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Facing the pressures of running my own business trying to learn Archery at the same time, lead to me not being able to shoot as much as I would have liked to since starting on 9 April. In South Africa our winter also starts in May resulting in shorter days which makes late afternoon practice sessions not that easy. Anyway, one can only do one's best and whenever I had half an hour, I ventured out to practice.
As someone that just loves being outdoors (and I am sure most of you can identify with this), living in the city is not at the best of times easy. Long working hours also does not help, so when Chris Brand from Njiri lodge approached me with an offer to act as camp cook during a hunt in June 2003, saying "yes" was not even a question.
It was a seven day hunt, starting from 4 June 2003. I left a day before to organize the lodge and set all up, leaving the afternoon free to do as I please. What a feeling leaving the city behind! There is just nothing like it.
The trip up North took a good 3 and half hours and I arrived at Njiri Lodge at 13:00 pm. We off-loaded the truck, organized the lodge and at 15:00 pm I took a walk down to the river. There were some clouds sheltering the warm winter rays of the sun but I did not pay too much attention to this as rain in the Bushveld at this time of the year is highly unlikely. Chris told me that there were some Impala in the river bed in the direction of the dead Lead Wood tree (just for you Ann, it is the tree where the Fish Eagles sat calling each other last year) and I headed in that general direction.
En route, I encountered a couple of monkeys but not really much else. Time does not seem to exist in the Limpopo valley. Nothing like breathing fresh air, smelling the veld, listening to every sound in the bush and I was appreciating and experiencing every second of it......before I knew it, it started to rain?
Rain? June in the Bushveld? This was really strange as I grew up in the Bushveld and could not ever remember rain this time of the year. It was close to 17:00 pm so I decided to head back to the lodge. On the way back I saw quite a big Warthog and stood in the rain watching him running off. Quite a memorable moment and the rain did not bother at all as the air filled with a fresh "muddy" smell that only rain could produce.
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Self catering