1. ORIENTATION – A FAMILY’S JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE IN AFRICA
“There are no bad experiences, only experiences” – Riaan Manser
I grew up in the typical relatively small but picturesque East Cape town of Somerset East. A town with a rich heritage, stunning environment and loads of adventure opportunities. After completion of school, army and university, I got a job and got married to Anna-Marie (Tossie). Three daughters were born respectively in 1970 (Alitha), 1972 (Pinnie) and 1974 (Anna-marie). My career would take me to visit thirty five countries in Europe, the Eastern Block the Middle and Far East, the USA, South America, Australia and Mauritius. The family lived in various cities in Southern Africa including a two year stint in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Whereas there must always be dreams, goals and ambitions, central to all of this is the family. Difficult challenges may force the ugly or the good to surface. The important point is that over time it teaches you to control these emotions. Fortunately the whole family were blessed with a healthy (sometimes bordering on unhealthy) competitive, adventurous, wonder lust. These characteristics call for activities and ultimately adventures which would build a family, character and memories. As the children got older and as time and funds allowed it, our wonder lust erupted with a loud bang. The journey would include several hikes, running several rivers, tours within South Africa until we managed to overcome the limitations and could make several tours of Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and of course South Africa.
The question often arises as to at what age are children ready for adventure and also, up to what age can one take on adventure challenges? As the King answered the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland when he asked where to begin? He replied : “Begin at the beginning, carry on until you get to the end and then stop”. For our family many things such as age and ability of the children, time, funds and naturally responsibilities dictated the what, where, when, why and who’s, but one thing stood fast. Within these limiting factors we journeyed and our journey still continues. In all these things it was always clear that although the journey must have a destination, it is really the journey itself which is the adventure. In addition, it is when things deviate from the carefully planned itinerary that memories are built and stories become interesting.
For us as a family, our adventure journey was dictated mainly by children and availability funds but also by politics. Crossing borders into Africa with a South African passport before the mid nineties was very difficult and was therefore not really an option for the family. In the interim, our lives journeyed from the point where age and ability of the children allowed us to do various hiking trails, when old rugby injuries forced a change from hiking to tours on bicycle, adventure drove us to run several rivers by canoe, stupidity, age and “friends” lured me into the motorbike thing and finally, finances allowed us to do several safari’s beyond the borders of South Africa. It shares various adventures of a family over a period of four decades, by various means of transport and to several countries south of the equator. It reflects on changes both political and otherwise that would affect our lives over this period, but primarily the joys of seeing a beautiful continent, enjoying how the “unknown” can enrich your life and meeting wonderful people. Now Tossie and I are approaching seventy. Although Tossie has suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for the past 23 years and my children have children of their own, the family’s journey and adventure continues. It is our wish that our journey through life, over obstacles, building wonderful memories and by all means of transport in and around Africa and the statement by Mark Twain will also become a truth in your lives: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw the bows, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails, explore, dream, discover.”
2. OUR INTRODUCTION TO AFRICA - ZIMBABWE – 1972 TO 1974
During 1972 we temporarily moved to Rhodesia where I got a Research Fellowship from the University of Rhodesia. We were 30 years old at the time with two children (Alitha aged 2 and Pinnie aged five months). As we drove through the South African Low veld and crossed the Rhodesian (Zimbabwe) border in 1972 for a two year stay in Salisbury (Harare), it was almost as if a sense of adventure already took possession of us. Our first stop over would be at the Lion and Elephant Hotel at Bubye River approximately 80 kms north of the border at Beit Bridge. The adventure feeling took a leap forward when, the next morning, we noticed a man walking outside with a fairly large orphan leopard on a leash. Having left South Africa for the “unknown”, the very first day already brought with it a feeling of “welcome to Africa”. En route, we then visited the Great Zimbabwe Ruins.
Although for us the country gave the feeling of an exciting adventure awaiting us, life here was in no way primitive and behind the times. All but that. What really impressed us was the vast unspoilt areas where adventure seemed to hide in the bush, waiting to be discovered in a country with high standards of living. (In fact, at the time Rhodesia had Television when South Africa were still contemplating the service).Over the next two years, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) would make us aware of what the Africa north of the South African borders offers.
It was at a time when Rhodesia was under international political pressure because of Ian Smith’s UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. In 1980 Zimbabwe regained its independance). Despite economic sanctions, the effect of which could be seen on the short supply of some luxury goods in the shops, the limited models of cars on the road and later the rationing of petrol, it in no way restricted life and the country appeared, not only to hold its own, but to be a happy thriving community. Salisbury, which was founded in 1890, was an absolutely beautiful city, which with its wide main street (designed so that an ox wagon could comfortably make a u-turn), was impressive by any standard. The standard of their education systems and university was equally impressive and so was the general level of education of all racial groups in the country.
