My wife and I had never made time to experience a South Africa Safari so with the help of Adam Clements SafariTrackers and Garry Kelly's Bonwa Phala Safaris we spent July 23-29th in Limpopo Province based at Bonwa Phalas main camp near Bella Bella (Warmbaths). My wife had always wanted to be part of a Giraffe hunt and since it is the national animal of Tanzania we had to look elsewhere. Sean Kelly had talked with us earlier in the year and they had a large old "stink bull" that had gone on their neighbors property and was causing feuding issues with the resident male giraffes there. I am out of order, so for You AR purists lets start with our arrival in Johannesburg airport from Mt. Kiliminjaro in Tanzania.
We had booked with AIR 2000 to meet and greet us and have all the SAP paperwork done in advance. Our flight was a cobooked flight under SAA and Air Tanzania flight numbers and unfortunately AIR 2000 was confused on what the display screens said in the Joburg Airport. We did conquer the maize and figured out at the luggage turnstiles where to talk to a SAP officer. He told us what we had to do to get him to pick up our rifle case and prove ownership so he could update the log book and transfer our guns to the SAP office. As we finished immigration and customs (RED line because we declared guns and ammunition) we entered the terminal and saw 50 people waiting to meet arrivals.
And then a wonderful thing occured!! Someone said "Robert, Eileen? "and there in the flesh was Mike Currie our PH from Bonwa Phala who we had seen pictures and now finally were meeting in person. From this point on Mike took over and called AIR 2000, located the completed paperwork, got Eileen and I cold drinks, gave me a safari hunting magazine and became a Knight in Shining Armor and cleared our guns. I knew that things would be only up from here on and I was right.
We made the 2 1/2 hour drive with plenty of discussion on expectations, history of Bonwa Phala , Mike's background, and Eileen's concerns. We made it to camp around 5 pm just in time to meet Tatta our personal Chef and move into our tent suite with running drinkable water, all the hot water you could need on demand, a refigerator outside our door (mandatory Pepsis in refrigerator), and a lovely heater in our bedroom. Dinner that night was wonderful and we were really enjoying South Africa. Bonwa Phalas main camp is over 15,000 acres and they have access to @ 100,000 acres in this Northern Province.

Photo of camp


Our seperate dining tent and area equipped with Bush Cable TV (fire pit), that is Mike and Eileen in the foreground and Tatta and Jabu in the background who catered to our every wish and made our stay first rate.



Our first day hunting consisted of driving about 20 minutes to a neighboring ranch, meeting the local manager who hunted with us all day, sighting in the .300 RUM shooting 200grain Swift A-Frame ammunition, and driving and stalking game. We saw Greater Kudu, Nyala, Blue Wildebeest, Impala, Hippo, Sable, Waterbuck, Steenbok, and Duiker. We did 4 beautiful stalks on Kudu, but we did not see what we were looking for. We were after mature, good, trophies and Mike knew that I was willing to be patient. We came close to getting a shot at a good Blue Wildebeest, but as Mike and I stalked out into the bush after the two bulls we saw the herd came around and crossed the track so that Eileen got to see the nice bulls that we spooked.
Dinner that night was exceptional and we slept great with the heater on in the tent.

Day 2 was spent hunting hunting the main ranch at Bonwa Phala. It has over 5 water holes and a stream flowing across the property on the West boundary running North to South. Eileen got to see her first White Rhino ranging in the bush so it was very exciting. We saw lots of game, we fell in love with Nyala and told Mike we had to move that up the list ahead of Limpopo bush buck. We got in several stalks, but Mike did not see what he thought we were after. At one of the water holes we saw 4 Impala running off and we thought one of them may have been what we were after. We got lucky and the weather was actually warm in the day time, the following week after we left it snowed. Timing is everything!! That night when we got back at camp Garry Kelly was there to greet us and make sure everything was working out to our expectations. We reviewed the plans for the following morning to go after Geoffrey, Eileen's giraffe. His neighbor on the South side would meet us the next morning at his main camp facility. We would sight in the .458 Win. Mag with A-Square DTSoftpoints in 465 grain for our quarry in the morning on the way out of Bonwa Phala.

We met the neighboring land owner and his tracker and left in two vehicles to drive the property to locate the herd of Giraffe and hopefull the bull we were after. We spent 2 plus hours before we found the giraffe herd. a
At first we only saw females and young. Then from a stand of tall trees a head appeared above all the herd. WE had located our quarry. This is a picture taken with telephoto to show the size difference between this massive bull, a female, and a youngster:



We stalked to around 100 yds. and I had a good sight window for a brain frontal shot so I went on the sticks and slowly took my shot. He went down in slow motion and did not get up. I put two more insurance shots into him to make sure he did not get up and run away. It wasn't until we got up close that it hits you how massive this animal is. This is us with Eileen's Giraffe:



Trans Africa Taxidermy under Maria's supervision sent out a crew to skin out and cape the giraffe and the landowner brought 3 people, a tractor and wagon and for five hours we(Mike and Themba) worked on the giraffe. Nothing was wasted. The skin was nearly 1 inch thick in places. The wagon was loaded and if you have ever wondered how a Giraffe pumps blood up to its head see the picture of Mike holding this massive organ.




