Days 16 and 17: And Now for Something Different?
I had three full hunting days left before heading on to Zimbabwe. Oh what to do? Well, much to my surprise, my wife had asked me for a couple of zebra skins for an upholstery project she had. You have to understand that it has always been a bit of a struggle to display most (make that any) of my taxidermy at home – my wife has been quite clear from the start that she didn’t want the place looking like a natural history museum. So I was pleased with her request, and happy to try to fulfill it. In addition – this part I hadn’t passed on to her – I wanted to try again for a giraffe. As I think I said earlier, I’d shot one before, but the skin had been messed up in the taxidermy. I have a lower leg with a lovely hoof that holds my fireplace implements, but no skin. So I wanted a skin.
I was told that Wintershoek had obtained the exclusive rights to hunt on a large private property that was a nature reserve. The property was owned by a (very) large South African mining company – one of many which this company owned, but was not using for mining at the moment. People could book “self-catered” holidays on the property, not far from Kimberley. At about 12,000 hectares, mostly consisting of thornveld, the property boasted a large number of self-sustaining animal populations, and most people booked holidays with the intention of watching the animals or equally varied bird life. Apparently the animal populations do so well that there is a need to cull animals from time to time, including, it appeared, at least one old, male, giraffe.
As readers of this little narrative will know, I am motivated primarily (though humility, if not honesty, compels me to say, not exclusively) by thoughts of public service. And here was another public service needing to be done. So I accepted the invitation to engage in a little culling.
We drove south from the Kalahari to the game reserve, and a lovely place it was too. Upon arrival we settled into our comfortable accommodations, had a wonderful lunch, and immediately set out to see what mother nature would present to us.
We saw many rhino (some with horns cut off – hope it helps), wildebeest, roan, sable, and many other animals. We also spotted a couple of lone zebra stallions, which looked like they had been the losers in the breeding sweepstakes. They didn’t seem too terribly fussed by us in the truck, but of course, it’s usually a different matter once you get out. John formulated a plan, which depended for its success on zebra being unable to count. How can you go wrong?!
We had driven by the zebra, until we were out of sight. The truck would then return slowly, with us hanging on the back. Once we got within sight of the zebra, we would jump off, hitting the ground, and crawl along the road on our bellies until we got close enough for a shot. At that point I would sit up, using a bipod on my rifle, and take the first of what we hoped would be my wife’s zebra.
And as luck would have it, zebra can’t count, at least not these two. The truck went from four people on the back to one, and they were none the wiser. The crawling wasn’t easy – belly crawling works best I think if you have no belly – but we got to within a couple of hundred yards, and set up for the shot. Fortunately the higher grass on the sides of the road blocked us from view. Gun up, zebra down, in one shot. Hearty congratulations all around. (Only later did it dawn on me how happy we were to have outsmarted zebra! Not sure what that says about us . . .)
After the great start with the zebra, we headed back for dinner. At this point, I have to admit, I was feeling more than a bit unwell. In fact, when I came in to dinner, I was wearing all of the clothes I could find, and was shivering so much I couldn’t eat soup without getting it all over myself. So time for a bit of a sidebar.
If you have hunted Africa, you will know that ticks are part of the landscape. Normally, you check for ticks at the end of the day, and if you find some, you remove them. No problem. In the Eastern Cape I encountered something new to me – ‘pepper’ ticks. These are really larval ticks, which are black and smaller, generally, than the head of a pin. I was told to look out for them, and if I found some, just to remove them. Each night I did a complete tick inventory and found very few. I was also told that if you scratch the same place twice, you likely have a pepper tick. Within a few days I was scratching myself raw in places both public and private.
Obviously, I was not very good at find pepper ticks. Given their size – flakes of pepper (hence the name) – and their color – black – if you have black hair on your legs, as I do, you just might miss the ticks. As I did. By the dozens, apparently.
For some reason (likely sheer stupidity) I didn’t worry too much about this, or the fact that I was scratching all the time, and risking infection. Until, that is, we were at the lion area. By that time I was feeling a bit under the weather – aches, pains, and headache. But still, not much to worry about.
