The main dining lodge was comfortable and inviting although my wife, Joanna and my three daughters were a little taken aback by the spartan nature of the "luxury chalets." They were more like one room stone cabins, by European standards. The shower was powered by a wood burning stove and the electricity for lighting came from old truck batteries, which were prone to running flat at times. But my womenfolk quickly forgot the basic facilities, because the welcome we got from Aubrey de Jager and his staff, more than made up for the lack of modern conveniences.



Hentie Van Heerden, (the professional hunter guide I had hired for the week) arrived around 3pm and after sorting out a small misunderstanding over firearms, he arranged for me to borrow Aubrey de Jager's (the manager) .308 rifle, so that I had a weapon to hunt the following day with. We set off around 4pm to drive a short distance from camp to zero the rifle at a distance of about 120m. The .308 was quite a heavy gun but as I found out later had very little kick, due to its stock absorbing much of the recoil. A day later I also test fired .270 and .375 caliber rifles but noticed a lot more recoil on these lighter rifles and opted to stay with Aubrey's .308 even though it was a heavier gun to lug about.

Van Heerden Safaris holds the hunting rights to two communal concession areas in Damaraland, the Huab and Sorris Sorris conservancies. These two conservancies are situated 50 miles apart and have a total area of 320,000 hectares. The territory closest to the White Lady lodge on which we were hunting is the Sorris Sorris conservancy owned by local Damaraland people, some of whom work at the White Lady lodge and live in the surrounding countryside.

Tuesday 26/8/08 ? Hartmann's Mountain Zebra

Hentie picked me up from my chalet at 5-30am and we stopped off at the main lodge for a good breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs and black coffee before setting off for our 1st days hunting towards the foothills of Mount Brandberg. We passed several groups of springbok, mainly young bucks and females, but saw nothing of trophy standard, worth shooting.

Hentie knew I wanted a Hartmann's Mountain Zebra, an Oryx, a Kudu bull and a decent springbok trophy, so I think he planned to find a zebra stallion to get me started. The terrain we drove over varied from flattish grasslands to quite stony hill country with very little ground cover other than the odd desert bush. After driving for an hour or more we stopped at a likely spot and scanned ahead with binoculars. As luck would have it the trackers and Hentie spied a small group of mountain zebra way up ahead, on a slope just below the skyline. They were stationary but very hard to see, even with binoculars. It looked like the stallion was dozing on the slope above the herd.

Hentie and I left the Toyota Landcruiser 4WD and set off on foot. We had a difficult stalk ahead of us, as the day was warming up and with very little tree cover, we had to approach the herd by sneaking up gullies using the terrain for cover. As luck would have it, the wind was in our favour, otherwise we would not have stood a chance. After about three quarters of an hour we managed to get to a ridge about 150m from the stallion, from which we could have taken a shot. But the zebra was facing downhill away from us so it was a difficult angle for a fatal shot. The last thing we wanted to do was wound it, as these animals will run and run. Given that it was my first attempt and I was a bit of an unknown quantity as far as Hentie was concerned, we opted to try and get me a bit closer by creeping around and up the gully behind the stallion, who was still blissfully unaware of our presence, and obviously still off in the land of nod.

After a difficult hands and knees approach on stony ground, Hentie gestured that he would set up the shooting sticks for me to take a shot from about 80m. The adrenaline was kicking in and with heart pumping I engaged the bolt and positioned the rifle on the makeshift tripod. Just as I spotted the stallion through the scope, he turned his head to look at us. I realised that I had very little time to shoot before he bolted, so as soon as I had the cross hairs on his front shoulder I fired. He dropped like a stone so I had obviously hit him, thank God! But he was kicking about and looked like he might get up. The group of about four mares and their offspring galloped off to a distance of about 50m before stopping and looking back at us. Hentie and I approached the stallion, which was writhing about obviously paralysed and unable to get to his feet. Hentie told me to load another round before getting me in position to dispatch the animal. He indicated a position at the base of the neck on the front chest. I obviously hit the jugular or heart, as a fountain of blood spurted from its chest and it very quickly bleed to death.

The feeling of euphoria was amazing and it is difficult to explain to the non hunter the thrill of the kill. I was really buzzing and Hentie was as pleased for me. It is no wonder men bond so much from shared battles, which is one of the reasons why sport is so important to the male psyche.

We could not hear the truck approaching, so Hentie headed off to find the trackers Arnold and Abraham. I took a few photos of the zebra and marveled at the scenery, all the while still on a high, from the thrill of the hunt.

After taking the customary photos of hunter and trophy we loaded the zebra onto the back of the truck, after gutting it. We then headed back to camp with our prize, which will make for a magnificent floor skin, when tanned.