JKS
AH senior member
Fellow hunters... I have just returned from South Africa after my first trip and thought I would provide a small review.
I flew from Washington-Dulles to Johannesburg via Doha on Qatar Airways. The food, service and all aspects of the flights were outstanding. It was well worth the price for business class airfare. I was treated like royalty. I will say as a forewarning that the check-in process was not the smoothest. It took every bit of an hour or more to check-in for my flight. I did bring my own rifles, made multiple copies of all documents (4457, passport, letter of invite, etc) and had all but one required form provided to me by Jenn with @TRAVEL EXPRESS. But the counter crew at Dulles were interesting to say the least... I got the feeling that checking firearms was NOT something they encounter very often.
I opted for SAPS pre-approval through the kind folks at @riflepermits.com. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, my paperwork sent via USPS Flat Rate International never made it to the office. But Henry was kind enough to allow me to email all the paperwork three days before departure. I was greeted kindly by Marius and Anna (and my chauffeur Andrew) in the arrivals hall at 4:45 AM. Interestingly enough, the finalized and stamped SAPS paperwork had errors. The information for my rifles was flat-out wrong. For example, my Ruger M77 had the caliber and serial number for my Remington 700 and my 375 H&H was incorrectly listed as a 375 RUM. Fortunately, no one noticed and it was not a problem.
I booked my hunt through the travel agency intermediate African Sky Hunting and Tours. I had not realized this until the hunt actually began. I arrived on a Sunday morning and hunted through Thursday. They set me up with PH Nico at Shenandoah Hunting Safaris and let me tell you, his organization is top notch. The lodging accommodations were spectacular. The food was a solid three square a day and with substantial portions. It was a high fence farm, which came as no surprise, on 6600 acres of land. Hunting methods consisted of spot and stalk in the mornings and mostly driving in the evenings. My blesbok was the most impressive, having been shot between a distance of 250 and 275 yards. The wildebeest and two impala were taken around 100 yards, I would say. It sure is amazing what a 375 H&H will do to a wildebeest. Thankfully, there was no sitting in a blind over food or water AT ALL. Current curfew and other restrictions "forbid" travel out of the province in which you arrive. Due to the nature of roads, we had to briefly leave Gauteng and enter Mpumalanga. There was a police checkpoint at the border but we were not stopped either time.
Friday morning I was picked up at the lodge and driven to the agency's office in Pretoria to finalize my payment. After a brief driving tour of Pretoria, I was shuttled to the airport for my rapid 2 hour COVID test. It was 2200 Rand. My only complaint was I arrived at the airport at 12:00 noon for a 9:00 PM flight to Doha. Due to the lockdowns and other measures at the airport, I'd say roughly half of the shops were closed at any given time. So that was a long day for sure.
I did not have any issues until I arrived back in Washington, DC. I booked separate airfare to a regional airport closer to home with a 2.5 hour turn-around. Despite having Global Entry, I spent what felt like an unnecessarily long time in secondary screening waiting for an officer to instruct me to open my rifle case to check my 4457 paperwork. Interestingly, they did not care about the 27 rounds of ammunition that I was bringing back. Due to this hour plus delay, I missed the window to check restricted luggage onto my flight and was therefore unable to fly home. So I spent an additional three hours waiting for a ride home as there were apparently zero rental cars available for hire in the DC area....
I flew from Washington-Dulles to Johannesburg via Doha on Qatar Airways. The food, service and all aspects of the flights were outstanding. It was well worth the price for business class airfare. I was treated like royalty. I will say as a forewarning that the check-in process was not the smoothest. It took every bit of an hour or more to check-in for my flight. I did bring my own rifles, made multiple copies of all documents (4457, passport, letter of invite, etc) and had all but one required form provided to me by Jenn with @TRAVEL EXPRESS. But the counter crew at Dulles were interesting to say the least... I got the feeling that checking firearms was NOT something they encounter very often.
I opted for SAPS pre-approval through the kind folks at @riflepermits.com. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, my paperwork sent via USPS Flat Rate International never made it to the office. But Henry was kind enough to allow me to email all the paperwork three days before departure. I was greeted kindly by Marius and Anna (and my chauffeur Andrew) in the arrivals hall at 4:45 AM. Interestingly enough, the finalized and stamped SAPS paperwork had errors. The information for my rifles was flat-out wrong. For example, my Ruger M77 had the caliber and serial number for my Remington 700 and my 375 H&H was incorrectly listed as a 375 RUM. Fortunately, no one noticed and it was not a problem.
I booked my hunt through the travel agency intermediate African Sky Hunting and Tours. I had not realized this until the hunt actually began. I arrived on a Sunday morning and hunted through Thursday. They set me up with PH Nico at Shenandoah Hunting Safaris and let me tell you, his organization is top notch. The lodging accommodations were spectacular. The food was a solid three square a day and with substantial portions. It was a high fence farm, which came as no surprise, on 6600 acres of land. Hunting methods consisted of spot and stalk in the mornings and mostly driving in the evenings. My blesbok was the most impressive, having been shot between a distance of 250 and 275 yards. The wildebeest and two impala were taken around 100 yards, I would say. It sure is amazing what a 375 H&H will do to a wildebeest. Thankfully, there was no sitting in a blind over food or water AT ALL. Current curfew and other restrictions "forbid" travel out of the province in which you arrive. Due to the nature of roads, we had to briefly leave Gauteng and enter Mpumalanga. There was a police checkpoint at the border but we were not stopped either time.
Friday morning I was picked up at the lodge and driven to the agency's office in Pretoria to finalize my payment. After a brief driving tour of Pretoria, I was shuttled to the airport for my rapid 2 hour COVID test. It was 2200 Rand. My only complaint was I arrived at the airport at 12:00 noon for a 9:00 PM flight to Doha. Due to the lockdowns and other measures at the airport, I'd say roughly half of the shops were closed at any given time. So that was a long day for sure.
I did not have any issues until I arrived back in Washington, DC. I booked separate airfare to a regional airport closer to home with a 2.5 hour turn-around. Despite having Global Entry, I spent what felt like an unnecessarily long time in secondary screening waiting for an officer to instruct me to open my rifle case to check my 4457 paperwork. Interestingly, they did not care about the 27 rounds of ammunition that I was bringing back. Due to this hour plus delay, I missed the window to check restricted luggage onto my flight and was therefore unable to fly home. So I spent an additional three hours waiting for a ride home as there were apparently zero rental cars available for hire in the DC area....
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