06/05/2006 - Adam Bromfield reports on his shooting trip aboard the Rovos Rail Train in Southern Africa

After a hassle free flight and having cleared customs, we boarded the Rovos Rail Train in Pretoria, which was to be our mobile shooting lodge for the next week.

Our first shooting foray was a day of Rock Pigeon, which took place close to the town of Bloemfontein, situated South West of Johannesburg under a blue sky with a good breeze blowing. We arrived in the field, did a draw for hides, and started shooting at 10.00am. The rock pigeons soon started to arrive in flocks of between 3 and 30 birds, which created some extremely exciting, varied and testing shooting.

The weather, which plays an important part in any shooting trip, turned against us the following morning and we had torrential rain. Our quarry for the day was Guinea Fowl and my predominantly English team of guns showed good 'stiff upper lip' form and we carried on with great gusto. Like all good game birds the guineas were tricky to drive in the rain and with standing crop all around due to the late rain it was made even more difficult. In anticipation of heavy rain, we had a back-up plan of a further afternoon of dove and pigeon shooting, which worked well. However, the weather continued to be un-cooperative and the ladies retired back to the train whilst the guns waited to see if the weather would break. It eventually did after a time, which created perfect conditions for an evening's flight of Egyptian Geese.

This was a huge success. As we sat on high ground above the Spitskop Dam in the Vaal Harts Valley in our superb sunken hides, wave after wave of Egyptian Geese flew over the line of guns - it was incredible. The team shot until dusk and returned to our train which had moved from Bloemfontein to Kimberley.

The train is a superb mobile shooting lodge. The food, the wines, the comfort and the service and friendliness of the staff make it very difficult to beat. Nothing is too much trouble and how they manage to turn washing around quicker than many first class hotels in Europe still amazes me especially when you consider that it is all done on the train.

Our next stop was Thuru which is on the border of the Karoo and the Kalahari to the very far west of South Africa almost bordering Namibia. We pulled up and parked the train in a siding which was literally in the middle of nowhere; it really was a fantastic sight.

The next morning we were after Namaqua sandgrouse which hails as it name suggests from Namaqualand. The shooting is very exciting and like most wild bird flights it lasts a lot longer than one thinks.

The guns entered their blinds around 8.30am and were welcomed by tables with a flask of coffee and a few little tit bits to keep the wolf from the door. The first scouting birds came over about 9.15am and the coveys began to arrive about 15 minutes later. It is as good as shooting as one could imagine with birds coming from most directions.

Our second morning on the sandgrouse was a very good flight with about 1,000 sandgrouse coming over the guns. If it were a competition then the sandgrouse definitely won! The afternoons at Thuru were spent game viewing, lunching and taking full advantage of the lodges Spa.

The final day was spent on the train travelling our way back East to Pretoria. It was a great trip made very easy by having charming guests, testing wild quarry and great hospitality.