The caption on this sign says it all - “The good old bushveldâ€

It has been four years since my last safari to South Africa - separated by several safaris to Tanzania and Botswana. This trip back to South Africa was in three parts.

The first was a safari along with some good friends to the Natal Province as outfitted by Pieter Kriel of “Hunting in Africaâ€. pieterk@lantic.net

I have hunted with Pieter on three separate safaris back when he worked for Peter Harris at Ntshonolanga. I knew our group could trust Pieter and he came through even better than expected.

The second part was a trip through Kruger Park, which was also guided by Pieter Kreil. Our wives joined us for that.

The third was a safari to the Limpopo near Gravelotte as set up by my good friend Ray Atkinson ray@atkinsonhunting.com with Hannes Swanepoel. HJ Swanepoel big5game@worldonline.co.za This one was my 14th hunt arranged through Ray and they have all been great. Thanks again Ray.

It was the annual gathering of the justly unknown society of odd fellows that following the cruel treatment of PVT and his accomplice Wickus in the Selous became known as the Death Marchers.

This year we thought we needed a break and we should just do a leisurely Nyala hunt. The property Pieter took us to was near Pongola in the Natal province. The base camp was at Somkhanda but we also hunted another property called Hlambanyati plus two more adjoining properties. All told I suppose there was 80,000 to 100,000 acres.



If I understood it correctly, these properties were somewhat recently purchased by the government and given to the Zulu people who have then hired property managers to run them. At any rate the hunting area had interspersed small villages.



This shows the construction. Of course the wives build the buildings while the men stay with their cattle or other girlfriends.



Here is what we were looking for. Bill Yung took this classic picture on one of the properties we hunted.

Nyala are mature at 4-5 years old. Their coat varies in color with dark gray, dark brown and nearly black areas. They have vertical white stripes, which fade with age, white spots and chevrons on the muzzle. There is a mane that runs from the neck to well under the chest. They are not territorial and we often seen two or three bulls together however the older bulls seemed to be loners.



Nyala territory is the same as that for Bushbuck and the Nyala compete with Bushbuck for browse except Nyala browse line is higher. People sometimes think Nyala push the Bushbuck out of an area however it is more likely that the Bushbuck move on because the Nyala browse line is the same on the low end and reaches higher.



All five of us got a Nyala like or better than this one.



Bobs Nyala was the top of the safari and he celebrated his winning of the $500 pot by dressing formally for dinner – at least I think that was what he was doing.



Bill Yungs PH (Charlie) learned that Bill and I were from southern Missouri so he decided to make us feel at home by doing his interpretation of a “Hillbilly danceâ€.

After a week of our slaughter of more than 40 animals the wives joined us for a tour of Kruger Park. They had conducted a raid on London, which most certainly stimulated the English economy. (Whose bright idea was that?) Pieter Kreil also conducts tours of Kruger when not hunting so again he was the obvious choice for this phase of the trip.





After three nights in Kruger my friends departed for other South Africa destinations and Irene and I met with Hannes Swanepoel for the second hunt as booked by Ray.

At camp we met departing AR member Jeff Loffert (akjeff), his wife Catherine and friend Paul Aard. They had a terrific hunt and set a high standard to follow. I didn’t reach their standard but still had a great hunt and highly recommend Hannes Swanepoel.

Jeff shot a brute of a Kudu and generally an animal a day with one shot from his 9.3x74 single shot Ruger no. 1. Jeff is a drilling shooter also but did not have it along on this trip. Paul had been in Hannes camp for a month. He is a double rifle shooter who uses a scoped Merkle in .375 caliber with great accuracy. I hunted with Paul the following day. Great people. I wish we had another couple days to overlap.

Hannes was scheduled for back surgery during my hunt so he obtained the services of John Luyt of Duke Safaris as my PH. We used Hannes camp and tracker as well as Johns tracker.



This is a picture of John talking with old time PH Brian Smith who was formerly a partner in Luangua Safaris with Norman Carr. We hunted Brians farm. Brian is an interesting person indeed and was enjoyable to meet.



I had two goals in mind – First to find a narrow horn Kudu to go with my wide set Kudu mount. We accomplished that on the second day.



Secondly, having previously taken a Chobe and a Southern (Cape) Bushbuck I wanted to complete my collection of all three Southern Africa Bushbucks with a Limpopo Bushbuck. We accomplished this on the morning of the last day while hunting on Mamba Mountain on Brian Smiths beautiful farm.

