10 day hunt with kilombero North Safaris.
November 2024
Endiomet and Lake Natron West safari areas.
PH Div Pretorius
Rifle rented. Winchester Model 70 300 WSM

Species taken. White Bearded Wildebeest, Lesser Kudu, Golden Jackal, Kirks Dik Dik, Impala, Thompson's Gazelle x2, Grants Gazelle, Roberts Gazelle, Zebra, Spotted Hyaena.

Other mammal species seen. Hare, Anubis Baboon, Black Backed Jackal, Bat Eared Fox, Genet, Elephant, Warthog, Giraffe, Eland, Gerenuk

Photos to be added later!

I flew from Auckland to Doha in Qatar, non-stop 16 1/2 hours then had three nights in Doha to get over the jet-lag from New Zealand. On Haloween I had to be up early, to catch a flight at 8am to Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania. We had a stop in Dar es Salaam on the way and arrived at Kilimanjaro at 4.40pm. An African employee of Kilombero North Safaris was there to meet me and take me to the Airport Planet Lodge where I spent the night. It was a pleasant place with a large garden, home to some interesting birds so I was happy wandering around the next morning until Div Pretorius, my PH, collected me at 10.45. He had spent the previous night in Zanzibar and had just flown back. I asked about the huge dent in the door of his Land Cruiser. A dead buffalo had come back to life on him on his last hunt in Kilombero, down South. It's the dead buffalo that kill you! Div had been very lucky.
We drove two hours North on the Western side of Kilimanjaro to Enduimet camp on the top of a hill. It was more like a village than a camp, with solid bungalows instead of the tents I was expecting. After I settled in I went across to the dining building and met the owner of Kilombero North, Akrun Aziz, a gentleman of Iranian descent with a colourful history. His brother was the countries' first billionaire and Akrun was investing huge amounts on developing various concessions. I enjoyed talking to him enormously but then a very important group of Africans arrived to discuss the latest project, a huge lease which he intended to irrigate and fence to breed Fringe Eared Oryx and Cokes Hartebeest. These species used to be one of the main attractions of Maasailand hunting but now they were dying out due to competition from too many Maasai cattle. I had hoped to hunt both species but we saw none.
After lunch we went out to try out the rifle, a Winchester Model 70 in 300 WSM, belonging to Akrun. I didn't want the hassle of taking a rifle due to the long stopover in Doha to get over the jet lag from New Zealand and I had never had a problem before in Tanzania with camp rifles. I found the trigger to be much heavier than I am used to and I didn't like the look of the limited amount of ammunition. Div explained that you cannot buy or reload ammunition in Tanzania. You have to take the rifle to South Africa, with all the hassles that entails, buy the ammunition there, then return with the rifle and ammo to Tanzania. The ammo had ben stored in the damp of Dar es Salaam.
A target was put up 100 yards out and I leant on the Toyota and put a green-coated brass cartridge up the spout. I squeezed the trigger and nothing happened so I gave it a good tug and the bolt clicked. Misfire! I waited a bit then ejected the cartridge. I looked at it on the ground and realised that the front half of the case and the projectile weren't there. The barrel and chamber were empty so I picked up the case and saw that the front half had sheared off as I chambered the round and pushed into the back half of the case. Div pulled out the bullet and case neck and tried to ignite the powder with his lighter but it wouldn't burn.
Most of the ammunition lookd to be in the same condition but there were a dozen rounds of a diffent brand which looked OK. I fired one of those and it was a foot low. We adjusted the scope and the next shot was very high. We adjusted again and Div had a go. His shot was somewhere near the bull and we couldn't go on wasting good ammo so we agreed that would do.
I had hunted some of the Maasailand species in Northen Kenya in 1975 and others in Ethiopia so I decided to use the doubtful ammuntion on the less important species and save the few good rounds for Lesser Kudu and Roberts Gazelle.
My license wasn't valid until the next day so we went for a drive around and saw some lovely Grants Gazelles, Thompsons, Zebra, White Bearded Wildebeest, Giraffes and three very nice 15 inch+ Gerenuk males. I have a 16 1/2 inch Gerenuk on the wall so I was happy to leave these beautiful antelope to breed.
On 2 November we left the lodge before 6am. There were plenty of Grants Gazelles and very tame zebras, then, when we reached a patch of sharp-spiked Sansevieria we saw a Lesser Kudu bull. Div said he was too young, although he looked big enough to me. We only saw Lesser Kudu where this Sansevieria was growing as they chew it to get water in the dry season. Soon we spooked a nice bull and tracked him a long way before giving up.