However, political pressure between the Ian Smith government and the black leaders, Ndabaningi Sithole of the Mashona and Joshua Nkomo of Ndebele, was gradually gaining momentum. Although it was initially a political war of words, we could see it hotting up and it was ultimately going to escalate into a guerrilla bush war supported by Mozambique accommodating freedom fighter camps. We were introduced to a rapidly changing Africa.
During our stay we travelled the country from border to border. Our first travels were to the Eastern side of the country bordering on Mozambique. Nyanga (in those days known as Inyanga), in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe is a place of great natural beauty. It accommodates beautiful streams, waterfalls, mountains and several Stone Age and Iron Age archeological remains. This beauty makes it a popular tourist attraction to enjoy the hiking trails, golf courses, trout fishing or simply the tranquility of the area. With our children still too young to really explore the area as a family, most of touring was by car, with short hikes to explore some archeological remains.
We then toured down the eastern side of the country via Mutari (then Umtali) back to Salisbury doing a wide “detour” via the stunning Leopard Rock Hotel and golf course in the Vumba mountains (Bvumba being the Shona word for mist), past the Chimanimani Mountains on the border with Mozambique where the passes were used by freedom fighters to commute between Zimbabwe and their camps in Mozambique. Land mines laid along these routes continued to be a real hazzard in the area.
A very well known landmark along the road which links Mutare with Masvingo is the Birchenough Bridge which was constructed in 1939 and was the longest single span bridge in the world at that time. To this day it is considered as one of the most impressive architectural designs in Zimbabwe. Along the stretch to Masvingo, the adventure of this trip was again boosted by the several road blocks which we passed through warning us to be careful because of terrorist (freedom fighter) activity in the area.
The road north from Masvingo to Salisbury passes through the town of Enkeldoorn (Chivhu), which has a very interesting history and many stories of characters and events in the area. (The village of Enkeldoorn, which was founded around 1850 was mostly an Afrikaans Community in a predominantly English speaking country. Its history, which includes declaring it a republic on the same day that Rhodesia did the UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independance) makes interesting reading. They even issued their own visas until the British Goverment threatened them by not recognising their independance and that they could be put in jail).
It was however really the western side and northern sides of the country where the main concentration of game and National Parks are found. Not only did parks like the Matopos National Park (Matobo) in the south and Wankie (Whangi) carry impressive concentrations of a large variety of game but back then (the seventies) the Rhodesian Game Park’s accommodation (chalets and lodges) were absolutely immaculate and impressive including the luxury of full time attendants, dressed in starched attire and we would dine at an attractively laid table on a white table cloth.Wonderful! The absolute beauty of the parks, abundance of game and in particular, the quality of the accommodation and the pride with which the friendly attendants serviced it, will be fond memories for ever. If only it could have been maintained, but the freedom war and the anarchic “free for all to supporters of the Mugabe regime” took its toll. During later visits we experienced that, however much the absolutely loyal park staff went out of their way to make our stay wonderful, the parks which once carried one of the largest population of elephants in Africa have a long way on the road to return to its former glory. In addition, in the present political environment, the rate at which such parks could recover would largely depend on funds from outside of Zimbabwe.
This safari also brought us to our first visit to the Victoria Falls.We have visited Vic Falls at various occasions in later years and although the first exposure to it probably made the biggest impression, it is as if over the years the change in atmosphere and the obviously impoverished people, has taken its toll on the peace and tranquility of the early seventies.
Our closest encounter with wild life, however happened outside of a game park while driving through the Zambezi valley to Kariba. The Kariba dam, one of the biggest dams in the world, which was built in the Kariba gorge in the Zambezi valley between Zimbabwe and Zambia during 1955 to 1959 would result in the relocation of 57000 Tonga people and the biggest rescue of (more than 6000) large game in the world through Operation Noah. Most of the game was released into the Matusadona Park on the shores of the lake. This high population of free roaming game along the shores of the lake and Zambezi valley made us aware that there were still large areas of pristine wilderness in Africa, which we would also later experience in several other neighbouring African countries. On a drive along the de-bushed area under the power lines from the Kariba Hydro Electric Scheme we noticed a herd of elephants on the edge of the bush. At times they showed intentions of continuing their journey to the lake, only to stop again. This hesitation clearly was only to become more frustrated with our obstruction of their way and building up enough blood pressure to take action. This was proved by the sudden charge of at least 100 tons of ear flapping terror straight for our car and its contents. I have over the years experienced several mock charges, but this one appeared to have lost the mock. They stopped short of stampeding right over our car – but only just!
From then on towards the middle of 1974 our time to venture into the wild got less as the pressure of winding up my research increased.
Our experiences in Zimbabwe was without doubt the inspiration to later explore Africa to the north of the South African borders, but we now had a very young family and a career to contend with, so that for this and other reasons, including the fact that a South African passport would not be welcome in several African countries until the mid nineties, it had to remain a dream – until later.
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