The Aba Huab River is a sand river in the north west of Namibia that runs between mountain ranges. It rarely has water flowing along its length, just for a brief few days during the rainy season perhaps. When we ventured along its course in 2001 it was dry.

Namibia has many rivers like the Aba Huab running from east to west all the way to the sea. Each river has waterholes and vegetation along their length in a rich contrast to the mountain ranges that they run through and this makes them magnificent places to see the wildlife of Namibia.

The evening before Robin took this picture of a Bull Elephant eating Acacia pods we had camped on an island in the middle of the Aba Huab River. When we arrived the ground around us was covered in Elephant spoor, old as well as fresh, so the chances of us seeing the Elephants was very probable and this was the reason that we had travelled a couple of miles down the river from the campsite closer to the road.

Excitement and anticipation filled the air as we emptied our tents out of the back of Sam’s Land Rover 110 to set them up on this island. As the sun set leaving behind a sky brushed with hues of red and orange we started the evenings campfire and settled down to enjoy the sounds of an African night.

A billion stars spread across the sky and the Milky Way just sat there propping it all up, a wide bank of stars that stretched across the sky above us. If you let your imagination wander it seems that you can hear them sparkle. In fact The Bushmen of The Kalahari believe that this perceived sound was the sound of the spirits of their ancestors. By 22:00 we were asleep in our tents with the warm glow of the fire casting an ethereal light across the campsite. I say asleep, but that is not strictly true as both Robin Dalton (a great friend of mine who I met in Namibia) and I sleep with open ears so that we do not miss any of the excitement of the African night.

At 02:00 the sound of Elephants trumpeting from the river below us woke us both up, so with whispered conversation between our tents that were yards apart we talked of the excitement and awe of the moment. Behind my tent Robin could see the outline of an enormous male Elephant, just standing there, casting its shadow across my tent. I could smell him and see his shadow. Before long he quietly slipped away and both Robin and I slipped into a very satisfied sleep.

The sunrise woke us and as Robin and I talked about the nights excitement we discovered that Sam had slept soundly through the whole thing and was a little disappointed that he had not seen or heard anything – That was soon about to change.

We sat in our camp, enjoying our coffee and letting the heat of the sun warm our bones. The pungent smell of Elephant was still in the air so knew that one or more of these magnificent beasts were not far away.

Suddenly a Bull Elephant walked out from the bush behind us, only feet away, he ambled across to where our Land Rover 110 was parked and gently in a nonchalant way pushed his shoulder against it before wandering off to eat Acacia Pods from underneath a tree some 20 yards away to our right. We were absolutely enthralled and filled with awe as well as a sense of privilege at having experienced such a wondrous thing.

After we had recovered from the experience we quietly and unhurriedly packed away our camp, started the Land Rover 110 and drove back to the road, leaving the Elephant munching his way through the Acacia Pods under the tree.