FROM THE safari seat atop a Land Cruiser dual cab ute, our first morning in South Africa was surreal. Hornbills cawarked in the trees. Impala snorted and leapt at our passing. Blue wildebeest, the scatterbrains of the African veld, ran ahead of us, grunting and cavorting in comical motion. A lone red hartebeest shone iridescent in the morning light. We caught a fleeting glimpse of a magnificent golden wildebeest as it ghosted silently through the thorn bush.
A HERD of zebra thundered across the track in front of us and we alighted from the car to give them a closer look. However, in the head-high thorn bush the going was tough and we never looked like getting a shot. This scenario repeated itself several times throughout the morning until our PH picked out the satellite-dish ears of a kudu cow deep in the thorns.
Further observation showed several more cows, so we decided on a circuitous route toward them in the hope a kudu bull was close by.
My interest in African hunting started 30 years ago after. I followed up with James Mellon’s , pretty much everything from Boddington and, of course, Ruark and Capstick. The seed was well and truly planted.
