I flew up by charter from Lanseria to Marromeu, Mozambique, as Andre's guest in late July 2012 for a 12 day buffalo hunt. We left Lanseria 09h30 and got to Marromeu at sunset, where we were met by our PH, Ricus de Villiers of White Lion Safaris. After refueling and completing border controls in Polokwane, and picking up a hunter from Los Angeles, we embarked on the long, slow, low flight over the northern Kruger National Park crossing the Limpopo near its junction with the Nuanetsi river and then on to the Sabe river and over endless open country to the coast and over the bay to Beira. Our final destination was an hour's flying north of Beira near the mouth of the Zambezi river and once again we flew low over completely uninhabited flat country of forests and flood plains with columns of smoke rising up to our flight level from the numerous grass fires below.
The back two seats were tightly packed with bags and rifles.
Our destination, Marromeu, is a sprawling shanty town surrounding a sugar mill and a very large sugar estate stretching into the hazy distance. It was almost dark when we reached the air field which was covered with hundreds of people playing evening soccer, riding bikes or just taking a stroll, along it's entire 1000 m length. They didn't move out of the way when we buzzed them and only moved off the air strip when the pilot brought our Piper Seneca 111 in to land on the third pass. They clearly knew the form and exactly when to retreat to the verges.
Marromeu air field.
Not surprisingly the aircraft parking area was littered with "Indiana Jones-type" plane wrecks. We left the plane at the strip for the duration of our stay, where it was watched over, and dusted each day by a uniformed guarding service. Somewhat to the surprise of our young pilot, it was in tip top condition on our return.
Plane wrecks.
Marromeu is situated 60 kms upstream from the mouth of the Zambezi river, whose massive grey-brown waters snaked sinuously off to the darkening horizon and the Indian Ocean. I shuddered to think of the size of the crocs and Zambezi sharks that must lurk below (in their home range) as we swept in low over the river to land a few hundred meters away. The altitude of the strip is 10 m above sea level.
The main channel of the Zambezi River looking downstream to the sea.
We reached our hunting camp in the 132 000 ha hunting concession, Coutada 14, after an hour's bumpy drive through sugar plantations, villages and then flood plains and forests. All the tracks are rough as the area is subjected to seasonal flooding and over-grown for much of the year by 2m high elephant grass.
Our camp was picturesquely situated on the bank of a river and very comfortable considering the seasonal nature of the hunting operation. It was was built 15 years ago by joint-concession holder and PH, Debbie Visser, bow hunter and pilot extraordinaire; and known respectfully to the hunting teams and camp staff as The Madame. According to Debbie the short air strip behind the camp is situated at 5 m below sea level! My altimeter showed it at 0 m.
The river at the camp.
The mess and bar area.
Our sleeping cabins.
As the objective of the safari was for Andre to get two buffalo, the first 5 days were devoted to this pursuit. The
modus operandi each day was the same and involved Debbie waiting for the morning mist to clear and then getting airborne in her tiny plane to look for buffalo. After briefing the trackers on her return, the hunting party (PH, clients and 9 trackers and skinners) would head out by Landcruiser. This usually involved an hours drive to the edge of the swamps and then a long walk of many kms in search of the buffalo herds.
Debbie refuelling her plane before a morning recce flight.
Then briefing the hunting teams before the days hunt.
The "walk" required us to wade through plenty of river channels, through deep mud, over floating reed beds and waist deep water to get to the huge grassy plains where the buffalo herds had been spotted grazing 4 or 5 five hours earlier in the morning by Debbie. If we were lucky a herd could be spotted from a distance by looking for the white cattle egrets that accompanied the bovines. If everything went according to plan we would make contact with the herds around mid-day.
The hunting teams head out to the swamps.
Crossing the rivers.
On the first morning we managed to stalk to within 10 m of a buffalo herd that was grazing down-wind towards us, but we could not get a clear shot because the bulls kept moving into the herd and we were obscured by reeds and grass (as we were on our hands and knees). It was a massive adrenalin rush hearing, but not seeing them (I had my head well down clutching my binoculars..no gun) grazing towards us at such close range. I could clearly hear the rip of the grass and the grunts between calves and adults. But then the wind turned and they stampeded off in a thunder of splashing that only a thousand buffalo can make; and away from our crouched position in the wet grass and mud! I think it was the thought that they might run towards us, or graze right over us, that caused all my anxiety and adrenalin that first day. The first close encounter is the most exciting and I can see that one can become calmly conditioned to being so close to buffalo as they are not naturally aggressive and will run away once they get your scent. A wounded buffalo is quite a different story. But hey, I'm no expert so go and try for yourself.
Looking for buffalo from the
nyoka (snake) tree.
Francisco has seen a
dagga boy ahead of us in the reeds.
On the two days that Andre killed his buffalo, we were required to make a two hour detour around the targeted herd to get down-wind, and to then complete a long stalk in and out of the reeds, with the final 300m on our hands and knees. Both of Andre's shots were taken at roughly 60 m, aiming at the shoulder, with the bulls falling after a short run with the stampeding herd. He used his .375 H & H Mag with Federal Bear Claw 300 grain bullets. The PH recommended an insurance shot but the bulls were killed by the first shot. The second buffalo was shot through the heart. Neither of these two bulls was aware of our presence and we think the lack of "flight" adrenalin before the shot, besides good shot placement, helped to bring them down quickly.
First buffalo with the buffalo herd in the background.
Second buffalo.
Heart shot.
