Safari in the Republic of South Africa
By Byron and Jean Watson

On May 3-17, 2003 we hunted in the Republic of South Africa with John X Safaris. We flew from Montgomery to Atlanta to Cape Town to Port Elizabeth leaving Montgomery at 5:30 AM on Saturday and arriving in Port Elizabeth at 2:20 PM on Sunday. With a seven-hour time difference this was actually twenty-six hours of travel time – seventeen on airplanes and eight in airports. Braun Olckers, our thirty-two year old professional hunter, picked us up at the PE airport. Braun is college educated and speaks three languages – Africaans like his father, English like his mother and Xhosa like his tracker Lunga. Our hunting team consisted of Braun (PH), Lunga (tracker), and Fleckie (tracking dog); all of whom we grew to love dearly.

Braun took us to Lalibela Game Reserve (our home base) where we sighted guns, met the others in camp, and had dinner. Dinner each night was a gourmet affair with wild game and domestic meat, many vegetables (especially native ones), and fancy desserts. We ate kudu stew, ostrich steak, karoo lamb chops, venison stew, springbok steak, beef steak, quail pie, impala loin, springbok roast, potato salad, baked red potatoes, scalloped potatoes, wild spinach, rice with ginger, oriental noodles with mushrooms and pineapple, flan, ice cream in spun sugar bowls with cherries and hot fudge sauce, Borsch pear in cream sauce, custard pie, apple tart with cream, rice pudding with apricot sauce, etc.

Breakfast was light and at camp; lunch was packed in a "cool box" (we would say ice chest) with drinks but no ice. Diet Coke was Coke Light and did not taste at all like our Diet Coke; Sprite was Lemon-lime Soda and was great (better than our Sprite or 7-Up). We drank lots of juice and ate crisps (potato chips) or slop chips (French fries); they served really unique cheese crisps.

On Monday we hunted at Prop and Jacky Olckers (Braun’s parents) farm near Alicedale; it is a 5,000-acre sheep, cattle, goat and wildlife farm. We saw kudu, warthogs, zebra, hartebeest, impala, mountain reedbuck, rock rabbits (no tail), duiker, yellow mongoose, ostrich, waterbuck, rhinoceros, finch (nests hanging from trees), cacti, mother-in-law tongue (growing wild in the "bush") hemp plants (from which they make rope), twari (natives use for brooms, toothbrushes and bark for headaches), acacia karoo with six-inch thorns, and aloe the size of full-grown trees.

The roads in the area are mainly gravel or dirt and are terribly maintained. County roads actually run through game reserves with no fences; this was great for seeing animals but bad on speed at fifteen miles per hour. The electric wires look like ours in the 1950’s with glass insulators and T cross poles; phone lines are still on poles to help prevent theft if they were underground. Trains are electric as are most fences; fences are powered with solar panels. We spent the day "in the bush" (hunting) but didn’t find a "shooter" (an animal large enough to shoot). Poor Braun had to answer one hundred and one questions, as my science-teacher mind couldn’t absorb all the new things I was seeing fast enough. Thank goodness he was well educated and knowledgeable about all around us.

On Tuesday we hunted at Amakhala Game Reserve, a consortium of five farmers joined to form a wild animal farm, with very good success. Byron killed an impala and a blesbok and I killed an impala. In all we had three animals "in the salt" by early afternoon. We also saw black wildebeest, zebra, springbok, duiker, nyala, hartebeest, red lechowe, warthog, ostrich, baboon, monkeys, rhinoceros, waterbuck and hippopotamus. We drove through several local game reserves on the county road – Lalibela (where we were staying), Shamwari, Bayethe, and Kwantu. Late that afternoon we had English tea with Braun’s parents; Prop is a farmer and Jacky is a fifth grade teacher in Alicedale. They were fascinating to visit with and we learned much about the local culture.

Wednesday found us back on the Olckers farm glassing the mountains for Kudu. Six mountains and two "shooters" later I had missed and Byron had wounded a kudu. We spent the rest of the day climbing mountains on the trail of Byron’s wounded kudu; it was hard tracking and hard walking with loose rocks and steep slopes. We returned to Lalibela just at sunset and saw lots of game as we passed through to camp. The sunsets and sunrises in Africa are beyond description, and I think we saw nearly all of them! I learned that a truck is called a "bakkie", its hood a "bonnet", its horn a "hooter", and its lights are "torches". Love the different expressions!

Thursday was very hot. We set out early to look for the wounded kudu at Olckers, but had no luck. Shortly after noon we came upon a bad wreck with serious injuries. It was on a very deserted road and we were the only help; no 911 in South Africa. We were able to get through to police who did not arrive for one hour and an ambulance that never did come. Finally we contacted family members who took the injured to a hospital one hour away. So much for emergency medical help! Thank goodness for Byron’s knowledge of first aid. We did see many of the same game and plants again. Added to the ones already mentioned were scrub hare (have a tail), pine trees, bluegums, plumbago (a beautiful shrub with blue flowers found blooming wild everywhere), and a secretary bird (large with a plume like a pen).

