One Heck Of A Ride

90 Zimbabwe 1981 Sabi star plant was among the many unusual African plants that impressed the author on his first trip to the continent there still was time for a quick hunt so we went out again to look for a bushbuck. This was my first safari and, although I knew very little about bushbucks and their various subspecies then, I did know that spiral-horned antelope, which include bushbucks, eland, sitatunga and kudu, are highly prized trophies. We drove to one of the tributaries of the Runde River and set off on foot, again with the tracker taking the lead, followed by Chris and then me and the game scout. Bushbuck prefer the thickest cover, and the riverine area we were hunting certainly had plenty of cover. As luck would have it, we caught only a brief glimpse of one as it darted off. Choice steaks from my buffalo were served for dinner that night, and I went to bed early only to be awakened by loud cracks of thunder and lightning. It rained steadily all night, leaving the roads too muddy for us to hunt the next day. Instead, we visited a sugar mill and the Hippo Valley Sports Club where local artists were preparing for an arts and crafts show. Some of their work was very good. The roads were so soaked when we returned to camp that the driver slid off the road and Chris and I and the occupants of another vehicle had to push it to get us going again. We left early the following day, driving north toward Zimbabwe’s border with Zambia and Mozambique. Although I expected there would be roadblocks along the way, the drive was long but uneventful, and we were not stopped. We eventually reached a lodge in the Doma Safari Area on the edge of the Zambezi Valley Escarpment an hour or so after dark. I awoke to find a small lake outside. The countryside was vastly different from where we had been hunting. Instead of mostly flat terrain, the Doma was hilly and forested. I also would learn it had more water, with many small rivers and lakes. Chris said there were few farms and near-total unemployment in the region, and poaching was out of control until safari operators developed a program that paid the local Doma tribe a percentage of their profits to encourage conservation. The program apparently was working because we saw game everywhere we went. The first two animals I shot at Doma were bronze-class and gold-class southern bush duikers, an antelope that is only about two feet tall at its shoulder. I was pleased to see my .300 Weatherby and Nosler Partition bullets did not ruin the hides of these little rams because I intended to have them mounted life-size. I also shot several impalas and warthogs, and the Limpopo bushbuck we’d had trouble finding. Because we’d traveled all over the country, my three-week safari had gone into overtime. Using the lodge’s radio Chris had someone rebook my flights and get a message to Lompoc that I would be late in returning. Chris arranged for the skins, skulls, horns, and