Tintin
AH fanatic
So, with final loading done, an almost all Australian affair, with ADI powder and brass and Woodleigh projectiles, and a final day at the 300m range (mostly) hitting 10” gongs at 300m off the sticks the weekend prior at WBB24 with @Kiwifire111 and @458JCE, I was all set, with a full Saturday up my sleeve to fine tune, do final prep and complete packing, before flying to Sydney the next day. Or so I thought.
Those plans lasted until 1000 when a mate called to wish me well and mentioned one of our mates had just pulled out of a partridge shoot that afternoon. The rational me was too slow to act as he heard the hunting me say "So you’re a gun short? What time should I be there?".
The birds had beckoned, the overdue haircut and final prep could wait. A perfect afternoon out and a few birds in the bag.
The day had finally dawned, I was underway, headed back to the Eastern Cape for another @KMG Hunting Safaris adventure with my mate Rick, on his first visit to Africa, the small Rigby and the 'big' camera in tow.
The normal dose of airport nonsense, where everything takes longer than it should, and offtimes feels like routine tasks are being attempted by work experience interns for the first time, but we muddled through the first of our 3 flights, a short hop to Sydney. Anxiety levels dropped once on board, with the words all AirTag users eagerly await ... "With You" finally apperaed. Rick used Samsung tags and they seemed to work as well as my Apple ones throughout our travels.
We overnighted at the Airport Holiday Inn Express this time - which was more than adequate, apart from the 0630 breakfast start, making it a bit of scramble for our 0930 flight to JNB. We had to talk our Uber driver down from instigating a road rage incident on a (deserving) cabbie on the way back to Sydney airport - he could maintina his honour and mete out justice next time they crossed paths, but we had a flight to catch.
I’d selected Ruark’s Horn of the Hunter as my reading for this expedition, and had for better or worse, also decided to take the big camera, cognisant that Ruark had wisely opined the challenges of foolishly attempting to hunt and photograph concurrently, nevertheless, here I was, hoping to be more Rob, the hunter, than Jinny the photographer - time would tell. In any event this yarn will be necessarily image heavy, in my attempts to justify my decision. So readers won’t need to rely on my clumsy writing to get a visual sense of characters along the way such as chicken toddler, the cabbage lady and the amazing spaces we hunted.
It's a great read, that seemed a perfect fit for this trip the more the trip unfolded.
Flight to JNB was straightforward, if long at 14 hours. A very southerly route saw us over icebergs and almost above Antartica.
We opted to do our own SAPS permits this year, that was all pretty seamless … until the SAPS printer broke down. I was fighting the urge to ask if they tried turning it off and back on again - but decided it was neither the time, nor place to be that guy - at least not until we had our permits. They managed to resuscitate Percy the printer and we were on our way in about 15 minutes.
As one does, we bumped into Bruce from Gracy Travel and Marius from RiflePermits, who had greeted me previously, and was greeting a father and son duo from USA. Turns out they were also hunting with KMG and would be in camp with us. Their travel and not been as successful as ours - they had landed sans rifles and suitcases (took 2 and a half days to get their gear to camp). It transpired the problem was a missed connection the USA, not at the African end.
We overnighted in JNB at City Lodge and enjoyed a pleasant dinner there with friends from Jo’Burg who have a property in Namibia that is high on the 'must visit' list to hunt Sable.
The trip to East London is a good one - I love asking for a window AND aisle seat on the little Embraer 135
Still not convinced about the cheese hot cross bun - but when in Rome ...
The Royal welcome from the King.
And a warm welcome from our PH, Riley. Only 26 years old, but proved to be excellent company and an outstanding hunter. Two thoughts came to mind at our first meeting, Harry Selby had his 27th birthday while guiding the Ruarks in Horn of the Hunter and 1 Tim 4:12, 'Let no man despise thy youth'.
An hour or so to camp from East London in the bakkie for getting to know Riley, tracker Merri, dogs Gracie and Scout and for Rick to take in his first sights of Africa, including;
^ Bespoke bicylces ... Is there an Eastern Cape Customs workshop?
