Wouter, Barry, Josh and I rock up to the kraal at 7am where we meet with a guy who I’m sure is introduced to me as Furnace. I must get my hearing tested. He is a shooting agent and is on a recce mission prior to bringing guests to a sandgrouse shoot here at Tswalu. Apparently, sandgrouse fly to waterholes every morning and evening and the accepted technique is to ambush them there. It sounds to me a lot easier than yomping heather-clad hills all day. We head off to a popular waterhole to see what comes in.

We’re back out with the game catching team today so we’re suited, booted and in the saddle by 6am. It turns out we could have had an extra half hour in our beds. When they haven’t shown at the rendezvous point by 7am, Barry gives them a call and finds out they’ve decided to use the catching boma today. We head off that way and arrive just as they are getting there .It doesn’t take long to get organised and the first animals (Blue Wildebeest) are getting pushed in by the chopper before 8am. Then come Zebra, then come Gemsbok, then come Zebra, then come Red Hartebeest, then a few more Red Hartebeest and so on

Today promises to be a good one. We have a lion to catch. I’m picked up before 7am and after a whistle-stop tour picking up people and equipment, we head to Legkaba- The Predator Section!. By this time I’ve been told it’s not one lion we’re after but three. Better and better (and better.)

I never sleep on planes and this one is no different. Despite the acres of legroom preventing achers of legs. Despite a flyers fly dram. Despite the horrible herbal sleeping pills. Despite eye-masks and ear-plugs, Handel and Faure, I never once make a foray into The Land of Nod. The border is closed.

Today’s tactics are going to be different. The team are after bull Black Widebeest and bull Waterbuck and they’re going to be darting them from the air. As we sit sipping our coffees we watch the boss, Ikey, filling the darts with a heady blend of neuro-toxin and sedative. Apparently the contents of each dart could kill a hundred men. Mind you, so could an angry bull Waterbuck.

The alarm goes off at 5am and, struggling to waken, I have a big ‘Where the hell am I ?’ moment. This is closely followed by a bigger ‘Och, just another half hour’ moment that I resist. But only just.

I’m not long in kitchen before I’m joined by the others. It’s like a scene from ‘Return of the Living Dead’. In the back of my befuddled brain, I become aware that everyone looks…well…bigger and it dawns on me (at about the speed of a real dawn) that they’re all wearing LOTS of clothes. Unbeknown to me, I then save my own life by going and putting a jersey on.

I’m sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5 awaiting my evening departure to Jo’burg. My planned return to Tswalu is becoming reality. And how do I feel? Strange. Very strange.