A herd of elephant cows and calves diverted us and we drove up onto a rough, stoney plateau with very little life, although we found a lone Eland cow. This was the only Eland we saw on either Enduimet or Lake Natron concessions. Like the Hartebeest and Oryx they cannot compete with the fast increasing Maasai cattle numbers. We had to stop and wait for a bull elephant to move off the road before returning to the lodge. He had longish, but very thin tusks for a mature bull and probably needed culling.
In the afternoon we drove out to a flat savannah where we walked some distance trying to approach within range of a good Thompson's Gazelle. Using one of the doubtful cartridges I shot over the top of him. Missing the first shot of the hunt does nothing to convince the PH or the trackers. The last time i shot at one was in 1975 and I wounded it in the front leg and lost it in the herd so I had a poor record with this species.
When we got back to the lodge one of the other Kilombero PH's, Stuart Anderson Wheeler was there with an American cameraman. They had just finished a hunt and the cameraman asked if he could try for a Thompson's and a Grants Gazelles while he was in the country. There was a .375 with a handful of doubtful cartridges in the safe so they went out the next morning and managed to collect both species but had no ammunition left at the end. Meanwhile we returned to the Lesser Kudu area to try again. We spooked a good bull, then tracked and spooked him another three times before giving up on him. Personally, I wouldn't bother to follow a Kudu that had been spooked twice. They were hard enough to get a clear shot at through the thick scrub the first time you see them.
In the afternoon we returned to the plains where a very wide-horned White-bearded wildebeest just stood and faced us as we walked up within 150 yards. The shot went a bit high and clipped the end of his nose but he dropped on the spot. It was still early so we drove back through the Kudu area and followed a bull for some time. When we got back to the truck the driver was watching a huge Lesser Kudu bull but he ran at our approach. We followed and found him. Just as I pulled the heavy trigger he jumped and the shot raised dust behind him. What a debacle! This was my second hunt for Lesser Kudu and my first shot at one was a clean miss!
On the morning of 4 November we left camp at 6am and found a fine Kudu bull with some female Grants. He ran off with them then stopped and just as I was on him he jumped into the scrub. They tracked him for nearly two hours but we never saw him properly again. On returning to the truck we found that we had left the game scout back at the lodge and he had phoned the driver very annoyed. None of us had missed him but we still had to return to the lodge to collect him. Perhaps it was just as well we hadn't got anything!
We went straight back out again but only saw a herd of elephants and in the evening it was just more of the same, following Kudu bulls through the thickets without ever a chance of a shot.
The next morning our luck changed. Finally a bull stood looking at us over a bush about 60 yards away, just long enough for me to get onto him. I could only see his head and the top of his neck so I aimed into bush where I thought his chest was, and fired. He dropped at the shot and we ran around to see him down, but with his head up facing away from us. I fired again, in haste, and castrated him. At this cruel blow he shuffled around and I had a steady shot at this shoulder. At last I had a very respectable old Lesser Kudu bull with 30inch horns and still had a handful of reliable cartridges for the other important species.
The rest of the day was fairly relaxed although we went out in the afternoon and hung up the Wildebeest legs as bait for Striped Hyaenas and dragged the guts around the hills.
On the 6th we went a long way North, almost to the Kenyan border, looking for a super Grants. It was very dry and over-grazed with very few animals apart from skinny Maasai beasts. Driving along we saw a Golden Jackal trotting away unconcerned so we hopped out and followed him until he stopped for a pee at 150 yards. As the old cartridges seemed to be shooting high I aimed below him and completely gutted him. Not a sight for sensitive souls! From the top of a high hill we could see a few Grants in the far distance so we drove towards them and arrived in the Land of Plenty. There were perhaps 100 Grants, mobs of Wildebeest and Zebra and a few Thompsons in the small valley. We looked over several nice male Grants and I would have been happy to shoot any of them but none of them satisfied Div.
We returned to the lodge and had very heavy rain and thunder until 3.30 and we left camp at 4pm to return to the Sansevieria area to search for Kirks Dik Dik. We had seen several there while hunting Kudu and soon found a pair standing in the open about 60 yards away. I was using the old cartridges and after I fired he was still standing there. I couldn't lift the bolt handle, the cartridge was seized in but eventually we beat it open and got the case out. Meanwhile the Dik Dik was being a Dik and still standing there. I had another shot, aiming low and this time he looked around and moved a few yards. The cartridge ejected with some effort but the case was split down. I tried again, aiming at his feet and shot him through the spine. Not the brightest of little antelopes, perhaps deserving a Darwin Award.
On the drive down we had seen three Impala rams, the only Impala we saw on the hunt and one was particularly wide so I suggested we collect him on the way home. My first animal in Africa, 50 years ago in Kenya was a 28 inch Impala and I had never seen one that good again but this one looked special. The three rams were still close to where we first saw them and they ran off a short way, then as we tracked them they circled back to the road. The very wide one stood and looked back at us so I whacked him through the shoulder and he dropped. Measured later he had 27 inch horns.