View attachment banana.jpg
^ Fresh fruit
View attachment housing.jpg
^ and local architecture
Finally at camp, zeroes checked, dinner enjoyed and attempts at sleep made.
More to follow.
Those plans lasted until 1000 when a mate called to wish me well and mentioned one of our mates had just pulled out of a partridge shoot that afternoon. The rational me was too slow to act as he heard the hunting me say "So you’re a gun short? What time should I be there?".
The birds had beckoned, the overdue haircut and final prep could wait. A perfect afternoon out and a few birds in the bag.
The day had finally dawned, I was underway, headed back to the Eastern Cape for another @KMG Hunting Safaris adventure with my mate Rick, on his first visit to Africa, the small Rigby and the 'big' camera in tow.
The normal dose of airport nonsense, where everything takes longer than it should, and offtimes feels like routine tasks are being attempted by work experience interns for the first time, but we muddled through the first of our 3 flights, a short hop to Sydney. Anxiety levels dropped once on board, with the words all AirTag users eagerly await ... "With You" finally apperaed. Rick used Samsung tags and they seemed to work as well as my Apple ones throughout our travels.
We overnighted at the Airport Holiday Inn Express this time - which was more than adequate, apart from the 0630 breakfast start, making it a bit of scramble for our 0930 flight to JNB. We had to talk our Uber driver down from instigating a road rage incident on a (deserving) cabbie on the way back to Sydney airport - he could maintina his honour and mete out justice next time they crossed paths, but we had a flight to catch.
I’d selected Ruark’s Horn of the Hunter as my reading for this expedition, and had for better or worse, also decided to take the big camera, cognisant that Ruark had wisely opined the challenges of foolishly attempting to hunt and photograph concurrently, nevertheless, here I was, hoping to be more Rob, the hunter, than Jinny the photographer - time would tell. In any event this yarn will be necessarily image heavy, in my attempts to justify my decision. So readers won’t need to rely on my clumsy writing to get a visual sense of characters along the way such as chicken toddler, the cabbage lady and the amazing spaces we hunted.
It's a great read, that seemed a perfect fit for this trip the more the trip unfolded.
Flight to JNB was straightforward, if long at 14 hours. A very southerly route saw us over icebergs and almost above Antartica.
We opted to do our own SAPS permits this year, that was all pretty seamless … until the SAPS printer broke down. I was fighting the urge to ask if they tried turning it off and back on again - but decided it was neither the time, nor place to be that guy - at least not until we had our permits. They managed to resuscitate Percy the printer and we were on our way in about 15 minutes.
As one does, we bumped into Bruce from Gracy Travel and Marius from RiflePermits, who had greeted me previously, and was greeting a father and son duo from USA. Turns out they were also hunting with KMG and would be in camp with us. Their travel and not been as successful as ours - they had landed sans rifles and suitcases (took 2 and a half days to get their gear to camp). It transpired the problem was a missed connection the USA, not at the African end.
We overnighted in JNB at City Lodge and enjoyed a pleasant dinner there with friends from Jo’Burg who have a property in Namibia that is high on the 'must visit' list to hunt Sable.
The trip to East London is a good one - I love asking for a window AND aisle seat on the little Embraer 135
Still not convinced about the cheese hot cross bun - but when in Rome ...
The Royal welcome from the King.
And a warm welcome from our PH, Riley. Only 26 years old, but proved to be excellent company and an outstanding hunter. Two thoughts came to mind at our first meeting, Harry Selby had his 27th birthday while guiding the Ruarks in Horn of the Hunter and 1 Tim 4:12, 'Let no man despise thy youth'.
An hour or so to camp from East London in the bakkie for getting to know Riley, tracker Merri, dogs Gracie and Scout and for Rick to take in his first sights of Africa, including;
^ Bespoke bicylces ... Is there an Eastern Cape Customs workshop?
View attachment banana.jpg
^ Fresh fruit
View attachment housing.jpg
^ and local architecture
Finally at camp, zeroes checked, dinner enjoyed and attempts at sleep made.
More to follow.
Attachments
Last edited by a moderator:
At least I got a picture of the track. 
