our presence, but their eyesight is poor. It's critical not to startle them. Black Rhinos - or hook-lipped rhinos to given them their alternative name - are not White Rhinos. They are turbulent, grumpy and intolerant of other animals and have a reputation for charging far more readily than their larger counterparts.
Amongst the euphorbias, it's easy to get caught off guard as these animals are surprisingly quiet and can creep up from the side. Vehicles offer little protection and the standard advice of laying down by a tree isn't helpful when the only vegetation around is poisonous.
We approached slowly, deliberately, to an optimum range balancing safety with photographic range. At about 80 metres we stopped as their ears twitched. They knew we were there, but didn't know where. I fired off a burst of shots to make the most of this most special of encounters. The midday mirage playing havoc with the camera's sensors, I left the white balance to figure out another day. In the intermittent stillness when the wind dropping we could hear a series of grunts and shuffling scrapes of giant armoured feet rubbing over ancient rock.
It's impossible not to be inspired by Africa's big mammals. Rhinos have an air of fantasy about them - an other-wordly creature, the sort described by exuberant explorers reliant on sketches and descriptions to explain what they had seen. A part of me has always wished to be one of those historic explorers, and out here in Damaraland it's easy to feel timeless even from the relative comfort of a safari truck.
We returned the following evening to the same location. After hours of searching, almost giving up, we caught sight again of the same pair hidden deeper in the euphorbia patch - a testimony to the difficulties of finding even large mammals if they are properly hidden. Our sighting was even closer the second time, with the younger rhino casting a look suggesting he was indeed sizing up the truck as a potential foe. Hakusembe wisely took us slowly away and the rhinos returned to their grazing as the orange sun dropped below the line of our cap peaks and signalled the need to journey back to base.
Damaraland is a place like no other, with colours and formations seen nowhere else. The vistas are overwhelming, no more so than during the incredible hour before sunset when shadows lengthen to infinity and the white and pink landscape becomes solid red and deep orange. The beauty and isolation belittle how important this corner of Africa is on the world wildlife stage.
The rhinos that live there are one of earth's great natural treasures and we must look after them at all costs. Our children must know what these animals are, where they come from and how precious they are. Poaching is, thankfully, well controlled in Namibia's Northwest. Government patrols, veterinary dehorning programs and a committed military presence of antipoaching units has kept the Damaraland Black Rhinos protected for now.
The situation is not so optimistic outside of Namibia where all rhino species face annihilation. Only by breaking the chain of sales through the global organised crime networks and influential foreign government interests from China and other countries can the devastating trade in exotic wildlife products be halted. That requires all of us to do our bit.
All photography © Chris Milligan Photo. All views are my own. Seek local recommendations before photographing or approaching any wildlife.
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