Playing Tourist July 16-17
So, in addition to the hunting we also arranged a couple of side trips through Richard Holmes Safaris.
July 16: Today was the day to go explore the South African town of Graaff-Reinet. But first breakfast. Eggs, bacon, toast and some fresh Kudu off the bull I killed yesterday. The Kudu was chewy but good. Aging the meat, like any meat definitely help the chewiness. Graaff-Reinet is located about an hour away from our camp. Honestly, there was not much to see or do in Graaff-Reinet. There was very little shopping that was worth a darn. We checked out a jewelry store and it was minimal at best. I tried to get by the local gun store, Karoo Guns, but it was closed. There was a famous Dutch Reformed Church that was pretty. There was a Graaff-Reinet museum that was semi interesting if you are into that sort of thing. Unfortunately, I am not. A lot of the items in the museum ie: pots, pans, dishes, toys, etc. I had seen in my grandparents house growing up. The was a section that had a collection of guns from back in to day until present. That was semi interesting. I eventually went outside and sat on a bench under a Banyan tree. It was very pleasant and I ended up meeting some South Africans on holiday and had some fabulous conversation with them. That was the most fun.
Lunch was at a restaurant called "The Spur". It was decorated in a South Western US style. Think Plains Indians, war bonnets, spears and grizzly bears..........In South Africa? It was apparently the hot place to be as it was covered up. The food was decent but the food at Richards and Marion's was way better. I had pork ribs and fries. There is a local training center for the South African Police and their cadets were everywhere, literally hundreds of them were all over the town. It must have been their day away from their classes. They were all shopping.
The afternoon was spent at the Valley of Desolation in Camdeboo National Park. Now, this was fun. It was a drive up into the mountains that ended at an over look of Graaf-Reinet and the surrounding valley. There were some spectacular views and it was well worth the trip up there. We eventually worked our way back to camp. Dinner was a shepherds pie with some kind of wild game that we never figured out what it was, but it was good.
July 17: Day 2 of playing tourist, off to Mountain Zebra National Park. This park is about an hour away from our camp. This park is 109.7 square miles in size or about 70,208 acres. This was definitely worth the price of admission. We saw Mountain Zebra, hence the parks name. They are different than the Burchell's Zebra that we would be hunting. We saw all sorts of plains game to include Kudu, Springbok, Eland, etc. We also saw mongoose, meerkats, and monkeys. These animals are not hunted, at least by us, so we were able to get close to them for easy picture taking. We did see Rhino poop but unfortunately no Rhino. The high light of the day was when we were glassing an Eland. My wife and the PH were focused on the Eland and I happened to be looking around. I said to myself, "Hey, those rocks on the ridge look an awful lot like to lion heads." Then the rocks moved................ Lions!!!!! There were 4 of them,. There are only 7 lions in that park so we felt really fortunate to see them. We ended up watching them for at least an hour. They were very patiently stalking the Eland we had been watching. We never got to see if they make a kill. The lions blended in to their background extremely well. Even when we knew they were there, if they stopped in the shade or in the grass, they were still very difficult to see. The PH had been in the park several times and had never see Lions. We were elated to say the least. Lunch was in the park and was a pork rib special. We also had Springbok carpaccio. Raw Springbok. It was tasty. We left the park about 4:00pm to avoid the crazy traffic that was supposed to be out on a Sunday evening with all the taxis taking people home from the weekend. Apparently it is very dangerous. Dinner was a dish with Kudu and it was tasty.
To be continued: Next: Back to the Hunting
