TRACKS ACROSS AFRICA

Another Ten Years

by Craig Boddington

Craig Boddington's first African hunting book, From Mount Kenya to the Cape, chronicled his hunting exploits from 1977 to 1986. Since that time he has written a book every ten years on his African experiences. Now he's back with Tracks Across Africa, which chronicles his third decade of African hunting. He actually hunted in about twice as much territory and for twice as many days during the last decade, 1997-2006, as he did during his first decade. He explains the upturn in time this last decade to the need to support his African TV hunting shows with on-the-ground hunting footage. But we suspect there is a more basic truth: He simply loves hunting in the Dark Continent-its forests, velds, people, and animals. What serious big-game hunter has not at least thought of Africa with its tremendous expanses, its great game fields, and some of the mightiest (and smallest) animals found on earth? Kenya was the first country he hunted in back in 1977, and there is actually a section on hunting in Kenya in this book. Pretty much every country open to hunting in this period saw Craig Boddington walking on its soil: C.A.R., Chad, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. The animals pursued are as diverse and range from mountain nyala, elephant, and leopard to bongo, and, of course, buffalo. There is hardly a safari where he does not hunt buffalo. In these past ten years, he has hunted more in Africa than most people experience in a lifetime. Hey, we can all dream, but in the meantime we can read about it.