TANZANIA: Maasailand With Robin Hurt Safaris

[Garciamarquez1918]

Tanzania, Maasailand
Outfitter: Robin Hurt Safaris
Dates: July 22-26, 2026
PH: Roger Hurt
Photo Guide: Nyati Shepherd
Travel Agent: Gracy Travel
Rifle: Ruger M77 Hawkeye in 275 Rigby
Ammunition: Custom by Superior with 175 gr Swift A-frame



My grandparents and dad hunted with Robin Hurt back in the 70s, so when I decided to take my family on a photo safari, that’s who I contacted. This was about 18 months ago and after a bit of back and forth with Roger Hurt we came up with a trip that would take us to Robin Hurt Safaris’ Orkeju camp in Maasailand plus some other off-the-beaten path lodges in Tanzania.

The trip was set, deposits paid and now the brutal wait everyone on here is familiar with. As part of the wait, I started looking on YouTube for videos featuring safaris in RHS’s areas. There wasn’t much out there and what videos I did find were focused on hunting.

I had come to this trip with absolutely no intention of hunting in Africa ever. Hunting was something in my and my family’s distant past. But as I watched some of these videos, I was stunned to find the old juices flowing. I kept kind of denying it to myself but finally there it was. I mentioned to Roger in an email that I might want to go hunting sometime in the future. He said that’s fine but if we added a day or two in Maasailand you could hunt on this trip.

Friends, at the moment I hit send on the reply to Roger and sent an additional deposit I did not own a centerfire rifle. I hadn’t shot a rifle or an animal with four legs in 25 years. And now I’m going hunting in Tanzania? I won’t go into the process of learning to shoot again but it started with a pellet rifle and ended with a set of sticks and twice-a- week trips to the rifle range. Finally in late July we were off.

Flights, rifle transit logistics and visas were handled by Gio at Gracy Travel and everything went off without a hitch. We arrived late evening in Arusha and by the time we got through customs the RHS rep Nathaniel had all of our luggage off the carousel on a cart. He had literally looked at all of the ID tags on the bags on the carousel to identify our bags. Talk about going above and beyond. He handled the process of getting my rifle and ammunition through customs and after a harrowing nighttime introduction to Tanzanian traffic we were dropped for the night at the lovely Rivertrees Hotel.

I should mention that “we” are my wife and my two daughters in their 20s. We got picked up next morning by RHS manager and PH John Ngalesoni and met Roger and Nyati Shepherd at a coffee shop near RHSs offices outside Arusha. Roger is in his mid-forties, solicitous and helpful, quick with a smile, and looks like the former rugby player he is. Nyati is a nickname for Natalie and she looks nothing like a Nyati: a petite blonde Kenyan in her early twenties with a vast knowledge of East African bird life and a huge enthusiasm for life in the bush. After a quick coffee we were on our way.

The plan was to get part way through the concession and have lunch and spend the afternoon in that part of the concession before heading on to camp. One of my girls would go with my wife and Nyati bird watching and the other would come hunting with me.

We arrived at our lunch spot and it was like a scene from a movie: a fully set table in a grove of acacia trees with the dramatic “eagle rock” in the background. After a hearty meal of wildebeest lasagna, we split up: my wife and one daughter went with Nyati to birdwatch, and my other daughter and I went with Roger to check the rifles.

As everyone on here knows, “checking the rifles” is also “checking the shooter.” I was really nervous but all went well and we were off.

Before long Roger spotted a group of impala with a nice ram. Out of the truck, load the rifles and I’m off on my first African stalk. And what a stalk it was. We followed these impala for an hour or more through thick brush. Winding around, sometimes getting close, then they dart off. Sometimes it was easy enough to see the tracks the trackers were following. Other times, as so many have said on here before, it seems more magic than science.

Finally we go to within thirty yards of the ram, standing broadside but through very thick brush. Roger told me later that if I’d had a heavier rifle he would have had me shoot. But with the amount of brush and my light rifle we risked a bullet deflection that could have wounded the ram or hit a female. So we didn’t take the shot, the wind shifted the impala crashed off and the stalk was over.

We made our way back to the Land Cruiser and continued looking for a couple of hours but eventually headed for camp.

Orkeju Camp is elegant and comfortable, overlooking a sand river. As many on here know after all of those years of dreaming about it, there’s nothing quite as magical as your first sundowners in your first camp. A great dinner and lively conversation and then off to bed to be ready for an early morning.

 

[Garciamarquez1918]

One of the really special things about RHS’s Lake Natron concession is Mt Kitumbene. It’s an extinct volcano with populations of buffalo, eland, bushbuck and leopard and offers a complete contrast from low land Maasailand. More on that later, but today the plan was for our two groups to drive around Kitumbene in opposite directions and meet for lunch.