As befitting this most desirable of the plains game animals, he was taken while standing on two feet in brushy terrain with a shot that must have either threaded the needle or more likely ricoched off several trees, rocks and branches accidentally killing the Limpopo bushbuck and completing my grand slam.

The Chobe Bushbuck is 15 to 20% smaller and is more clearly marked than the other two.

The Southern or Cape Bushbuck has a lot of color variations. It is found from the Pongola River through Kwa Zulu-Natal and south. Rams are often dark.

The Limpopo is an intermediate color variation and does not have body stripes – just a few spots on the belly and flanks.

In general, Bushbucks have single spiral horns and are not territorial. They live in thickets and can be aggressive when wounded. They have excellent sight and smell and are quite a challenge to hunt.

Between these two kills we enjoyed other side trips in the Limpopo.



A favorite side trip of Irene’s was the elephant ride at Camp Jabolone. Old time Zimbabwe resident Paul Coetzee was in charge of this operation. He gave a very informative talk complete with a demonstration of some of the elephants understanding of 50 to 80 verbal commands.

Sitting on the rolling back of an elephant as it moves through the Bushveld gives one a completely different picture than that as a target for our double rifles. As you ride along the elephant will casually break off branches to eat. You can literally feel the awesome power and yet the finesse of these intelligent creatures.



Another interesting stop was the Maholahola wild bird rehab program where we experienced the unexpected weight of a vulture by holding a piece of meat in a leather-gloved hand.



This pretty fellow with a beautiful mane unfortunately shows the effects of the current drought in the bushveld. He is hopefully still walking around, however a lot of animals are dying there now and will continue to do so until the rain starts in two or three weeks.



This kudu moved into Hannes camp because the staffs efforts to keep the grass green by watering it each day had the secondary effect of watering the trees which converted the camp site into a green oasis in stark contrast to the surrounding bush.

Watching him from the close range of about 10 yds. it suddenly dawned on me the value of his spiral horns. He would reach up into the tree and corkscrew a branch around them then twist it down and nibble some leaves. I am told that the bull Kudu are the last to die because they can reach higher browse than the cows.

I used my John Ricks 300 WM with 180 grain Northforks for everything. The bush was so thick I rarely moved the scope off 3 power.

My friends and I all enjoyed getting back to the bush in South Africa. Its fun.

PS: The only sour note: I cannot say good things for the Johannesburg airport nor for SAA.

The SAA planes I was on were dirty, the stewardesses were indifferent (on a trip to the restroom I noticed trays had not been removed from most passenger seats while in the little kitchen area sat an overweight stewardess busily gobbling up a plate full of fried chicken legs obviously scrounged from the business class), some seats were broken, there were ribbons saying “remove before flight†connected to pins in the emergency exit doors (obviously not removed) and the seats were generally very uncomfortable. They had movies but they must not have been changed since last year since I had seen them all before. SAA is probably the only reason I can think of to not go to South Africa.

The airport is a disaster however much of that is due to construction in preparation for the 2010 soccer world championships. Personnel in the airport will still hit you up for money to “buy a drink – just a cheap drink†and if flying into the airport from another location in SA you will end up with a long walk outside the airport and through the parking garage to check your luggage and rifles onto the flight home.

Nice Kudu.

Great report and photo's Allen! It was an absolute pleasure to meet you folks, and would have really enjoyed more overlap in camp.

Beautiful nyala, kudu, and bushbuck! The nyala and bushbuck, are on my "next time" list, as is eland. I'll bet John was a real kick to hunt with. His partner Roelof was super, and did a fantastic job with Catherine and I. Both hunting, and photo/game driving. For our introductory trip to Africa, it was wonderful.

Regards,

Jeff

Congratulations!

Looks like a good time was had by all! Congrats on a fun hunt and nice trophies. The RSA takes some unfair heat about it's hunting on occasion, but I have always had great times, fair chase hunts and loads of laughs in the Sud Afrikan bushveld! Not to mention some unique trophies not available anywhere else in Africa!

Thanks for the report.

Congrats on the Kudu and Bushbuck

nice report and some nice trophies
well done

Great trophies and very good report, Thanks Palmer!

Palmer,

Outstanding... Great photos and sure looks like a great time.. Say hi to Bill for me...

Mike

Nice pics and report. Your Pongola pics brought back some memories for me. Thanks.