On Friday we traveled to Done Rovin’ Safari Ranch owned by Roy Hess from Pensacola, Florida. It is 14, 000 acres of mountain and trails, very lush and green (unlike the arid area near Alicedale). After riding and glassing for about two hours and seeing lots of game, we walked out on a ledge and saw a big kudu on the the side of a facing mountain. It was about 255 yards away and I said this was too far for me, but the PH’s said that I must try because he was very large. I did try and was successful, even though it took about two hours and six trackers to bring the big brute up the mountain. After skinning the kudu we returned through Grahamstown "on the tar" (highway). I took the rest of the afternoon off and Byron and Braun returned to Olckers looking for Kudu and warthog. Since this was Mothers’ Day weekend and I was away from my boys, Braun brought "Mama Jean" a large bouquet of proteas (the national flower of South Africa).

The weekend found us on a three-day road trip. Our first stop was in Tarkastad where Byron hunted for mountain reedbuck in the Winterburg Mountains. It was very cold and foggy; the mountains were rocky and grew heather. We ran the gamut of weather – fog, rain, sleet, hail, wind; you name it we had it. Byron was able to kill a Roland and Ward reedbuck in spite of the inclement weather. We spent that night at the J. W. Phillips’ bed and breakfast called Carrickmore Guest Farm. It was very luxurious and historical with antique furniture everywhere.

On Sunday, after being treated to Mothers’ Day calls from the Lalibela crew and roses from the garden, we left for the Orange Free State through the eastern corner of the Northern Cape. While driving through the Karoo (an arid, flat, grassland for which Karoo lamb is named and in which it is raised) we experienced "monkey’s wedding" (rain with the sun shining) and ended up at Ramah Farm. This Farm was established in 1816 as a mission; the farmhouse was built in 1860; it was on the border between the Free State and the Cape Province during the Anglo-Boer War. The house, grounds, and most of all the owners were fascinating; we lived history and saw plentiful game. Byron and Jim Knuebel (from New York) both killed nice gemsbok, while Jim’s daughter, Melissa, and I toured the pecan orchard (they ship to the the States), canoe camp and game farm. We saw a kori bustard (the largest flying bird), mouse birds, and large ground squirrels along with many species already mentioned.

On Monday we met Johan Freund of Africa’s Rocky Mountain Ranch in Vanderkloof. On his land Byron was able to take a springbok and I took a Burchel’s zebra. These animals were skinned and we were back in Tarkastad for the night.
Tuesday was a travel day – back to Lalibela and Olckers Farm. It had rained so much while we were gone that the Bushman’s River that was dry when we left was almost over the road on our return. We had tea with the Olckers again and a social day.

On Wednesday Byron went back to Olckers Farm searching for kudu and warthog and I went to Addo Elephant National Park. Jim, Melissa, and I enjoyed viewing all the hundreds of animals in the park up close and personal, had lunch there, and then traveled to Port Elizabeth for shopping. Byron and Braun hunted all day to no avail; no "shooters".
Thursday we drove to Port Elizabeth, flew to Cape Town, and toured the wine lands in the mountains north of Cape Town. Everything was lush and mountainous with plenty of green vegetation because of plenty of water. May here is fall in South Africa so the fall foliage was vivid in the mountains. We toured two wineries in the Stellenbosch area – Nethlingshof and Simonsig. We spent our last night in South Africa at the Commodore Hotel on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. Accommodations were fantastic, the people were delightful and the food was divine (Byron had karoo lamb one last time), but we missed the bush. This was tourist country!

On our final day we toured the peninsula below Cape Town. We began at Table Mountain where we met one more strange animal – dassies (have a skeleton most like an elephant but are the size of large rats). We drove down the west side of the Cape viewing the Atlantic Ocean then crossed the peninsula through Constantia (wine land again) to the east side where we could view the Indian Ocean. We went to the farthest point west and south in all of Africa – the Cape of Good Hope. There we took the funicular to the top and Cape Point Light House; this afforded us a beautiful view of the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. On our way back up the east coast we stopped at Boulder Beach in Simon’s Town to see a colony of Jackass penguins, so named because they bray like a donkey.

We departed from Cape Town airport at 8:20 PM and landed in Atlanta at 8:00 AM – eighteen hours on one plane. Then we flew on to Montgomery having spent twenty-six hours in airports and airplanes with a time change of seven hours. We were totally exhausted but as satisfied with a trip as we have ever been.
We will return to Africa!!