If you look carefully you will see hippos lying semi-submerged in the Sabie River, looking like innocent logs or stepping stones.

 

First some buck:

Here are photos of the buck we saw just then.  

 

Even though buck seem serene in their natural habitat, they are always nervously aware of been hunted. When you watch them, their bodies are always twitching and heads jerk up to check what is happening around them. 

After that:

We came to a low-lying substantial concrete bridge over the Sabie River. It looked an interesting spot, so we stopped on the bride. 

As we were looking upstream, other cars started coming and also started to park on the bridge to see what we were looking at. 

I took a few photos of the upstream scene. Here is an oil painting I did of it:

 

There were so many stones in the river, any one of those stones could easily been taken for a hippo at first glance. 

Do you see any hippos?

Well not in my oil painting. But they had actually parked themselves further up the river and at the back in the scene. Check the collage (top and bottom photos): 

There they were… partly submerged. See what I mean? They could easily be taken for submerged logs with nobs on, hey!  

The hippos were fully aware of the cars parked on the bridge. So they were also keeping well away from us too. 

The baboons escape route:

While looking out from the bridge, suddenly a troop of baboons  raced across the bridge, with their babies clinging to their backs or bellies.

They too are afraid of the hippos. So with the cars and humans on the bridge, the baboons knew it was safe to make a getaway across the bridge.  

You see, the bridge serves as their channel and gateway, to get clean across the river without confronting the hippos in their liar!   

Hippos are very territorial creatures:

They don’t like other hippos or animals to claim their watering hole spot, and will defend it fiercely. Even fight other males, for the privilege of mating with the females in their herd. 

Many years ago:

My father and his brothers went fishing at night at St Lucia. That’s on the upper part the Natal coast, of Southern Africa. 

When suddenly a herd of hippo rushed at them out of the dark!  

Hippos are heavy, huge animals and can easily trample you to death. Not to mention what would happen if they bit you with their big gaping months. 

I can’t remember if they said they were in a boat at the time or not.  But they said they ran for some trees. But none of the trees were strong or tall enough for them. So they ran further on, far  into the darkness of the night. 

The hippos were gaining on them and they were very frightened, which made them run even faster. Stumbling along in the pitch dark, they at the last minute, found a tall and strong enough tree, to scramble up into. 

The hippos surrounded and mingled around the tree hoping to get at them. After a while the hippos decided to kept watch on them for the rest of the night. So there they sat up in the tree, uncomfortable all night! 

Thankfully the hippos left in the morning at first light, to go back to the lake and water.  

During the heat of the day hippos keep cool in the water. Hippos only leave the water to graze grass at night. That’s when lion are likely to creep up and hunt them in the dark. 

Hippos are very dangerous animals:

The possible reason why the hippos chased my father and his brothers was probably they were protecting their young ones. Anyway after that, my father and his brothers were more respectful of the hippos. 

So if you are ever see some, treat them with great caution. They are very unpredictable creatures.