We had collected all the species we were likely to get in that area and the Striped Hyaenas had not appeared so we packed up on 7th November and transferred to the Lake Natron Camp, a 4 hour drive West. This camp was in dry bush at the edge of a bare plain with the active volcano, Ol Doinyo Lengai, rearing up in front. This mountain is the last refuge on this concession of the Fringe-Eared Oryx and they survive in small numbers above the Masaai cattle which were grazing ever-higher up the slopes. Div pointed out a white rock three quarters of the way up the mountain where his fit young client got his last Oryx. I wouldn't have thought a Klipspringer would survive up there and I wasn't risking a coronary to go up and have a look. I saw a set of Oryx horns in the skinning shed and thought that if that was a male, he wasn't very old. The numbers are so few that no bull is ever going to get to be geriatric.
In the afternoon we went for a drive around and saw very litle, then found a plain with many Zebras, Grants, Tommys, Ostriches and a few Wildebeest. We saw an outstanding Thompson's Gazelle with very long horns, flared out at the tips, then got out and slowly approached until we were within 150 yards. Bang and straight down. I was very pleased to get my Tommy at last after fifty years.
I woke at 5am the next morning and it was still dark but I could just make out Zebras in the camp a few yards away. I took a book and a light up to the mess tent to read and hid a rubber snake beside the path to the staff quarters to see if I could get a reaction. The two waiters missed it the first time they passed it then as it got lighter they saw it and huddled together and whispered, looking at me, obviously not wanting to disturb me. One went off and fetched a tracker with a stick. Before he could strike I ran up and dived into the grass and emerged holding the wriggling "snake" by the neck. Pandemonium! Others came running so I approached them saying "Don't be afraid, I've got him!" I flung it to the ground at their feet and they all fled except for the tracker with the stick who took a good swipe at it. Good man! He soon realised what it was and roared with laughter which brought the camp staff back to share the joke.
We drove off towards Lake Natron and saw a very long-horned Grants Gazelle from the road. We stalked him for perhaps a kilometre than saw an even better one in front of us. We followed this one instead until he eventually stopped at about 200 yards. The shot went high, as usual with the old cartridges and he collapsed with a shattered spine. He was much better than the Northern Grants I had taken in Kenya and Ethiopia, long and wide with thick bases.
After lunch we went out to collect a Zebra for Striped Hyaena bait. I wouldn't describe it as a hunt, the Zebras were so easily approached. We drove along way past the first Zebras we saw which could have been the ones which grazed around the camp and then came to the plain where I shot the Tommy. I counted 220 Zebras reasonably close so it was a matter of chosing your victim. Div found a stallion without many battle scars about 100 yards away so I was on the sticks and waiting for him to get clear of the rest before plugging him in the shoulder. He ran 50 yards and went down. They skinned him there and quartered him because he was too big for the truck then went to the bait tree and hung up the front end. The PH on the last hunt had kindly left his blind up ready for us. They hadn't got anything there but there was plenty of Hyaena tracks around. Mainly Spotted.
The car gave trouble going back to camp, it seemed to be starved of fuel. We were supposed to driving a very long way in the morning for Robert's Gazelle. The driver showed us the fuel pump with an obviously broken part and he went off in the camp water truck to the nearest Masaai village to see if he could get a replacement. I laughed at this unlikely idea but he soon returned from mud huts (where the fastest transport was a donkey) with exactly the right bit. I wondered whether some visitor to the village with a Land Cruiser was surprised to find his truck wouldn't start in the morning! Sometimes you just don't ask.
Before dawn we set off to drive around Ol Doinyo Lengai, "the Mountain of God". It seemed in the half-light to be brooding menacingly above us, with a plume of smoke spiralling up from the Northern rim, building it's strength, ready to burst into violent eruption again. We passed Lake Natron with it's Flamingoes before starting the difficult and dangerous climb up the Western escarpment of the Rift Valley. I couldn't believe it when told that this eroded goat-track was once the main road to the Serengeti.
Kilombero used to have a large piece of country on the border of the Ngorogoro Game Reserve where they could hunt Robert's Gazelle, Cokes Hartebeest and Oryx but the Government recently shifted the boundary marker posts to add this area to the Game Reserve because a member of a U.A.E Royal family has the concession there.
The Lake Natron West concession now only has a narrow strip of land on the edge of then plains where Robert's Gazelle can still be found. I believe this is now the only place where the sub-species is huntable unless you have U.A.E. connections.
