Africa - Getting Ready By Robert Hoague
May 30, 2008 - 12:04:44 AM
What's the time difference between CST in the USA and in Windhoek, Namibia? I googled abound and after a couple of strike outs I landed on a site for World Time Zones at worldtimezone.com and the time there is 3:34am. It's 9:24pm here. That's 18 hours difference.
I checked weather.com for the weather forecast in Windhoek, Namibia. The temperature, wind, humidity, etc. all read N/A. So there was no info there. But it did say that Sunrise was 6:23am and Sunset was 5:15pm. So I imagine the folks in the Africa hunt camp will be getting up in a little over an hour.
Wade Nolan emailed me last week that we have Internet there and I will be able to upload the hunt reports and pics. Unless the internet connection turns out to be better than I expect we probably will have to upload the videos we get after the return trip on June 15.
The hunt is with Dries Visser Safaris. Dries specializes in bowhunts. Our hunt will be in Northern Namabia approximately 40km west of Otava, a small town that is "prosperous in agriculture". It's a 25,000 acre place that is 60% mountains.
My hunt package includes Kudu, Gemsbok, Springbuck and a Warthog. I know what a Kudu and Warthog look like but I googled the Gemsbok and Springbuck to check them out. Springbucks are medium sized brown and white gazelles. Clocking in at up to 80 mph they are plenty fast. They travel in herds. Springbok mostly eat grass, leaves, shoots and other small plants. They can get their fluid from the food they eat, and survive without
drinking water through dry season.
Here is a picture of a Springbuck I found at South African Tourism.
The Gemsbok is a large African antelope Oryx. Gemsbok live in herds of 10-40, with a dominant male,
a few non-dominant males, and females. They often live along with other types of antelopes. The female's horns may be curved
but the male's are thicker and parallel. Male gemsbok are tough fighters and have been known to gore
attacking lions with their horns.
This is a pic of a Gemsbok.
Male Kudu travel in bachelor groups and are only with females during their mating season. They can weight in over 700 pounds and be over 5 feet tall at the shoulder. But are still very fast.
This is a Kudu.
So ... as I began this article I didn't know much about the game we are going to hunt on this trip. But at least now I have some general knowledge of them and have an idea what they look like.
I leave at 8:00am tomorrow and fly to Newark, proceed to Frankfurt, Germany and wind up in Windhoek, Namibia early Monday morning.
