Very close African elephant encounter

This video from South Africa says about itself:

Extremely Close Elephant Encounter

Silence is most definitely golden when it comes to being so up close and personal with this incredible giant tusker….

Eswe Ras, Front of House manager for Sausage Tree Safari Camp, on the Balule Private Game Reserve, was lucky enough to have experienced this heart pounding encounter with such a majestic animal.

Eswe is a qualified guide and occasionally does the tracking on game drives (as per this incident).

“This was a unique experience for me, but occasionally trackers do get approached by various animals out of curiosity.”

This happened in February 2016 shortly after we departed for the afternoon drive from camp. We approached a small group of elephant bulls and parked about 30 metres away from them, respecting their space. They gradually started moving closer to us, this is when Ezulwini (the elephant bull) approached the vehicle to pass on by. As seen on the video he came towards me and stood in front of me (what is not seen on the video is that he put his trunk around my one ankle, smelling me) for a few seconds. Our head guide Kevin van der Linde was filming the incident.

It was certainly quite intimidating having such a huge animal so close to you & touching you but I never felt that I was in any danger. Ezulwini is an elephant well-known to guides & trackers here on Balule and he is a very gentle-natured animal. The feeling I think would best be described as complete awe and definitely an adrenalin rush.”

After Ezulwini’s curiosity faded, he simply moved off and resumed feeding along with the other bulls.