The Ultimate Claybird Shooting Competition

One last activity before we leave the luxurious and adventurous Makoura Lodge: claybird shooting. We’ve done a 4×4 Safari with Hugh, a horse trek with Kimberley, and now it is Chris’ turn to show us his guns.

Morning has barely broken and we are going to shoot orange discs out of the sky! Chris gives us a quick safety briefing about having the safety on and off, watching out for the cartridge popping out of the barrel when we reload, and not pointing the gun at people in general. You know, all those commonsense things that need to be said for people that lack such basic skills. Like Laura! The first time she opens the gun to reload she has to rely on her Spidey-senses to dodge the smoking cartridge about to hit her in the face…

A fiery competition

Because Robin is a competitive so-and-so, his first question is: “How do we make this a competition?” Chris gives us the rules: best out of 10 shots. Whoever shoots the most claybirds wins!

First up, Robin. He has had some short but successful experience with claybird shooting, so he feels confident. As one orange disc flies in the air and lands smoothly on the ground, and the next one, and the next one, he starts to panic a bit. There are only 10 shots and he is running out quickly! All sorts of excuses come out of his mouth at this point: it’s too dark, I can’t see, I’m French… He shoots one, but that’s probably one more than clumsy Laura will get.

Next up, Laura. She doesn’t have much hope as she is usually awful at aiming, reacting, and generally being alive. But… What? She hits one, then two, then three, then four, maybe five? (She loses count by this point because she is still buzzing about hitting the first one). It’s a cool feeling achieving something you had no idea you could do! It just goes to show that anything is worth a try!

What a way to end our stay at Makoura Lodge! We say goodbye to our amazing hosts who have kept us well-fed, well-slept and extremely well-entertained.