A HUNT IN SOUTH AFRICA
with

by Eric Ching

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Table of Contents

Other Reports on Hunts with Bush Africa Safaris

A Quick Overview of the Trip

Schalk and Terina van Heerden

Our Hosts

Bush Africa Safaris provided us with an excellent stay and hunting. The owners, Schalk and Terina van Heerden are young (he just turned 30 on June 1, 1997) and very hospitable. Schalk grew up in the area and has hunted and tracked since he was a boy. He also was in a tracking unit while in the Army, and has some guiding experience in the United States as well. He is an enthusiastic bow hunter, using a compound bow.

Terina (a short version of Caterina, the name of her grandmother) handles everything but the hunting and is a marvelous cook. She has a degree in industrial psychology, has worked as an au pair in England and the U.S., and as a flight attendant for a Middle Eastern airline. Terina does all the cooking and does it very well indeed.

Facilities

The accommodations include all the modern amenities. They are not luxurious, but are perfectly comfortable, clean, and attractive. Plenty of hot water, too, which is very welcome at the end of the day. They have room to accommodate 11 guests: two in a room upstairs in the main guest facility adjacent to the main house, seven in a cluster of bungalows and a safari tent (two, three, and two beds, respectively), with a separate bathroom facility, about 50 yards from the main house, and two in a spare bedroom in the main house, assuming they are not being used by the guides, as was the case when we were there. There is a swimming pool in the front yard. Meals are served in the dining room of the main house. A lappa (walled enclosure with a fire pit in the middle) connects the main house and the guest facility. An 80-meter sighting-in range is a 2-minute walk from the house, and an informal archery range is behind the house. Also behind the house is a skinning hoist over a concrete pad with a drain.

The main guest facility is a two-story structure with a steeply pitched thatched roof and open on two sides. Half of the ground floor is a large veranda with tables and chairs. The end wall of the veranda on the side away from the house has a gun/bow rack and a bulletin board filled with trophy photos from clients. The back half of the ground floor contains a bar, a full bath, and a utility room where the clean and folded laundry is laid out for guests to pick up. The front of the veranda opens onto the yard and pool. The side opens up onto the lappa. The lavish decorations run naturally to animal hides, heads, skulls, horns, and trophy photos: leopard skin, bushpig and warthog shoulder mounts, wildebeest skull mount, etc., etc. There is even a full-body stuffed crocodile crawling along a rafter.

The main house is white stucco in an unornamented blocky style. The "public area" of the house is the dining/living room and the kitchen, although you spend little time in there except when you are actually eating. Most of the socializing is outside in the lappa around the fire. The walls of the lappa are decorated with African animals, tracks, and the Bush Africa Safaris logo.

The atmosphere is not that of a hotel or resort, but more like being guests in their home. It is informal, relaxed, and "family-style." There were no servants, per se, for drinks or meals. Wynand and Jason, the two hunting guides/assistants, were very attentive, but one could just as easily go to the bar and get a beer for oneself. By the middle of the week, we were wandering into the kitchen and serving ourselves breakfast, although the larger meals were taken at the table, but even those were "family-style" with dishes passed around and everyone serving him or herself.

Food and Drink

Terina prepares rusks, coffee, and juice in the morning, then two full meals at mid-morning, if we were hunting on or near their property, and after dark, plus assembles any meals we take with us if spending the day at another ranch. We all agree that she should put out a cookbook. When hunting at distant concessions, a "cool box" full of cold meats or sausages to be grilled, bread, crackers, fruit, juices, sodas, beer, condiments, and cookies or other sweets came with us for brunch and/or lunch, depending on how the hunting day went.

Most meals eaten at the main camp included some game meat. Blue wildebeest bobotie and sausage, kudu pie and sautˇed liver, impala tenderloin chops, impala and cherry pie, blesbok pie, and legs of springbok and duiker were served during the week. I was fortunate in that the kudu liver, impala tenderloin, and blesbok pie were taken from animals I shot. Side dishes included mealiepap, a stiff white corn meal mush, breads, green salad, and cooked vegetables. Evening meals ended with a different dessert each night, including South African specialties like melktert, a custard-like pie, and classics like creme caramel. [Click here to see some of Terina's recipes.] Terina was an excellent cook and accommodated my special dietary needs (lactose intolerance and diabetes) very well. Wynand shared some biltong, the local jerky, that his mother sent him.

Terina was apparently knowledgeable about SA wines and favored red wines. As a result, we tasted a different red wine every night and found them all to be very good to excellent. Castle lager was the beer of choice at the main camp, though I did get a chance to taste Hansa pilsner as well back in Johannesburg at the end of our trip, and both were good if not outstanding. Tasting beers after a hard day of hunting, however, is not a fair test. (Caution: the cost of alcoholic drinks are not generally included in the daily rate, so if you have a propensity to consume generous amounts, be prepared to pay for them at the end of the trip.)