We had an early start for the first day of shooting, a mx of individual and team drills. Target teams met for 0630 breakfast to discuss plans, preferences and a shooting order, before loading up and getting on the road about 45mins later. After 5 minutes on road and a further 10 or so off it and along the dirt tracks of the Kenyan Defence Forces’ training area we arrived at a wonderful, sunny (and particularly dusty; it could have used some rain!) range with an impressive 24 targets from 100m to 1000m and a plethora of wind flags, which we would prove to be very useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With our rifles assembled and ammo received, we began chatting with the Kenyan shooters who were not short of questions and loved a good photograph! Ant Ringer, one of our resident Queen’s Prize winners and veteran of several tours, even giving a talk and Q&A session with a huge crowd around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The range now set up by our hosts, we cracked on with 300m, 600m and 800m including a team practice at 600m. The latter quickly got us back up to speed, a relief after limited in-person team training over the winter months and hopefully providing the management team with some ideas about team selection for the Sunday match. As we went through the morning the wind was relentless, fishtailing from one side to the at the drop of a hat! The benefits of dedicated target coaches who can monitor and manage this showed through, with some strong scores under increasingly tricky conditions. The wind kept up its tricks for the final individual practice at 800m, by now with people getting a little more used to the conditions that still moved around briskly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With zeroes found, we packed up and the coaches, led by two of our most experienced, Derek Lowe and Graham Nelson, gave another talk to the Kenyans about how we manage a firing point, drawing another large crowd. Almost as large was the queue at the pop-up armourers’ workshop, crewed by Tom Rylands and Adam Leech, who fixed and fettled several Kenyan rifles back into good order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, about half the team went to the Trout Tree, a trout farm and treehouse-style restaurant (with resident monkeys!) nearby in Nanyuki. This was arranged by Scott Glanville and on his recommendation, having been there on a previous tour. That was, however, in 2009, but we were in luck and the visit and food were as good as expected. We had an interesting tour and a lovely meal, before heading back to the hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once sundowners had finished and official announcements made, a tired and windswept team enjoyed a free evening, hoping for less wind for the individual competitions the next day!<\/p>\n\n\n