GBRT : South Africa 2012

The final results can be found on the SABU website

http://www.sabisley.com/results_2012.htm

The last day in South Africa, and only one thing left to do - get all the kit, rifles and team members into four vans and safely to Johannesburg airport for the evening flights.

For the less organised of the team members, the morning was obviously a chance to start packing all their kit and shoving it into the available space in the buses.

Also time to settle up the bar tabs, and find out just how much beer, gin and wine we've managed to consume over the last week and half - quite a lot in some cases!

Penultimate day in Bloemfontein, and indeed South Africa. Sadly none of the team noticed that it was April Fools day, having spent so long here that any awareness of the day and date had been lost.

With the shooting done, today was all about relaxation, packing, cleaning rifles and generally preparing to insert ourselves back into normal society. The day started slightly painfully for those who had enjoyed the dancing and drinking the night before, but thankfully less painfully than the effects of the previous weekend.

Sadly, today was the day when the first of the team started departing, with Pete heading off to Port Elizabeth with his fiancee, James heading off to meet his wife and kids in Cape Town and DC2 heading off to Johannesburg for an early flight home. We wished them all the best for their ongoing journeys.

The day of the Protea Match dawned, somewhat grey and overcast, and with what looks like a significant chance of rain, and much colder than we have had all week - perfect UK conditions! Great Britain headed out to the ranges for an expected start time of 8:15 at 300m, then falling back to 600 and 900 as the morning progressed.

Before the start of the match however, was the announcement of the cutoff for the State Presidents final - nine off or better being required to shoot in the afternoon.

The match commenced without too much delay, with not much going on with the wind at 300m, as least for the first firers - a situation that was not set to continue throughout the day...

Friday morning and time for the Second Stage of the State Presidents, 2 and 10 at 300, 500 and 600m. The last chance for the team members to show their skill to the team management before selection for the Protea Match which will happen on Saturday morning. Also an opportunity to try and get through to the Final on Saturday afternoon. So essentially a day of shooting in order to try and be picked to do more shooting.

The journey to the range was uneventful, except for one member of the team (Gareth) who realised about 5 metres from the entrance to the range that he had forgotten his register cards for the day. Cue a trip to the stats office before the 300m detail in order that he could get some more produced for him.