Every once in a while we come across someone who visits Africa for the first time, seeing it with new eyes spared from the prejudices of modern life and this year we met a young lad called Christopher who hunted Namibia’s Kaokoland with us together with his Father Mark and younger brother Ben. This is his story.
Africais supposed to be hot, sandy, sunny and, according to the news, full of criminals, that’s all you ever hear about. What you don’t hear about is that in winter it is windy, still sandy but the days are short and as far as I’m concerned Namibia is one of the nicest places in world with some of the friendliest people around. I didn’t realise either that the area had free-roaming Black Rhino and Elephant which were really amazing!
Being 17, I don’t really enjoy having to get out of bed before noon, so rising at 05:30 for wasn’t exactly the best part of the trip but I soon woke up after a cooked breakfast, not to mention sitting on the back of a pickup when the cold morning air blasting in your face and rough landscape really wakes you up! We had zeroed our Rifles before our first day’s hunting commenced although I confess to feeling a little pressured having to shoot an unfamiliar gun in front of an audience.
Each morning we would go to the local village to pick up our Game Warden, Benson. While he didn’t speak much English, you could tell he was a very optimistic person. He was always smiling, and whenever one of us would go hunting he and Tommy Hall, our Professional Hunter would come to help track the animal.
Tommy is a really great guy. He was patient and if we weren’t comfortable taking a shot, or if something went wrong when stalking, like the wind changed or there was another animal hiding that we didn’t see, he would explain what happened and what went wrong. He even managed to teach us a little bit about tracking.
All of the animals we shot went to the local community, except a couple which went to a local school and another to the workers on a local conservation project who were building a water point for the area’s Black Rhino population. I helped to skin one of the zebras that we had shot although since then everyone that I have told has made the same face. I’m not sure whether that says something about them or me but am not too concerned either way. Not only were the animals given to the local community, they and we were taught about the fact that they should appreciate the value in saving and preserving these wild areas, rather than turn it into farmland.
This was my first time doing what I consider to be proper hunting, as I had only shot deer from a high seat previously so the first outing was a bit daunting and I of everything that could possibly go wrong. How far would the shot be? What would happen if I missed, or wounded the animal and it ran away? I was still feeling anxious about my performance when zeroing the rifles, but after the first stalk I felt kind of stupid, there was no real reason to be worried, I just needed to pay attention to Tommy and concentrate.
While I say so myself it seems that I’m a much better shot than I thought I was, just as long as I trusted my equipment. Once we were hunting an Oryx, the last we had in our package so we were determined to get it. When we got closer to it, Tommy told me to get ready although the animal was still some distance away. I started to question myself, as I’d never really shot this far and started wondering whether I needed to aim higher but I took the shot anyway.
I aimed for the shoulder, fired and saw the Oryx jump and run away. I thought I had completely screwed it up and was pretty disappointed so I was quite surprised when Tommy started to follow it again. After another half hour we saw the Oryx again, this time I didn’t know how far away it was, and although I can usually guess pretty accurately, in Africa I completely lost the ability.
I lined up the shot and fired. This time the Oryx didn’t jump; it seemed to be completely unaffected but after a few tense seconds it started to walk in a circle before falling. It turned out that my second shot had gone through its heart. I asked Tommy how far away each shot was to be told they were in the region of 300m. While that might not sound very far compared to some people, I was pretty proud of myself!
Frankly, it wasn’t quite like I had expected. I honestly didn’t realise that Africa could be this amazing. It was lots better than I had ever imagined and hopefully, I will be able to come back someday.
Finally, I just want to say thank you to everyone. To Roo for his patience with us arranging this over the year and for all his great advice, to Tommy for being such great company all the while we were in Purros, to John and Benson for all their hard work in tracking and preparing the animals, and to all the local villagers for allowing us to hunt their on their land.
During our Safari we stalked and shot 2 Hartman Mountain Zebra, 6 Oryx and 4 Springbok. As for my favourite? It was probably the springbok because it was the first animal I stalked and shot in Africa!
Information and many photographs on hunting in Kaokoland can be found at http://www.thehuntingagency.com/namibia/kaokoland/ or to read this story online, please see http://www.huntingandshootingnews.com/hsn-nov/index.html#/16/ . For Tented Safaris to Namibia in 2012, please visit http://www.thehuntingagency.com/namibia/damaraland/, thank you