Day three we hunted in the morning at Bonwa Phala and Eileen met us in a tree stand 25 ft. up overlooking a dam and waterhole for lunch. Our view:



Eileen is not big on heights, but she made it up this massive ladder like she was born in trees:



We each had just started to eat our sandwiches when a beautiful old Nyala bull came to drink and for the first time in 3 days Mike our PH said I should take this one. I had to ask a second time did you say to shoot this one!! I dropped my sandwich, aimed and made a great 124 yard one shot harvest. The ejected shell casing landed in the sandwich platter.



More importantly I dropped a very old, heavy beamed Nyala at 125 yards whose time had come.
Mike and Themba


I better have Eileen in this one too! Note sleeveless shirts and sunshine.



We had Themba drive him to the skinning shed and we got back in the tree stand and finished lunch. In less than 45 minutes four Impala came to water and the last one was one we had seen two days before without getting a shot opportunity. Mike said to take the last one and we had a great dessert to our lunch. He was almost 24 inches and had good mass.


Themba came back just in time to help us load the Impala and we all rode to see Garry Kelly's skinning shed, trophy storage, and meat processing area. On the way to the main skinning shed we were talking and cutting up when Eileen said Wildebeest and not 30 yds. off the track were the bachelor herd of 9 that we had not been able to find in the previous attempts. WE stopped and they ran off. We tried to get a stalk on them, but the wind was not in our favor. We quickly drove and dropped off the Impala and drove back to where Mike thought we could cut the tracks of the bachelor herd. We left Eileen in the truck and we walked until we cut the tracks of the herd crossing an old road we had not been on before.
Mike and Themba tracked the bachelor herd of Blue Wildebeest through some of the driest grass and hard packed dirt you can imagine. Themba only had to backtrack one time to pick back up the right direction before we saw them. We got into 3 different shooting opportunities before we got the wind, sun, and right animal in a good shooting position and took a very good Blue Wildebeest. The two of them make a great tracking team.
Mike,Themba and I with very heavy and deep curled brute



Eileen heard the shot and took the initiative to drive up the vehicle (Shocked all of us)



She claimed that only the Steering wheel was on the wrong side! As you can tell by the lighting we had at most only 15 minutes of shooting time left.
Tatta and Jabu made some of the best meals for Eileen, Mike, and I during our stay. They were very client oriented and added a great plus to the week. This night we had Impala liver, bacon, and onions ala Tatta that was out of this world. A warm fire every morning and night made the Fire Pit a great gathering place.

Our last day of the 5 day hunting safari was spent at another ranch @1 hour from Bonwa Phala near Thabazimbi across the Crocodile River. We hunted out of permanent blinds on two different water holes that were bordered by some of the thickest brush you can imagine. The landowner was in the process of reclaiming and clearing the property so it had great trophy potential. WE had greater Kudu and Nyala with us most of the day at the first water hole. Nothing that met our standards. We moved to the other water hole and had Eland, Waterbuck, Giraffe, come in along with hordes of birds. We heard a Kudu bark late in the day just as the Giraffe came in and feel that they messed us up. I shot a huge warthog that came in right at dusk. After my shot he raced over the dam and out of site. Mike tracked him for 20 minutes through some of the thickest Buffalo thorns I have seen, with a flashlight until we found him 40yds.from the dam stone dead. We both gave up some skin and blood to those thorns. Themba joined us with the vehicle just as we found him. He will go @13†and has great curves.



I wasn't kidding about using a flashlight to track by. Another important learning, Eileen is not cut out to sit in blinds all day. I will not do that to her again! She was a trooper this day!

Mike Currie hunted hard each day and was a great judge of trophy quality. He and his tracker Themba made a great hunting team and we had a great time being with them for 7 days. They listened to what I was interested in and tried to meet our needs during the hunt. Mike is very personable and shared a lot of knowledge about the area and game we hunted. More importantly he took Eileen shopping on the way back to the Afton House in Bella Bella and at Cambanos in Joburg. This got him many point for life with my wife. He is also following up on consolidating our shipment of trophies from Bonwa Phala and Trans Africa Taxidermy so we only have one shipment.

I would rate this South African Safari, even though only 5 hunting days, a really worth while enjoyable rewarding event.
I would not hesitate to rebook with Bonwa Phala Safaris and Mike Currie PH is someone I would recommend to others to use if they want a good hunt.

We hope to be back as soon as the Safari Gods smile at us again.

Robert

Robert,

I just returned from hunting with Garry Kelly myself. This was my second safari with Garry and he does put on a great show. His 36 years in the business show up in all aspects of his operation.

Congrats on your trophies and great hunt with Mike. Particularly after your success in Masailand you really had a great adventure.

I also took a beautiful impala from the same treestand on Bonwa Phala.

Mark

Nice report, great trophies!

Sounds like a great safari. Thanks for sharing the great photos. I am considering a hunt for Nyala in 2008. I have been interested in hunting with Garry Kelly and have heard good things about his outfit.