An outdoorsman on the Dark Continent

So I was thinking, surely it's time to get a bit more of the Dark Continent on here?
This wretched habit of mine has gotten much worse since I first set foot on that terrible place...

I sometimes like to think of myself as an outdoorsman, albeit chained to a desk, flying in and out of meetings, dealing with performance reviews and foreign exchange, and all the other extraneous interruptions in a modern man's life.

Are you an outdoorsman? Take a minute and think about it, what does being an outdoorsman really mean to you? Take that minute, reflect on the experiences that you've shared with others or those special solo efforts with just your gun, a dayback and your sense of adventure. Hunting and the activities that often accompany our chosen sport are a window to see things that you don’t often see in everyday life. They give you the opportunity to experience nature in a different setting; an opportunity to open your eyes to a whole new world.

So if an outdoorsman is what I am,in the contemporary culture of our inner city lives, there are three things that just don't sit well with this outdoorsman - noise, hurry and crowds. And so it began...

My parents recognised very early in my life that I enjoyed the wide open spaces. Our culture and family traditions started to mould my character very early in my childhood; from a very young age my father fostered a love for the outdoors. A casual walk with his A5 often resulted in a rabbit for the table; we'd clean it up and with a dash of olive oil and a clove of garlic, very quickly have a meal for kings.

Before I hit double digits I was pointing and retrieving like a well trained dog. By 12 I was a licensed shooter with my first rifle in the cupboard. At 14 I was an enthusiastic amateur taxidermist and by 18 I was hand loading for a number of centre fire rifles and regularly hunting solo, chasing pigs and goats and foxes.

I did perhaps have an over developed sense of adventure and an entrenched want to hunt big and dangerous game. I don't know how, it just happened. I read books - Hemingway, Ruark, Roosevelt, Hunter - and I day dreamed. Things snowballed and what may have been the misplaced passion of a boy soon became the driving force of a man striving to get to the Dark Continent. I don't know how things managed to fall into place the way they did, but it happened, like it was destined. I was 30.

'Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.' Mark Twain c.1883