We were up this morning at 7:30 and obviously the first thing Dan does is haves glass of champagne, as it is his birthday!! Happy 23rd birthday Dan! :D We sat out on the stoep with Nikola, Dries and John who were all having coffee and rusks. Nikola warned Dan not to have any more to drink, because he was to shoot today, so that was his birthday present out of the bag :D I also got him a Michel Crichton book and a tiny shot glass that he wanted to buy the other day, but I bought them for him so I would have something to give him on his birthday! Over to Dan to talk about his special day:
Once we all got ready at the cottage we headed to the house to have breakfast with the whole family. Before breakfast I was treated with a chocolate birthday cake that Evette had arranged a friend to bake for me, it was a very nice unexpected surprise. We sliced the cake and everyone dug in, 14 of us in all. Breakfast consisted of an English muffin with a fried egg on top surrounded by bacon! South Africans certainly know how to do food! We sat on the front porch for a while before Gary mentioned we should get going on the hunt. He told Mike to go get a box for target practice and asked how good a shot I was. To be honest the only experience with guns of any sort I have had is target practice with an air rifle that Max McCullum and I own, obviously different from a real gun, but at least this air rifle was the same weight, and uses nearly the same scope as the gun I would be using.
The hunt turned out to be a great spectacle, 12 of us loaded onto the bakkie and headed to the riverbed for target practice. Gary showed me how to load the gun, when it was live and how to eject a spent cartridge. Mike paced off 50 meters and placed a cardboard savanna box with a 7cm black dot on it against a mound of dead grass to use as a target. I was shooting from a seat in the back of the bakkie and was resting the rifle on a bar that was used as a hand support. My first shot missed the black circle about 5" right, at this point Mike reminded Gary that they had not given me a large piece of foam to rest the gun on which made aiming and keeping the gun steady MUCH easier. Gary gave me the foam and loaded the gun for a second shot. My second shot hit the inside of the target 2cm from the right hand side and it was decided that I had enough practice! 2 shots, that's all I got! :D It was time for the real thing. Before we departed the riverbed Gary showed me the area of the springbok I would be aiming for, just behind the shoulder joint of the front leg, straight for the heart.
We set off along the dirt track until we came to the portion of the farm where they keep the game. The enclosure is 7000 acres and is home to about 80 springbok. Gary was driving the bakkie while everyone else was in the back with me and Mike. Mike was armed with a pair of binoculars and was going to let me know which animal I was to aim for. When we first drove in everyone was shocked to find a herd of about 20 springbok about 200 metres in front of us. Mike however couldn't identify a suitable buck in time and the herd was spooked by our presence and ran off. We continued in the same direction trying to find remnants of the first herd but only found the odd lone springbok here or there. We continued far enough to reach the boundary of their farm with the nearby reserve and spotted some springbok against the boundary. These animals then headed right and back into the open.
We swung right and drove about 500 metres back towards the entrance when two buck appeared on our left hand side (Mike and I were seated on the left of the bakkie). By the time we signalled for Gray to stop the buck were both directly in front of us at a distance of about 200 metres. Because of their position Mike instructed me to stand and shoot using the roof of the bakkie for support. I was looking down the scope at the animals running along before chambering a round. The springbok both stopped and glanced back at the bakkie, giving us a profile view of their bodies. Mike told me to take either one, I aimed for the one on the right, took a deep breath, and fired.
It took me a second to realise that almost before I could feel the recoil from the rifle the buck dropped like a sack of bricks. A round of congratulations ensued and we set of in the bakkie to find the buck. Somehow after only two practice shots I had managed to hit a buck that looked no bigger in the scope than the whole of the black practice target. When we arrived at the buck we discovered that I had hit it in the neck which explains the fact that it dropped where it stood. This was actually the best spot to shoot the buck, but is apparently very difficult to hit, which is why they often go for the heart! We loaded it into the bakkie and drove to a dam located next to a palm tree for some drinks that Evette and her sister were bringing us. Gary had told me earlier that 'if there is no buck, the are no drinks!' so no pressure.
Once we arrived at the dam Mike started working on the springbok, he removed most of the internal organs and found an artery to cut for some blood. One of the traditions at the Holmes' farm is blooding once you have shot your first game. This consists of exactly what it sounds and looks like; getting the blood of the animal you have just killed smeared on your face. In addition to the blooding Mike handed me a small portion of the raw liver to eat. When we were finished with the ceremony we laid the springbok under the shade of the palm tree and opened our drinks. I was also told by Gary and Mike that we were incredibly lucky to have found the buck so early, and for me to have shot one so soon, as they have often spent hours on the back of the bakkie just trying to find them!
After a few drinks a piece we headed back to the farm house for lunch. Jenny and I stopped and watched Mike disassemble the springbok and put it in the cool room to hang for a few days, before driving back to the cottage to wash up before lunch. Lunch was an amazing spread of sandwich ingredients including delicious homemade farm bread and we all ate quite a bit in anticipation of the drinking that was to follow. We finished up lunch and drove into town to go to Karoo-lus, a music festival that luckily happened to be on my birthday. Jenny offered to drive and be the designated driver for the evening. There was even a tented bar area where we could watch the South Africa Australia rugby match over some drinks.
We moved a table directly in front of one of the TVs and our whole group sat together to watch SA beat Australia 31-8 (although the score should have been more like 55-8). During half time it was getting a bit cold so Jenny and I walked back to the car and changed into long trousers that we brought along. Once the rugby finished then the drinking began. The bar was unusual because rather than use cash you bought R50 tickets near the entrance that the barman would cross credit off of when you asked for drinks. We had to walk back to the car after again the game, because Jenny had forgotten that our ticket was in her shorts, not the long trousers she had changed into! Mike was quite excited that it was my birthday and was trying desperately to get me drunk. Jenny and I bought a few of the R50 tickets and gave them to Mike to aid in his endeavour.
Mike found a friend of his working behind the bar in the shooters section of the tent, this was probably our downfall. His friend was feeding us cheap shooters and for a while he couldn't pour them fast enough. He even left one of the bottles of Po-10-C on the bar "by accident" which we polished off :D Jenny and I would break off every 45 minutes or so to find some food in the stalls. There were amazing wraps and chips on a stick that Jenny and I kept going back to. The chip on a stick was a while potato cut into a swirl pattern and shoved onto a sosatie stick and the fried and covered in salt and vinegar, we could have eaten them all night! The food and the shooters just kept coming and coming. The music wound down at 23:00 and Jenny and I were feeling like heading home as she was freezing and not having too much fun being the DD, the rest of the group however wanted to stay and continue drunkenly dancing. So Jenny, Jonathan and I drove home for a good nights sleep after many fun drinks with everyone on what turned out to be an excellent 23rd birthday!
No comments:
Post a Comment