Our total trip time covered two weeks, not counting travel to and from South Africa. Ten days of that time were devoted to hunting in three separate and distinctly different locations. After arriving in Johannesburg, our first stop on this excursion was the 2500-acre Shukuza Game Farm located near Mkuze in KwaZulu-Natal Province. At Shukuza, we were the guests of Vic Meyer, an affable gentleman with an old hunter’s tale or two to tell. Having 26 years experience in the game farming business, Vic is considered in Zululand as somewhat of a pioneer in the field. He is a man who truly loves and intimately understands the animals that live and breed on his land. During our six days spent hunting and viewing game on the property, this fact did not go unnoticed and was clearly exhibited by his overriding concern for the well being of the game animals and splendid variety of birds on the farm. His careful selectivity as to the type and size of game that could be harvested was most appreciated by us.
At
Shukuza, stalking game is the rule in hilly terrain covered with fairly dense
acacia thorn brush, Marula trees and wild fig, making for a most challenging
hunt. Although it was the middle of the
dry season, this northeastern area of Natal was green and lush with its water
holes filled to the brim.The area had
received many of the same drenching rains that devastated neighboring Mozambique
earlier in the year. Because of the heavy
foliage and the undulating terrain, an unobstructed view of meandering game and
a bullet’s flight path to the target was most often limited to inside 75
yards. This was exactly the type of hunt
we had hoped for -- the opportunity to test our skills of moving silently and
undetected, in order to get close in with our quarry.
I want to be careful not to take too much credit for being stealthy, because this is where our PH Swanepoel demonstrated his hunting experience. He adeptly used the wind, terrain and his knowledge of the various habits of the individual species being hunted, to help us collect Nyala, impala and an exceptional zebra. Swanepoel, who is 32 years old, is co-founder of SafariBwana with his wife, Julia. He was born and raised on the family farm in Zambia where at an early age, he was introduced to game hunting, sometimes going out into the bush for a month at a time.In later years he honed his hunting skills working in South Africa as a PH for Swanepoel & Scandrol before setting out on his own in 1999.
Although the dry season was in full swing, we unexpectedly encountered four days of rain causing us to extend our stay at Shukuza two additional days.These were two days that we had previously scheduled for wing shooting in the Free State. Swanepoel had arrangements with area ranchers, who were in the midst of harvest, to hunt the numerous ducks and geese that were frequenting freshly cut fields. He had also arranged to hunt incoming evening flights of the birds on an impoundment where shooting was to take place from the face of a dam. Being born-in-the-bone waterfowlers, we surely did not want to miss out on an African wing shooting experience, but the choice was an easy one to make. We reasoned that ducks and geese could be hunted anytime in the states and by staying on, we assured ourselves of the type of trophies that we had been seeking in making the long journey to Africa.
During the rainy spell we took a day off from hunting and utilized the time to visit Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park. This short and enjoyable diversion turned out to be an exceptional game viewing experience.The park houses a large number of mature elephants and contains the largest black and white rhino populations in Africa. The park is world renowned for “Operation Rhino”, a rescue operation that saved the species from rampant poaching and the subsequent relocation of over 4000 rhino to other reserves within southern Africa. Furthermore, its location is removed from the crowds of sightseers that flock to Kruger and other better known parks.
Our next stop was the Blaauwkrantz Safaris Ranch situated 40 miles north of Port Elizabeth, in the heart of the East Cape Valley Bushveldt. To reach Blaauwkrantz, we took a leisurely drive through Natal and the Zulu home lands, the Free State, the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape. This route snaked through the breathtaking scenery of the Drakensburg Mountains and then down through the country’s many rural and urban communities that are dotted with historical sites from the Boer Wars. Every town, rich with tradition, had its monument honoring a fabled wartime General or the heroic citizens of the era, military and civilian.
Mona and I very much enjoyed the people, food and the varied and beautiful landscape throughout these areas, as we did on all our travels in South Africa.Blaauwkrantz is a vast 45,000-acre livestock ranch and home to 35 species of game, including the highest density of privately owned kudu (1250 animals) in Africa. Sixty percent of recorded SCI East Cape Kudu have come from Blaauwkrantz. Here the hunting was somewhat different than that experienced at Shukuza. There was more glassing, often from strategic positions on high ground and an opportunity for longer shots, ranging from 150 to over 300 yards. As the hunt progressed, I was amazed at the uncanny ability of Swanepoel and the trackers to spot hard to identify game at great distances, in the most inaccessible places. After opting to pass on what I felt was a long shot, considering my capabilities, I was able to shoot, at 175 yards, a good representative of the bushbuck species.
Mona concluded our time spent at Blaauwkrantz with a very large Cape Kudu taken at a similar distance. Mona’s kudu scored 124-1/2 points, as measured by an SCI official, making it, to our knowledge, the highest scoring Cape Kudu recorded by a woman.
