Just returned two days ago from a 3 1/2 week trip to the southern Africa. Went to Namibia hunting and visiting friends, did a 5-day tour in RSA, then hunted in Mozambique. Will try to pass on a few observations and things learned.

Gracy Travel (Shawn) did a good job with our flights. There were five of us involved in this trip in various phases and we had no problems at all.

Some of us stayed at the Afton Guest House in Jo'burg between phases on this trip. I can highly recommend this as the place to stay in Jo'Burg. Reasonably priced, close to the airport, they make things real simple. Real nice people. We were met at the airport, transported to dinner, and they have laundry facilities.

There's a place to eat near their place called the "Chuckwagon" that will give you a great T-bone steak and a couple beers for under $5.

Slight lack of communication when we got flown into "Eros" airport in Windhoek, rather than the International Airport outside of Windhoek. Be aware of that (the two airports in Windhoek)so you get met at the right one.

Hunting in Namibia (once again) went very well. Two of my friends made their first African hunt with Gauss Hunting (Hartmut Freyer and Hagen Eggert) near Otavi. They took several outstanding trophies, everything they hoped to get and more. My wife and I split our time between Gauss and spending time with Peter & Val Sohrada near Otjiwarongo.

The highlight for us was my wife taking a 54" kudu on Hagen Eggert's ranch. She used a 30-06 and Federal factory 180-grain "Deep Shok" bullets. One shot at 90 yards, dropped in it's tracks. Recovered the bullet under the hide after it went through both shoulders. The bullets looks like something you'd see in a full-page color bullet advertisement. More on that in a later post.

And then there is the leopard I got at Sohrada's Ranch. The leopard probably deserves a separate story in itself. The short story is we were in the process of setting up a temporary blind near a waterhole at 3:30PM. We were there looking for a big kudu. We hadn't been there 15 minutes and were still getting settled in when a big male leopard walked up. Simple as that! (And yes, I've previously paid my dues sitting in leopard blinds).

My wife and I went on a five-day tour of Kruger Park and surrounding region with an outfit called African Sky Safaris & Tours. My wife bought this trip at a SCI Chapter Banquet last year. They took very good care of us and I recommend them.

Then went on to Mozambique to do some hunting with Safaris de Mozambique that was arranged through our own Wendell Reich, (Hunter's Quest). For the sake of brevity let me say we got our money's worth. Wendell is a good booking agent. This was on the Zambezi River right on the Zimbabwe border. Lots of buffalo, saw plenty of elephants (they took an 80+ pounder this year), hippos, crocs, bushbuck, etc. If you go in September, be prepared for the heat. Hunting in the thick stuff ("jess"?) is not easy either. Don't want to start a massive thread here, but I found my long-serving and much beloved .375H&H on the light side for hunting in that stuff and if I had to do it all over again I would have used solids. A .416 (or larger) makes more sense to me now.

One interesting this was the time we spent in transit in Zimbabwe getting to our hunting camp in Mozambique. Upon arrival in Harare we had to pay a $30 USD "airport arrival tax". We then flew a charter to a dirt strip in Zimbabwe on the Zambezi. It was about a one hour drive to base camp in Mozambique. When we returned to the dirt strip re-entering Zimbabwe, we had to pay another $30 USD "entry fee". Once back to Harare, we had to pay another $30 USD "airport departure tax". My partner and I paid $180 USD just passing through Zimbabwe.

The new airport terminal in Harare was nice and clean. It was also nearly empty. There was room for a bowling alley right in the middle of the place and there was about a 1 to 1 ratio between travelers and employees. Half the shops were closed. With the exchange rate one can of soda pop cost us over $3 USD at one of the small kiosks that was open.

My wife and I took Malarone and experienced no side effects. One member of our group took Larium (sp?) and upon taking his second dose got very ill.

Am already looking forward to the next trip to southern Africa!

[ 09-20-2002, 08:50: Message edited by: Matt Norman ]

Sounds great!

How many miles did you walk per day, on average, for elephant?

Matt: I just returned from 2 weeks in Namibia 30 Km outside of Omaruru, had a great trip. But you got a leopard? Man, all I saw was tracks. Still both of us got all the game we hoped for and all are fantastic trophies. It has to be hands down one of the greatest places to hunt on earth right now. And you can't beat the exchange rate. Full breakfast for 7 of us in Windhoek came to $25 US. How can you go wrong?

500 grains: I believe we saw elephants every day. Many were hanging around the flood plains and small islands along the river. These were mostly cow/calf groups of 6-10. We hiked morning and afternoon tracking up buffalo, and each session seemed to be around 5 miles. Elephants were often encountered along the way. We did specifically track up one group of elephants that had some bulls, largest being around 35-40 pounds. They were sleeping and I have video of one laying on the ground less than 40 feet away. As we were leaving one of our trackers decided to have some sport and whacked that one with a stick. Kind of an African version of cow-tipping!Amazing how quick they can get to their feet! He just jumped up and snorted, looking around to see who was messing with him, then tried to get back to sleep.

The 80+ pounder they took earlier this year was apparently taken by a young, fit Spanish guy that did a lot of hiking with them. He was certainly rewarded.

Mssgn, I've been to Namibia five times and it's my favorite. I've been to four other African countries so I have some basis to compare it to.

As for the leopard, I'll post a story about it as soon as Aspen Hill Ann gets back as she is smart enough to post a photo for me.