A BULL IN THE BUSH

One of the most enjoyable jobs I took on while in the APRU was the purchase of new breeding stock for the unit.. This meant travelling not only throughout Botswana but also Rhodesia (as it then was) and South Africa for such breeds as Brahman, Tuli and Simmental.

In the mid 70's the banks in Botswana devalued property values which supported loans taken out by some of our bigger farmers, particularly in the Tuli Bock in Eastern Botswana and this meant that several European farmers in the block had to sell off stock to finance the loans. This was quite an opportunity for people with ready cash (which included the APRU) to buy bargains.

One particular sale comes to mind concerning John Counihan who was a Gaborone businessman with a "hobby ranch" in the Tuli Block. He wanted to sell an entire Brahman breeding herd comprising two or three bulls and about 40 cows with calves at foot. Like much of Botswana in these days, the Tuli Block was poorly served with tar red roads (none at all) and very few dirt roads, but John advised that he had put an airstrip on the property and that we could be met by his manager on arrival.

In these days, long before the advent of GPS, Botswana had minimal aviation navigation aids, with only one or two Non Directional Beacons, none in the East of the country. Bush flying relied mainly on locating commercial radio station with the ADF, keeping a finger on the map and correlating compass headings with radio compass bearings. The ranch, far less the airstrip, failed to justify an entry on the 1:1,000,000 map which we used to fly with, so we arranged that the manager would set fire to a pile of rubber tyres at 10.00 am when we expected to be in the region of the ranch. We hoped this would act initially as a beacon and secondly as a wind indicator (vital on short strips when the prevailing wind could make the difference between a safe landing and an overrun into the bush)

Nick Buck and I set off around nine and unusually, there was low cloud in the East of the country so we flew by dead reckoning for the first 45 minutes, but as we had hoped, the sun soon burned off the cloud and we were able to pick out some land marks around the Limpopo river. Sure enough, after about another half-hour we pick ed up a column of black smoke in more or less the expected position; trouble was, we could find nothing that looked like a landing strip in the vicinity! However, there was someone waving by the bonfire of tyres so he seemed to be expecting us. After casting around for five minutes, we found a track on the ground which was at least straight and a low fly past showed there was no heavy bush on either side, the smoke was blowing more or less along the strip so we had few choices left - neither of us felt inclined to return home! Suffice to say that I can confirm that a Cessna 172 can safely land and take off along a dirt track of 600 yards with two up provided there are no big trees around!

Viewing the herd of Brahmans was the next hurdle; the manager advised us that he had not seem them for a few days, but he had sent his men out that morning to try and round them up for us. Nick and I were accustomed to getting our proposed purchases into a kraal and checking brands, condition, age and health, so it was a bit of a surprise when we were taken to the top of a small kopje in the bush where we could get a good view over the veld. After half an hour, we heard the sounds of the herd boys driving the cattle through the bush and we were told to keep an eye on a long clearing just to our left. In the next two minutes we were able to count about forty Brahmans as they streaked through the clearing like a herd of Kudu and just as excitable!

We could at least confirm that they were Brahman; they were exceedingly fit and there were at least 40 to choose from, so we closed the deal to take the first forty that they could get into the railway wagons at Palapye in the next two weeks, putting the onus for transport firmly on the managers plate! Good as their word, they duly delivered 40 fit young Brahmans to Pitsane railway station, bound for Musi Field Station escorted by the entire station staff!