We drove for maybe forty minutes when Roger saw a Grant’s gazelle he liked the looks of. He said he usually looks at fifty or more before finding one he thinks is worth taking but this was a good one right off the bat.

We got out, stalked for a few minutes, Roger put the sticks up, I put the rifle up and couldn’t see anything – when we’d sighted in the rifles I’d turned the magnification up to 10 to see my shots and had left it there. By the time this was all sorted, the gazelle had run off.

We continued the stalk and I started to get really nervous. All of the years of dreaming and months of preparation were coming down to this moment. My hands were shaking, heart was pounding. Later Roger said, “Yeah your voice sounded really weird.” There’s a million ways to describe what was going on but the simplest one is: Buck Fever.

Roger puts the sticks up, the crosshairs are going all over the place, I shoot, clean miss. Consummate professional he doesn’t say anything just grabs the sticks. The Grant’s doesn’t go far, Roger sets the sticks up again, I put in a new shell, put the rifle up and squeeze off.

The good news is that the gazelle drops in its tracks. The trackers are happy and smiling, congrats all around. My daughter, who is new to all of this, says, “Good job dad!” We walk up on the gazelle and it’s lovely. It’s an old one, a dugga boy gazelle, the insides of its horns are worn down to ivory.

The bad news is that I’d aimed at the shoulder and hit it in the neck. So an utterly terrible shot that happened to work out. But I’ll accept that gift from the hunting gods and hope that the buck fever is in the rearview mirror. We take pictures, load the gazelle in the Land Cruiser and head off.

 

[Mekaniks]

Awesome!! Looking forward to the rest

 

[Hunt anything]

Congratulations, following closely.

 

[Garciamarquez1918]

Near lunch time we came to a broad open plain they call “Little Serengeti” where there were some Grant’s and a group of five or six wildebeest. We stopped and snuck up on the wildebeeste by walking up a dry creekbed. We popped out and they spooked. Roger said yeah it’s Maasailand we probably should have just walked up on them. Which we proceeded to do.

Roger put the sticks up and told me to take the one on the right. I shot, he was hit, he ran, stopped and I shot and hit him again. As it turned out the first shot was…ok. A lung shot at the back of the lungs. Still the wildebeest was down within 50 yards of the first shot and the first shot was at least in the general vicinity of where I’d intended it to go. So a definite improvement.

We met the others for lunch at the far side of the Little Serengeti. They had had a great morning of birding and, when we looked back at it, we’d had a pretty eventful morning ourselves. My wife is something of a hunting skeptic but it was nice that she seemed genuinely pleased with our successful morning.

After lunch we drove on. We’d been on the ground for less than 48 hours and the jet lag started to kick in. I nodded off a couple of times. By the time Roger saw a Tommy he thought we should take I was bordering on catatonic.

The Tommy was standing by a small lake. I shot and saw the water just over him ripple from the bullet. He ran a little way. The second shot dropped him and what a lovely delicate (and ultimately delicious) little guy he was.

We drove back to camp and had sundowners and gerenuk chops by the fire. (The chops most likely courtesy of kpoynter!)

 

[Garciamarquez1918]

The next morning both daughters and my wife went with Nyati to visit a Maasai manyata. We hunters went in search of impala on a walking safari. We got dropped off and would walk for a couple of hours and the truck would meet us on the other side. It was a super fun way to hunt and experience the landscape and the constant surprises of Maasailand.

At one point we walked up on some kids practicing their traditional fire-making skills. They ran off even though the Maasai tracker Lekina yelled after them that it was ok.

Later the trackers showed me where a hyena had dragged an impala along the ground.

We got on tracks a few times but didn’t get up on any impala. Even so this was one of the most interesting and memorable mornings of the trip.

On the way back to camp we saw a bull lesser kudu right off the road. Not on the menu for this trip but really amazing to see. A little later we came up on a herd of zebra and Roger asked, “Do you fancy a zebra?” I said yes and after a couple failed attempts we got the sticks up on a stallion. I shot and the trackers immediately started shaking my hand and saying, “Piga, piga!”

He was indeed hit well and went down quickly.

I’m a fan of European mounts. With each of the previous animals Roger had asked me if I wanted it caped and I said no I just want a Euro mount. As the guys were getting the zebra ready for the pictures I said to Roger, “I just want a Euro mount on this one.” He looked up at me with surprise and it was only as he said, “You don’t want the skin?” that he realized he’d been had.

Back to camp for lunch. Everyone had a great time at the manyatta and bought many more beaded items than they needed. After lunch my younger daughter and I packed up to spend the night on Kitumbene mountain with a bush buck hunt planned for tomorrow.

 

[AZDAVE]

Time with your family making memories is priceless.

Nice kritters in the salt too

 

[Slickshooter]

Congrats on your Safari! Very special to share it with family.

