The excitement levels are building. Tomorrow we start the first of 16 days of shooting, with only one rest day (when we’ll still be on the range supporting the Veterans, Under 21s and Under 25s in their Team Matches). With that long schedule ahead of us, today was our last real chance to relax and fully get into the zone for the weeks ahead.
After yesterday’s positive experience at the Zanchieta Wildlife Rescue Centre, and some of team photographer Theo’s amazing photos, a second group went to visit, using the last chance to make daytime visits to local attractions. Two of the team chose to visit the city of Kimberley, home of the largest man-made hole in the world. While some have been known to doubt this accolade, the tour guide seemed pretty convinced. The Big Hole Museum had brought several original buildings into the confines of a recreated town, which felt like part Bisley Camp; part Wild West. Learning point of the day: this mine stopped operating at the outbreak of the First World War, after barely 40 years of operation, and never started up again.
The rest of the team used the final day off to fully recharge, with the sunshine and higher temperatures meaning more lying by the pool than on previous days. As the day drew to a close, we met for our first official team meeting and dinner of the tour. The rest of the hotel residents were blinded by the team as we met by the pool for a team photo in our very dashing Hawaiian shirts. This diarist will not be commenting on whether Nick Tremlett’s love of stash has gone too far; we’ll leave that to you all to judge. After lining up in height order (which took more effort and time than it should have) and also successfully avoiding any slips into the pool, we moved to the conference room for our first briefing from our Adjutant Derek Lowe.
With lunch, laundry and shooting plans confirmed, the Captain awarded us our Palma tour badges. This is the moment we have all been awaiting since selection in 2020 – the shooting part of the tour officially begins! The group has a huge range of experience, with 9 new Palma caps through to Jon Underwood, Parag Patel and David Luckman who were awarded their seventh badges – testament to the hard work and consistency shown over the years. We finished the day with a braai at the hotel, in the company of our Under 25 team, who were able to regale us with stories from their visit to Peter Bramley’s farm the previous day. Peter’s continued kindness to the Great Britain touring teams continues for which we are very grateful. Whilst the benefits of having your own range were clear, we can only hope for fewer snakes and spiders at the General De Wet ranges tomorrow!
And so, with an early night planned to prepare for the first of our pre 6am alarm wake ups, this marks the end of our R&R. Tomorrow’s practice day will allow us all to get our sight settings confirmed, and see the conditions of the range that we will be spending so much time on for the next few weeks. Here we go!