The real work then started with the skinners and trackers removing the head, skin and all the meat from the buffalo. Only the rib cage and leg and shoulder bones were left behind for the hundreds of circling vultures and maribou storks. The long march of heavily meat laden porters back to the truck then started; back through the rivers! If lucky we reached the truck at sunset, although one night the hunting party from Sacramento only returned to camp at 22h00.
The returning hunting crew broke into loud singing and chanting...." we shot a buffalo (nyati).. biggie biggie buffalo!" as we neared the camp. Unsuccessful hunting parties returned to the camp in silence, so it was always with great excitement that the camp went out to welcome a singing, returning hunting party. No matter how late at night, there was always a hive of activity in the skinning shed where the capes of the trophies were removed under the lights from the camp generator and put into salt...warthog, reed buck, crocodile, sable, eland, buffalo, suni, bushbuck, hippo, bush pig ....all drew an interested crowd of camp staff , PHs and clients.
The meat is carried back to the truck.
PH Ricus de Villiers and Andre back at camp after the first successful buffalo hunt.
It was always a tired, happy (relieved?) and muddy crew that returned home. The pilot came with us on a couple of these hunts and learnt very quickly about the difference between the infantry and the air force! For us the return to camp mean't hot showers, clean clothes, dry feet, whiskey and soda and dinner. For the hunting team it mean't a big supply of meat to take home. The rest of the meat went the next day to the local hospital.
We took a day off from hunting the big buffalo herds in the swamps to try for the second buffalo from a group of
dagga boys (old bachelor buffalo bulls) that were holed up in some papyrus in a pan nearer to the camp. They gave us the slip whenever the wind changed and were not seen after several kms of walking so we returned the next day, now quite fit, for the second buffalo in the swamps.
My Livingstone's Eland
When not hunting buffalo we headed to the forests and palm covered grassy plains in search of plains game. Most of these areas had not yet been burnt and we navigated through the long grass with a tracker pointing the way to the driver with a long stick from the back of the Landcruiser. Reedbuck, warthog, bushbuck, wild pigs were plentiful but sable, Livingstone's eland and Lichtenstein's hartebeest were scarcer and skittish. Sable spoor was plentiful in the burnt areas and the hunting for plains game would a lot easier later in the season when more of the long grass has been burnt and the game has come together on the new grazing.
Tracker pointing the way with a stick (MPS- Mozambique positioning system)
My 36" eland. A really good trophy.
A warthog taken at sunset in a burnt area.
My first bush pig taken in the early morning.
My Livingstone's eland was taken after a shortish stalk, after it had been spotted by the trackers from the Landcruiser. The eland had no idea that we were around and I was able to shoot it with the .375 from the sticks set up by the tracker from about 100 m. It was a clean kill through the upper shoulder and went down after a few steps. The animal was dead when we reached it and I was absolutely amazed at it's huge size and clean beauty. It was much bigger than a buffalo and the entire animal was skinned and cut up on site in order to get it onto the Landcruiser which sagged off at the tail back to camp with loud singing. I think the small hunting crew that we had with us that day was relieved that we could drive up and retrieve the meat and that they did not have to carry it at all.
We enjoyed some very fine eland steaks, liver and other parts; as we did every night from buffalo, hippo, bush pig and so on, all prepared in the good old fashioned style of safari cooking by Jimmy, the cook from Harare. Jimmy had
carte blanche with the food (Debbie was totally focussed on the hunting and other things) and would very cheerfully prepare whatever a client requested, including our last dinner of roast leg of bush pig!
Jimmy in his Jason Bakery t-shirt.
Debbie and Jimmy prepare eland marrow on toast !
On several occasions while out hunting we were visited by Debbie in her plane, who, to our surprise, dropped hand written messages to us about the location of buffalo. At first we thought she was just buzzing us but the trackers called out "carta" as a letter floated down into the elephant grass!
Letter falling from plane.
The letter giving directions to a group of
dagga boys.All our hunting was done by walking up on the game, and using shooting sticks, except for a bush pig which I shot from the back of the truck as it charged through the long grass. All seven of our trophies were cleanly killed with one shot from Andre's .375 (and Zwarovski Z6 scope, usually on 2x). We did not use Andre's .505 Gibbs but I did have one uncomfortable shot from this cannon on the range. The .375 was the perfect rifle for the safari. The American hunters from Los Angeles and Sacramento were very active and had got three buffalo, hippo, crocodile, a big sable and some very good smaller game by the time we left.
A Common Reed Buck.
A good Warthog.
Francisco with the hog.
The unexpected can always happen, even when hunting plains game, and not dangerous game. One day Andre took a short walk in full view of us from our lunchtime resting place over clear burnt ground down a tiny game track and stood on a gin trap that had been buried beneath the path by poachers. The massive rusty iron trap snapped shut just on the heal of his boot, completely missing his foot but puncturing his footwear. It was a very lucky escape from a chance in a million encounter with such a deadly device. One might expect to hear about uncleared land mines in some areas of the country along main roads, but not to hit a gin trap! It took three big men to force the trap open to release his boot.
The boot in the trap.
We were sad to say good bye at the end of our stay to a great hunting team and friendly camp staff but hope to tempt Debbie to join one of our grey wing shoots one day. We were also grateful to see how much we could stretch the string when the going got tough on the many days of long, hard walks. The big questions are how do we keep up the fitness, and will we do another safari one day? And will I get myself a Zwarovski scope! For those so inclined, we had a true experience of a lifetime. Thank you Andre.
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