 

[Garciamarquez1918]

The drive up the mountain was amazing, you go from the dry desert plains into green, well watered hilly farm land. It’s still Maasai manyattas but they seem more prosperous, tidy and permanent. RHS’s camp is like a mini version of the Orkeju camp. There are just three sleeping tents and a small living room and dining tent. We did a bit of unpacking, had lunch and went hunting around four.

We drove for about ten minutes and then it was walking the ridge line looking down into the valleys and gullies for bush buck. We were in thick woods with dense undergrowth, totally different from the country we’d been hunting. Almost like hunting in the midwestern woods in summer – except blessedly cool.

It was starting to get dark so we turned back and as we passed back beside a deep valley the junior camp attendant, Joshua, pointed to an orange dot down in the valley. A bush buck. Roger glassed it, set up the sticks and motioned me forward.

The bush buck was well below us and quartering away. Roger told me to shoot above some white grass that came about halfway up his body midway back. I felt good about the hold and fired. Immediately everyone’s rushing down hill. “I’m pretty sure you hit him,” Roger says.

The weeds are shoulder high. I’m not seeing any blood but really don’t think I’ve missed him. I take a bad step and as I’m falling into a patch of stinging nettles Roger shoots – it’s dark enough that there’s a blast of flame from his rifle. The bush buck had bedded down, very sick, only about twenty yards from where I shot him.

My daughter helps pull me up out of the weeds and dusts my clothes off if not my pride. Roger is super apologetic for having shot but it was totally the right decision. It’s thick brush, it’s getting dark and an animal is wounded. My pride is the last thing we should be worrying about. And my pride was restored a bit when we looked at the bush buck: my shot went in where intended and came out behind the opposite front leg. So likely if we’d been a little slower he would have died where he bedded down.

We get some quick pictures in the fading light, the guys struggle up the hill to the waiting Land Cruiser and we’re back at camp in fifteen minutes. Roger strongly suggests I have this one caped out in case I want a mount in the future. That’s when I realize it’s a pretty darn good bush buck. My dad and granddad were obsessed with inches and record books. If that's your thing that's cool, but I’ve promised myself I’m not going to be that kind of hunter. But it would also be callow as hell not to acknowledge that this was a special one.

A festive dinner with some good South African wine. By now it’s quite chilly and the covers and a hot water bottle felt good. What a day.

 

[Datchew]

You give me hope for getting my wife to go along.

Great zebra!

 

[Garciamarquez1918]

The plan was to hunt bush buck on Kitumbene the next day. But we had our bush buck so instead we took a long game walk. On the edge of the crater is a primordial rose wood forest that makes you think a dinosaur is going to walk by at any moment. From there we descended down into the crater where it’s varied grassland and thickets. At one point we’re thirty yards from a herd of buffalo we can’t see. Roger takes his double off his shoulder but the buffalo wind us and run away. We see eland in the distance and then the buffalo again. It’s a magical Eden in the clouds and I can’t wait to get back there.

Back at Orkeju that night we had Tommy chops and busk buck skewers for appetizers and wildebeest osso buco for our main course. Perfection.

 

[Garciamarquez1918]

Next morning we hunt hard but fruitlessly for impala. And then it’s off to Arusha overnight before we embark on the rest of our trip: time in Mahale, Ruaha and Nyrere National Parks.

Mahale is all about the chimps and was totally amazing.

Ruaha had tons of elephants, lots of dik diks and everything inbetween living among vast baobab forests.

Nyrere is the old Selous Game Reserve. It was special to me to be there because it’s where my dad and granddad hunted (with Roger's dad) fifty years ago. We did a lot of tiger fishing and the game viewing on the Rufiji river was amazing. In particular we saw groups of dugga boys down by the river every day we were there. One particularly memorable old guy had almost no hair, half a tail, his hips and ribs were sticking out and his bosses were smooth and shiny. An amazing old bull.

The whole trip was fabulous and Roger and the RHS team were amazing. Until next time guys!

 

[Muntjacer23]

Sounds like a wonderful experience!! Congrats on some beautiful animals!

 

[bwanamrm]

Well done... just like riding a bicycle! Great family safari...

 

[Mekaniks]

Thank You for sharing

 

[Hunt anything]

For someone that hasnt hunted in a while you handled it like a veteran and made up for lost time! I love the bushbuck (my favorite plainsgame)
Extra special having your family along to experience it along side you.

 

[JPbowhunter]

Congratulations on a wonderful family trip, I'm sure your daughters will cherish that experience for a long time.

Congrats also on the hunting, tommies have been one of my favourite animals since I was a kid. I bet he ate well.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Truly taking what was offered to you. Well done.
Thanks for sharing the adventure.

 

[Pablo]

Great family trip! Congrats!

 

[Adam Stevens]

Spectacular!

Appreciate you posting your hunt