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It was quite an adventure - we paid for the thrills and got them.

We stayed at the Sea Cliff Hotel in Dar es Salaam for our first 3 days in Tanzania. This proved to be a good plan as it gave us a chance to acclimatise to the tropical weather and kick 8 hours of jet lag. As it turned out Mark Sullivan was at the Sea Cliff as well, and we had supper and a pleasant evening together as we got aquainted. The next morning we met for breakfast and met Californian Big Mark who was the other half of our 2X1. Big Mark is about 61/2 feet high, so he's became Big Mark while Mark Sullivan became Little Mark.

Shortly after breakfast we made our way to the airport for our flight to the Selous Game Reserve. We were hunting in block LU-2 in the south-western part of the reserve, and the grass strip was about 10 minutes from camp. The camp was very comfortable, shaded tents with showers and toilets, gourmet meals served by waiters in formal attire. A deep pool in the river directly across from the camp was home to about a dozen hippos. Directly across the river from our tent we could see water buck, baboons, and the next day an elephant. A guy could get used to living like that.

We had lunch in camp, then headed out to check out the rifles, and so I could become aquainted with the John Wilkes .500 Nitro Express double rifle I was renting from Lil Mark. I've been shooting bolt actions all my life, so I don't mind saying that the DR wasn't my cup of tea. Fortuneately Big Mark being a scholar and a gentleman offered me free access to his M-70 .375 H&H from the Winchester Custom Shop, sighted with a Leupold 2.5-8X. My own rifle stayed home, simply because I was intimidated by the paper work I need to bring it from Canada, through the US and Holland to Tanzania. Also we would be going on a photraphic safari after the hunt, so this would make being in posession of the rifle a difficulty. When we make our second trip I will have my own rifle with me.

After we got the shooting out of the way we hit the trail. We stopped at a sand river and began to walk along it as there was some sign. The air wasn't hot, but I found the African sun strong, and with the heat reflecting from the sand, it wasn't long before I had to get into some shade and gulp down some water. That was the only problem I had with the heat for the duration of our time there.

The difficult long grass conditions made hunting a challenge as we were the first clients in that block and there had been little burning. I enjoy the challenge of the tough hunting, and when we return to Tanzania, I will again opt for an early season hunt.

On our second day, Big Mark killed a wart hog. We saved the back straps for camp meat, and the rest was put in a tree for leopard bait. The next day produced nothing, but just before dark on the way back to camp we spotted a blue wildebeest about 200 yards out. I asked BM how the rifle was sighted and he said it was dead on at 200. I held a third of the way up the body on the shoulder and pressed the trigger, and at the shot the wildebeest scooted. Little Mark spotted the critter on the sky-line but I couldn't see it. He finally talked me onto the target, and I let fly with shot #2. Again the wildebeest ran off, but i didn't loose sight of it this time and fired shot #3. He stumbled but got up again and shot #4 ended the drama. When I checked out the carcass I could see that had happened. All the shots impacted about 6" below where I hadaimed, and only the 4th shot was high enough to be a killing shot. Considering that the shooting was done at 200 yards in failing light on a moving target I was gratified to see the bullet holes clustered so they could be covered with the palm of the hand.

The next day proved to be very exciting. Little Mark's tracker Ali, got us into the midst of a herd of buffalo in 12' high grass. We could hear them all around us, but just a few feet away we couldn't see them. A patch of dark hide, a flash of horn, were all we ever saw. The ground shook when they ran, and we could see the grass move, but could not see the buffalo. Soon they all moved off, and surprisingly we were all still alive.

It was well after dark when we got back to camp, and we headed straight for the shower. Just then we heard shouting . . . a lot of shouting - then the lights went out. I grabbed the rifle and we ran to investigate - expecting to see an elephant wrecking the camp. Little Mark must of thought the same thing, because he met us rifle in hand. It turned out not to be an elephant, rather a fire had engulfed the kitchen. The boys had given up on fighting the fire which had now engulfed the grass roof, and instead were rescuing what they could of the supplies. They would through ropes around crates and boxes and try to drag them out - at extreme risk of injury I might add. We might think that there was nothing in there worth getting hurt for, but the fact of the matter was that we were days from being resupplied - in fact the resupply truck had not arrived from Dar es Salaam by the time we left on the 18th. Despite all this, within a couple of hours the lights were back on, and we were being served a gourmet meal of wildebeest with all the fix-ins.