Leaving the Eastern Cape and a successfully completed hunt behind, we journeyed westward, traveling the scenic Garden Route Highway as it parallels the Indian Ocean. Along the way, we found ample time to stop in coastal towns to check the sights, mingle and enjoy some tasty local brew. Closing in on the Cape, we opted to stay one night in the old whaling town of Hermanus, where off its rocky coastline the cold currents of the Atlantic mix with the temperate currents of the Indian Ocean. Here, in the safety of the warm water in Walker Bay, are the calving grounds of the majestic Southern Right whales. The whales make the long migration from the arctic each spring to drop and nourish their offspring. Hermanus is the last place on earth that maintains a “whale crier”, who upon spotting whales in the bay, signals the citizenry of the mammal’s arrival with the trumpeting of an age-old horn.
In Cape Town, we spent three leisurely days shopping, touring the Cape of Good Hope and the wineries of Stellenbosch. We stayed in the four star Ambassador Hotel and Executive Suites at Bantry Bay, a ten minute drive from the major centers for shopping, restaurants, Table Mountain and the hustle/bustle of the city. The Cape Town area has a wide choice of excellent restaurants and the food and wines rival any that can be found in the United States. We were most favorably impressed by and highly recommend the Vilamoura, a Portuguese seafood specialist, in Camps Bay. The restaurant is situated so that diners can watch the sun go down while overlooking the surf. The food, wine, service and ambiance are first rate.
In his left hand he carries a bow, so slight it seems dwarfed by his wrinkled figure and in his right a sturdy flat ended stick worn smooth from digging up bulbs and roots. Sticking from his curly hair, like porcupine quills are 4 arrows to match the tiny bow, each painstakingly crafted for strength, weight and function. He knows he will need only one. There are three sections to his arrows, an age old design passed down from father to son, clan to clan and expert to novice, possibly from as far back as 20,000 years ago. Lethal Puff Adder poison carefully applied below the sharp points of the tip are embedded in wood from the sickle thorn to form a light arrowhead. Fixing the head to the main shaft, a short link of hollow bone from the foreleg of a springbok ensures the poisonous head will remain as the arrow shaft is dislodged by the animal.
Ahead his prey moves, their progress across the loose sand crowding his ears, the knock of horn and hoof as the herd starts to congregate at the waterhole. He changes direction, moving slower now, his wiry body taught and poised. He has drawn an arrow and carries it locked between his index finger and the curve of the bow. Slipping into the cover of an acacia bush he positions himself, catching his first glance of the eland herd, a thin line of dust forming above their milling backs, young ones anxiously bleating for their mothers.
He crouches, poised, his thin arms holding the bow half cocked, his head slightly downwards to shade from the light, motionless. He waits.
He sees the path the eland will walk, an older cow with long thin horns, she will pass within 5 yards of him. He will aim for the soft inner hind leg as she steps forward where the skin is thin and his arrow can penetrate quickly into the soft muscle where the head will remain. He sees how she will run, her heavy body taking her far and fast with the rest of the herd keeping her strong, and then he will see her spoor falling behind and leaving the herd to find a shady resting place, here he will find her dead, neatly collapsed, her legs folded beneath. He sees himself gently closing the large green eyes with his palm and hears himself thanking her for giving his family food and shelter for many days, consoling her gently that she has no young left in her womb and will be called upon to provide rain for his clan in the dry season ahead.
He knows how fast he will find the others and, upon seeing his face, they will know but not ask of his success, rather waiting for him to first tell of the hunt and show, in his usual comical manner, how he had stalked the herd and released the arrow. Eventually they will contain their excitement no longer asking of his success, he will answer yes, but not tell of the animal. They will then goad him onwards, asking of the prize, probing with courteous and flattering questions until eventually he would reveal the eland cow amidst great joy and laughter. The feast would last many days and continue through each night and this would be their new home for the water and game were plentiful at this time.
This was his world, he was part of this cycle and his role was the hunter. He owned nothing nor desired anything except to wander through this vast land amongst the herds, to converse with them, the birds, the bees and the plants and to share in their bounty and provision.
He is the original hunter, descended from the later Stone Age and considered by many as the final product in a long evolutionary process. When it comes to occupying those parts of southern Africa where the evidence of earliest man is prominent, he has no equal, he has been here the longest. Scattered across sub Saharan Africa in caves and along shorelines, some dating back 20,000 years, lies the testimony of his progress, of his passage, his survival and his coming of age as a social and cultural being
Known to us as Bushman, he has endured many challenges in the modern or ‘civilised’ age, the age dominated by the peoples of European decent. His numbers are few, slightly over 100,000 survivors, scattered into small groups across the land his ancestors roamed freely until the arrival of the first European ships. It is a sobering thought to see how easily we accept his looming demise and dismiss his ‘archaic’ manner of existence when it is probable that he is ‘father’ to us all, the final product of mans development, which started when the first hominid fashioned the spear and actively started HUNTING.