By the time we arrived at the nature reserve, I was feeling positively awful, with a fever and aching joints on top of my other woes. I didn’t want this to interfere with the hunting for two main reasons. First, I was only in Africa for a limited time, and being sick has a way of eating up that time. Secondly, I was pretending to be tougher than I really was. Which in hindsight, wasn’t very smart. Should have seen a doctor when I first started feeling bad.
The guys were concerned about my health, telling me I looked seriously unwell, but I told them I wouldn’t hear of it, and we were hunting giraffe the next day. With that I went to bed early. And then woke up about 1 am with a bat flying around my head. I frankly didn’t have the energy to do much about him, so eventually went back to sleep with a pillow on my head.
When I woke up the next day I was feeling worse, if that was possible. When I had my shower I was soaping up and – this may be too much information – felt a lymph node in my groin as large and as hard as an egg. At breakfast I asked if anyone had had that, and Hannes said that’s it, you have tick bite fever. Need to get to a doctor. After being assured I wasn’t likely to die today, I promised I would do something after we got the giraffe. With that they agreed we would try.
So out we went, driving over just about every inch I think of the 12,000 hectares, trying to figure out how you hide giraffe. Our guide swore an old male was at one end of the property, while a tractor driver swore he’d seen one at the other. After about three hours of this increasingly painful driving over uneven ground, I was hoping someone would shoot me if we didn’t find the giraffe soon. And then, of course, it happened. Someone saw a giraffe about 500 yards away (I was now in the vehicle since I couldn't climb on the back of the truck because of the swelling in my groin). He’d obviously seen us by this time as well. We stopped the truck, and John glassed him for a couple of minutes, and then said “there’s your giraffe.”
We got out, slowly, and I got geared up, slowly, and we began to walk towards the giraffe, even more slowly. When we’d gone about 100 yards the giraffe began to move off, but fortunately stopped in fairly short order. We kept walking, though at an angle this time – that seemed to give the giraffe a sense of comfort. As we were walking John asked if I had a solid or a soft on top, and I said a soft. He said ‘better put in a solid” so I did the switch as we were walking. At about 200 yards, John stopped behind some bushes and said this is likely about as close as we can get. I felt I could make the shot, so we set up the sticks.
I will admit to being a bit unsteady, so it took me a bit longer than usual to take the shot, but when I did, he seemed to hunch a bit for a fraction of a second, then ran off. I quickly reloaded and shot twice more, trying to put bullets into his hips. Since he kept running, I assumed I wasn’t successful with the follow-up shots. We began to walk after him, a bit faster than we’d walked up to him, but still pretty slowly, since that was the best I could do. He seemed to be going farther than I thought he should if I’d made a good shot, and I was beginning to worry. After about 700 yards, though, we saw him on the ground, clearly taking his last breath. I put one last one into his chest to make sure, and we had our trophy. And a wonderful, if smelly, specimen he was.
Once the pictures were taken, it was about noon, and John said it would take some time to get a crew out to the giraffe, and even longer to dismantle it, so that I should head into Kimberley with Hannes to find a doctor. At this point I didn’t have the strength to disagree. So off we went. I want to put in a plug for my team here – Hannes called his personal doctor in Bloemfontein on his cell as he was driving me in, and I spoke to him. He confirmed Hannes diagnosis as the most probable cause of my problems, and told us to find a pharmacy and have the pharmacist call him. Everyone went above and beyond.
We arrived in Kimberley not long after, found a pharmacy, and made the call. The pharmacist was exceptionally helpful, speaking to the doctor, filling the prescriptions, and giving me instructions. Within an hour we were on our way out with an armful of drugs, all for the princely sum of about US $45. I began downing pills even before I left the store I think. (As an aside, I had a relapse (or a new infection showing up) in New York City in mid-August. I saw a doctor who gave me two of the same drugs I'd had in Africa, and I walked out of the drug store with half the drugs and a bill for US $425!)
By the time we got back to the reserve, we found John and the team still working on the giraffe, so it was off to supper for us, and an early night to bed for me, along with my new bat friend.
The best part is there is more.
