People,here the rest of the story
cross section of an elephant skull
The fist of my professional hunter on the right indicates the eye, his index finger on the left the ear slit, and the brain is located in the red-colored cavity.
Slightly smaller than a baseball, I would say .
Our camp, an abandoned or no longer managed farm, was beautiful there to hunt.
The farewell from the camp crew was warm and we drove back to Hoidspruit where I spent a day in a riding stable.
My riding in Africa,always nice views
Just so much: riding (very early in the day and late in the afternoon to protect the horses) is sometimes more dangerous than hunting big game.
We were galloping along the path and suddenly giraffes that we surprised in their sleep suddenly stood up.What an abstract picture of strange whirls when they reared up to their full length.
My horse made an almost right-angled leap into the bushes and almost went head over heels at a hell of a pace.
I always remember my old riding instructor's standard saying “Close your knees and nothing will happen”, but it was a close call and who wants to come out of the bush with an open fracture into an African hospital!
However, game viewing in Africa from the saddle is unique and remains in the memory like the big game hunt itself.
even horses in africa are sometimes frightened by the game.
In Kruger Park
-a 60pounder in front
This world-famous park is a good 350 km long and 60 km wide.
The fences were dismantled decades ago and so the game has the opportunity to roam endlessly.
“open space until Tanzania” I was told.
I spent a day there with my PH.
Guys, I tell you, I couldn't have done better.
I got a crash course in how to approach elephants in particular and thought I knew as much about them as a PH.
Nonsense, I know, but that's how you feel.
Elephants
The Kruger is actually a breeding zone for these mighty animals. Adjacent to Mozambique, Chegwallagwalla and Gonarezou National Park, there are plenty of hunting grounds for us and our future generations.
The Africans do not want to be deprived of this by the western world. Thank God.
Officially, 32,000 elephants live in Kruger; in reality there are a good 40,000.
And only 30 big heavy tuskers are actually known !!!
For 60-80 km to the left and right of the main road, the forests look like they have been bombed; the fresh greenery at this time of year softens the impression somewhat, but it wasn't the first time I had been in elephant country to know what was going on.
Our foresters and forest farmers would have a heart attack if they could see this environmental destruction caused by elephants.
The motto there is often: “Save the trees, shoot an elephant”.
Unfortunately, the park policy is different. This also applies to lions and leopards.
Far too many.
We saw several herds of antelope without calves or fawns.........
Be sure to visit the Elephant Hall at Camp Letaba. The tusks of dead capital elephants weighing up to 70 kg per tooth can be seen there.
the Camp Letaba Elephant Hall. A must to visit.
140pounder
incredible what nature produces
for the future elephant hunters among you, as an exercise
40pounder
A beauty isn't it ?
30+35 pounds round
maybe one of the BIG 30 of the Kruger
a 70pounder single tusker
Lions and leopards
There are plenty of them in South Africa.
Not only just in Kruger, especially the leopards, whose audacity also inspires respect in my PH. Lions are killing machines that behave completely differently at night than during the day.
The famous maneaters from Tsavo Kenya are almost topped by the lions from Kruger Park.
But their popularity is nowhere near as great as it was when the Uganda Railway was built.
When Mozambique became independent in the 70s, there was almost 20 years of bloody civil war. Forgotten by our world. Nobody ever cared about the people of Mozambique
.
Many refugees streamed across the green border to South Africa and fled through the park and were eaten by lions at night.
In another neighboring camp of mine, a Dutch guest who went to smoke on the terrace at night was bitten on the neck by a leopard and only the noise of the lodge residents kept the leopard from dragging him off and eating him.
Unfortunately, help came too late.
In Letaba, a main camp in the Kruger, a leopard ran through the visitors in broad daylight, grabbed the small child of a worker, dragged it up a tree 6 meters above the ground and killed it there.
Valie told me that as often as they go on vacation to Kruger and other parks, his small children don't move 2 meters away from him.
lions on a fresh impala kill.
Sorry for the bad quality of the picture,but better not to near.
I spent great days there in December and am grateful to my fate that I was able to experience this.
Special thanks to my PH Valie Enslin
,"Thats Africa Safaris" also an AH member and his wife Danielle.
The return journey went without any problems apart from the delay mentioned above.
There were also no problems at all with the weapons checks.
So, that's it.
Thank you for your time .
Go to Africa.
Enjoy the incomparable.
Don't look at the costs, they are terrible.
But only your heirs pay that anyway
Carpe diem
Foxi
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