MY FIRST real hunt was a big disappointment. I was about nine years old and my father considered me strong enough to walk for several hours in the bush. Before that, I had just wandered in the bush close to where we lived in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, shooting doves with my airgun.
There was always great excitement when my father returned from a hunt with a kudu, or an impala or two, in the back of the Land Rover. I watched as the animals were gutted and skinned – and I kept the horns. I would climb into a large wild fig tree to hang the horns in the branches where ants and nature would clean them out.
This hunt was about an hour’s drive from where we lived, on a farm close to the Bulawayo airport. We were only going for the morning and planned to set off at about 6am. I grew