Little Mark would go the next day to try and get some supplies from the local villages, and said we would go hunting when he returned. He left at 4:00 in the morning, and was back in late afternoon. We could see that he was just about done in, so we told him he was out voted and there would be no hunting until the next day. He grumbled some, but eventually said thank you.

The next day - the 13th was the day I got my buffalo. It was also my 51st birthday. We were on a good trail, but they were leading us on a merry walk. Just before noon we found ourselves on the bank of a sand river, behind a wall of high grass. Little Mark spoted a dagga boy quartering towards us. He waves me forward, then tells me to switch rifles with Big Mark so I have the scoped rifle. I throw the rifle to my shoulder and shoot it dry - working the bolt with the rifle at my shoulder. Little Mark fires one round after my first shot. When the firing pin clicks on an empty chamber I fumble to get another round in the rifle and fire again - then I switch again with Big Mark and fire 2 shots from the .500 double rifle, and the old bull is finished. Examination of the carcass again showed the shots from the .375 hitting low! Skinning and butchering took most of the afternoon, and most of the carcass was used for lion bait.

On the way back to camp a pretty little impala buck gave me an easy broadside shot. It was a perfect heart shot - the little guy went into a hard run for 20 yards then piled up. Even an easy shot gives you a sense of satisfaction when things go right. The impala was cooked whole over a fire the next day, and was ready for us to eat when we returned that night. They carved off a 5 pound roast and left it on my plate. It was so rare as to be nearly raw, but it was tender and delicious, and I put away half of it. Perhaps the excitement we experienced earlier that day affected my appetite.

A couple of days later, Ali got us in close to a herd again, but this time it was in the bush rather than the grass. There wasn't a breath of wind, and the noise those buffalo made was deafening. While I didn't feel quite as exposed in the bush as I did in the grass, but it was getting dark, and the thick cover made it seemed darker than it really was. Due to the failing light we retreated, and as soon as we emerged from the thicket Big Mark was offered a shot at a blue wildebeest and collected it with one shot.

My final kill came a couple of days later when I dumped a wart hog. Little Mark was very excited by this, and said I could hunt the rest of my life and never get another hog this nice - it's the equal of a 48" buffalo he said. I don't know, an average pig to me doesn't look much different than a good one, but Little Mark wants to have it's picture in his new book. We'll see if a better one usurps my position by the time the book goes to print.

Big Mark finally got his buffalo on our second last day. We had been following a trail for hours, and stopped for a cold drink, so we called in the truck to bring us some Cokes. We were teasing Little Mark about yet another of his unproductive death marches, when over the hill to our front comes an old dagga boy. It doesn't take long for us to get after him, BM and LM shoot and the buff runs off - as they tend to do - into heavy cover. So now we have the proverbial wounded buff in thick cover. We line up 3 abreast, and Ali takes the lead in. Who ever gets a shot takes it! Several tense minutes pass, then the bull is spotted but it cannot move, and Big Mark finishes it with a shoulder shot. On closer inspection we see that the buff has a broken horn - to my way of thinking this makes a more desirable trophy. The boys cut a trail in for the Land Cruiser and we set up lunch right there with the dead buff as an honoured guest.

None of this tells about all the other neat stuff that happened. Like the 6 species of big game we counted 2 minutes out of camp, like the grumpy little elephant who challenged the Land Cruiser two nights in a row on our way back to camp. It doesn't mention the day we were tracking buffalo along the base of a hill in the thick stuff, then Ali signals us to be very quiet and we move back because we were within 30' of a feeding elephant, so we retreated and climbed the hill to get around him. Nor does it tell about the young hippo that tried to get in the truck with Deb when we were travelling back to camp after dark.

The guys in camp had a good show one morning shortly after we left. An impala was chased to the river in front of our camp by a pack of African wild dogs. The unfortunate impala thought the river would provide safety from the dogs, and in three bounds it was out of reach of the dogs, but not of the crocodile which immediately snapped it up and took it to the bottom to tenderize.

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