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WHITE RHINOS
Oil on board, 24 x 16 inches
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Detail from the painting.
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Original painting: Available
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Fine Art Giclee Prints: Available
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Seeing rhino on Safari is always exciting but encountering them on foot can be an adrenalin rush too
far.
I had spent some time at the black rhino project in Zimbabwe, where young rhinos are hand reared and
eventually released into the wild to replace those lost to poaching. One morning I was out on foot near
the Shenga river looking for lions in thick grey acacia bush when all of a sudden a huge territorial bull
rhino just appeared out of the bush at point blank range. My tracker Mark van Zuydam recoiled with
the word 'rhino!' and we were instantly transformed into Olympic sprinters.
The earth literally shook as the rhino charged. How we escaped that first charge I have no idea, but
somehow we managed to lose the rhino in the thick bushes. Frantically we looked for a tree to climb
but there was nothing to be seen but head high bush. Suddenly we heard and felt the rhino charge
again, with a terrible crashing of bushes it had located our scent and was coming our way.
Again we managed to lose the beast due to it's very poor eyesight, but each time we lost it it would
circle us, find a scent direction and charge us once again. I would never have imagined a rhino would
be so persistent. What had we done to make it so determined to kill us? ( I learned later that this bull
was one of the last survivors of poaching and had developed a deep hatred for humans ) We were
armed, but the idea of shooting the rhino was both repelant and dangerous in equal measure, but what
was there to do? each time the rhino charged we were pushed into thinner and thinner bushes and it
was only a matter of time before we were out in the open and at his mercy. We scrambled up a hillside
and for a moment thought we were safe, the rhino won't come up this steep hill. To our horror and
panic, it did!
There was little time to think, we ran for the open to get there first giving mark time to position
himself to shoot. With Mark down on one knee I ran a little further ahead and couldn't believe my luck
to see a dried out river bed with a steep bank. I called to mark just as the rhino broke out of the bush in
a terrifying charge. I could see Mark thinking "Can I make it before he's upon me?" and then he sprang
to his feet running as fast as he could to the river bed, leaping down to where I was with less than a
second to spare. A cloud of dust erupted above us as the rhino, thwarted, took a terrible revenge upon a
tree stump as we ran across the riverbed and escaped up the other side. In one careless moment of
bravado we shouted at the rhino to release our tensions, it raised it's head as if to say 'I'm not beaten
yet' and ran along the riverbank searching for somewhere to cross. Our eyes raced ahead and to our
horror there was a perfectly crossable section a hundred yards further along!
We turned and ran without looking back until we were exhausted and fortunately we never saw him
again. It was an experience I will never forget, and one that hardly left my mind as I painted this
picture.
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With tracker Mark Van Zuydam shortly after the attack
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Ever the photographer, I snapped this
picture as the rhino circled us.
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