BootsnAll Travel Blogs

Well, its been 7 months since I was in Africa – I was missing it

OK, I was missing it AND Stuart at Tuli had emailed me to ask if I would go over and help him run the Tracking course now offered by ACE and then help to run Koro camp after Charlie sadlyleaves it.

16th Sept and I’m off with Virgin to Joburg then by hire car to Kuruman where I met Ikey (in his by now very battered Cruiser) and then to Clive’s farm again ( I was there twice last year with Ikeys ‘lot’) to catch Sable, wildebeeste, kudu and others. Twas nice to see the gang again (Tokman, Des, Hannas) but now with Hannas brother and a new guy Michael. Was also good to see some of the ‘boys’ again – including Rasta, Gunman and Samuel(s). Catching went well with no major mishaps, tho I did get kicked by a darted Sable as we picked it up in a sheet of tarpaulin, which tore freeing a rear leg (the Sable’s not mine)

me and Ikey also skived off and drank lots of coffee in the town whilst the guys were busy building/dismantling the boma …ah well – he IS the boss!

next we were off into the Kalihari – me driving the 4.5l Cruiser with a rhino trailer in tow (another phrase I never thought Id be writing. We stopped at a nice farm with the farm manger (Gideon) and his wife joining us for a braai that night. Next day we were up early (as usual) and catching Kudu, Zebra and Wildebeest..today I was doing 3 jobs: the first red door, the 2nd red door and also the truck door too!

End of the day’s catching but still the middle of the day so we went off to deliver some kudu at a guys farm. Sadly as we released them, one fell from the back of the truck and broke its neck. as everyone got down from the truck, i stayed sitting on top (no-one had said we HAD to get down) at this point the truck started moving…faster and faster till I realised they were actually leaving the farm, not just moving ON the farm!…no bother, I thought, I’ll just stay here and enjoy the rid – which is what I did….until we drive thru the thorn trees. man THAT HURT!! my arm and side got shredded as I was whipped and dragged along the top of the truck….luckily chicks dig scars, eh?

When we left the farm that evening – after a number of beers…we all jumped into a Cruiser pick up (backie) and speeded along the dirt roads back to our lodging – en-route, our driver decided to try and catch a Springbok which was running along the road in front of us…he managed to hit the poor thing (though it was unharmed) but also managed to spin us off the road in the process – another life experience!

Next day we moved to another farm for more catching, however it being my last day with the team, Ikey drove me back to Clives farm to pick up the car and return to Joburg.

…so 980km later I met the team and the 2 ACE students Ros and Tina. We caught Springbok and Mountain Reedbok for a couple of days (and got to fly in the chopper pretty regularly again WOOHO!!)  in a nice farm near Bedford. I also went on my first real ‘hunt’..in that an animal was shot: we were supposed to  shoot a Duiker (little tiny antelop) but couldnt find one so went for a Springbok…turned out it was a Kalihari bok which is the bigger variety (whoopsie!) what was interesting was we could actually see the bullet flying thru the air at the animal (4 x due to Ikey’s inability to  shoot straight ;^) ) crazy, I thought

then the whole team went down to PE (Port Elizabeth) to Ikey’s fab beachfront house for the weekend..mainly so we could go to a bar on the beach to watch the Rugby world cup final….the whole bar (and it was a biggie) was packed with Bok supporters…and me. WE had a fab night cheering the teams, I was given roses by a couple of ladies (and guys??!!) when we lost but we all got smashed and had a great time. Shame about the scoreline though, eh?

next day bright and early Ikey woke everyone…and then went to bed leaving us all a bit groggy at 5:30 in the morning with nowt to do!….except laff at me, seeing as I lost my voice with all the singing and shouting the night before

anyhoo, then we went back to another couple of game reserves and caught more animals between LOTS of trips back and forwards to PE (Ikey wanted to keep seeing his new baby daughter, Inka )

THEn we got to catch Giraffe! which was damn exciting – WOO! theyre big animals…the bulls can weigh up to 1200kg!!! we caught 22 with 3/4 days and only one died (which is a good hit rate as it can be dodgy catching them: basically they are darted from teh Chopper, then the ground crew race around (on bakkies

) like eejits to get close, then the guys jump out and run after the giraffe to trip it up with ropes!!!! once its goes down, they get a reversal drug to wake them and are blindfolded and ears blocked, then ropes are attached so we can drag/guide it back on its feet and into the waiting trailer/truck.

Lots of fun and pretty hard work (except for me as I just stood around mostly, taking photos!

oh, and Ikey and his colleagues arranged tickets for us all to go to Bloemfontein to watch the Cheetahs pay teh Lions n the Currie cup final!…lots of drink later and the Cheetahs won a great game  – fab atmosphere with fields taken up by affrikaaners braaing (bbqing) and drinking vast quantities of alcohol. I eventually gave up and went to sleep in the bakkie while everyone else got even more hammered till the late early hours! We all got to stay at a ‘friend’ of Tokmans house…which was nice

fly out to J'burg on the 25th March for a 6 week project in the Tuli block of eastern Botswana. This will be followed by a 6 week project in the Game Capture team through northern, western and Southern South ... [Continue reading this entry]