When we eventually reached the Robert's area we soon saw a mature male in the distance with a few females but then drove on to the far end of the strip without seeing any more, apart from the hundreds on the plain below us where Kilombero used to hunt. The Masaai had illegally burnt the valley and after the recent rains the grass was coming back. It was covered in Masaai livestock which aren't supposed to enter the Reserve and a host of game.
We found the remains of a Giraffe that had been speared (Giraffes are completely protected in Tanzania) and our game scout remarked that he wished they had the resources to patrol this area but there were inter-departmental rivalries and no funds. We turned around and drove quickly back to where we had seen the male Robert's Gazelle. The group passed in front of us but by the time were out with the rifle they had a good lead on us. Div and I marched as fast as my old legs would go up the hill to get above them and eventually he stopped for a moment 220 yards away. I wasn't keen on shooting that rifle at that range but we weren't going to get any closer and I was steady on the sticks. It hit him smack in the middle of the shoulder and he dropped in his tracks. He was quite old and no wider than a very wide Grant's Gazelle but he had the drooping horn tips of a true Robert's Gazelle and I was very pleased to have got one at all under the circumstances. The trackers did a quick skinning job on him, leaving the head for later because of the danger of hair-slip on the long, hot, drive home.
Kilombero have a quota of ten Robert's a year but they only manage to shoot about half of that so they are in no danger of legal over-hunting. Poaching is another matter.
In the evening we went out to check the Hyaena bait and freshen it up before getting the blind ready for the morning. There were Striped Hyaena tracks near the tree but only Spotted Hyaenas seemed to have fed there.
At 5.15am on 10th November we drove the couple of miles to the bait tree and got into the blind. When it was light, about 6.15am, I saw a Hyaena passing through the scrub 20 yards below us and gave Div a nudge. He disappeared for a while then slowly approached the bait tree. We clearly weren't going to get a Stripey come in while there were Spotted Hyaenas on the bait so as soon as he stopped moving I shot him in the shoulder and he dropped. While we were photographing him one of the trackers noticed a small thin snake in a hole beside the Hyaena. I broke off a stick to make a hook and dragged the snake out but he was newly dead. I couldn't see any damage to him and the trackers started calling me Bwana Nyoka!
After breakfast we went for a drive up to Lake Natron and stopped to look at human footprints in the rock, 10,000 years old, where people were walking in the mud at the lake edge when the volcano erupted and filled their prints with ash. There was also spoor of Buffalo, Eland and Zebras which was in fact more interesting. There were Wildebeest, Zebras and Thompson's Gazelles drinking from the fresh water springs but the soda lake only supported Lesser Flamingoes. I did see some interesting birds around the lake edge, some of them new to me, before we returned for lunch.
In the afternoon we hung the rest of the Zebra up to freshen the bait and then drove around to see if we could find a very wide Grants. I was amazed when Div parked at the edge of a huge volcanic crater, you couldn't see it until you were right on top of it. At the bottom of the crater were cattle grazing, looking about the size of ants and four little Masaai boys were trying to force a small group of cattle down the sheer face. It looked impossible and for sure no cow I ever bred would have got ten yards before falling but very slowly, with frequent long pauses they decended a track I would have been reluctant to tackle on foot. The trackers told us that there was no water in the bottom and they would have to bring them back up again in a couple of days but it was the only proper grazing left at the end of the dry season. I don't know which would be worse being born a Masaai woman or a Masaai donkey or cow. A Black-backed Jackal came trotting up to the truck attracted by the bait smell. In Namibia I would have shot him but he wasn't bothering anyone here.
On the morning of the 11th we returned to the blind hoping for a Striped Hyaena but the only thing that came was a Jackal that snatched a morsel then fled. The Hyaenas had fed a bit but we saw none, only two pairs of Dik Dik near the bait tree. We the drove around to see what was about and found another very nice Tommy, almost as long-horned as the last one. We stalked him and I fired but hit him too far back. He walked a short way then went down and I had to give him another through the shoulder. I was now just about out of usable ammunition.
We packed up the next day and drove to Arusha where I looked around the tourist rubish and bought a few presents, including a fancy beaded collar which looked very well on my black Labrador. Div was catching a flight just after mine at the airport. The hunting season was over and the rains had arrived. It was a very long flight back to Auckland via Doha but at least on Qatar Air you got the best of service and seating.
It was a very satisfactory and enjoyable hunt despite a few set-backs but the cost is astronomical. I once sold a good dairy farm for less than that hunt cost! However you can't take it with you and the government haven't yet managed to tax your memories.

Thanks for sharing, certainly a unique hunt to read about. Unfortunate about the rental rifle. Were they upfront about the difficulties on ammo when you told them (assumed ahead of time) you were renting a camp rifle??

Hi Brandon,
First I knew about the difficulty with ammo was when I saw it!