Video of some short clips from my trip to Kariba in 2009

I only take video when not taking photographs or fishing, so there is plenty that I missed and I just use the video mode on my camera, so sorry for the camera shake! You can take a look at the photos I took on my last trip here: Beautiful Zimbabwe.

Music is “Dreaming” by Bud Cockcroft and has been used with his permission – Go to www.budcockcroft.com for more of his songs and to buy.

I have just returned from my latest visit to Zimbabwe where I had an excellent time catching up with family and friends.

Every-time I go back I am stunned by just how beautiful the country, the people, it’s scenery and the wildlife is. Below are a few of the many, many photos I took either in my parents garden in Harare, at Mazvikadei Dam just outside Banket or on Lake Kariba.

Whilst in Kariba I went to see the dam wall because I knew that they had opened a few gates, I had not however expected to find three gates open! The power of the water coming through is incredible and you could even see the spray rising over the town of Kariba from Antelope Island in the early morning!

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

I hope you enjoy the photos, if you would like to use any please feel free to contact me. Below are a few great Coffee Table type books on Zimbabwe:

The Wankie (Hwange) National Park Beginnings

A story of how Hwange Game reserve begun, taken from “This is our land” by Frank Clements

IT WAS NOT until 1926 that people in Southern Rhodesia (Now Zimbabwe) began talking about establishing a game reserve. The idea was first put forward in the Legislative Assembly by Colonel Boggie in 1927. As a result, Native Commissioners were asked to suggest which tract of country would be most suitable, and it was at last decided to set apart an area of some five thousand square miles lying to the west of the railway between Bulawayo and Livingstone and south of the Deka River. It was called the Wankie Game Reserve, and Mr. Ted Davidson was appointed the first Game Warden.

He established his camp near Dett, and pat-rolled the area by lorry under the guidance of a local hunter, Mr. J. G. Lundin. The season had been very dry and the only game to be seen were a few giraffe and ostriches. Never- theless, Ted,Davidson decided to persevere and his first task was obviously to.provide water. The bushmen were his allies, for they had their secret watering points and knew where under-ground water could be found. Ted Davidson spent years wandering around the unmapped interior. There was so little information about the country that when he was asked by his African assistants where he was going, he usually just said “in that direction” so that he was given the name of Dubanyika, which roughly means “through the country.”

Tsetse fly threatened to invade the reserve from the Sebungwe District, and. they could only be driven off by shooting the game be-tween the Reserve and the Gwaal River, and when a fly-free cordon had been established, the park was opened to visitors in 1932. Contemporary accounts report that they were thrilled, although there was little to see, the game population amounting to something between fifty and one hundred beasts only. However, water supplies and protection Increased the game enormously, and by 1949 rest huts and roads had begun to be built. Most important of all, the reserve boundary ha been extended to the Deka River, thanks the generosity of a farmer, the late H. Robins, who bequeathed his 20,000 acrer to the people of Southern Rhodesia to be game sanctuary. Intervening patches of lan were bought and in 1949 the old reserve a the Robins Game Sanctuary were proclaimed a National Park.

As the game increased, additional wate supplies were built up by the sinkiing of boreholes and the construction of dams. The road system by which tourists were able to reach the best game areas was extended and proved, and recently tar roads have made their appearance.

Ted Davidson relinquished his post as Chief Warden in 1960 after 32 years, for 28 year of Which he was ably assisted by his wife Connie, who spent much of her life on horse back with her husband, observing game, tracking poachers, and mapping the country. Ted himself has now donned a white shirt and colla as Assistant Director of National Parks, an when he did so he left behind him a staff which had grown from one European and ten Africans to eight Europeans and one hundred and fifty Africans, working together to preserve the oldest and still the best-known game sanctuary in Southern Rhodesia.

Taken from “This is our land” by Frank Clements
How Karoi Began

KAROI IS NOW  one of the greatest tobacco- growing areas in the Rhodesias (This article was written before Zimbabwe’s Independence), but for very many years it was regarded as being outside the range of settlement. The two farming pioneers of the area were the brothers Leroux, who settled on a farm they called Karoi (after the nearby river) during the mica boom which made Miami a flourishing settlement in 1921. These brothers were remarkable men; and many are the stories told about them. Carl Leroux, when he knew he was stricken with a fatal disease, ordered his brothers to dig his grave, and calmly sent. into Sinoia for his coffin. After Carl’s death, the farm was abandoned in 1928.

It was ten years later that C.P., better known as “Robble” Robertson, was attracted to the area. A descendant of the 1820 settlers, he settled in Rhodesia and learnt his tobacco growing, alongside the former Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Field, while working for 0. C. Rawson. He was at first refused a land grant on the grounds that the area was too ridden with tsetse fly to be suitable for settlement, but, as was the old Rhodesian custom, he sat In the Minister’s office, until . . . although not in so many words . . . he was told to push off and help himself.

He set the boundaries of his own farm, next to the Leroux’s original property and called it Buffalo Downs. Although game then abounded, the name came from his favourite of three dogs, called Jumbo, Hippo and Buffalo. “Robbie” Robertson planted his first crop of 100 acres of tobacco in 1939, and his crop in 1940 caused such a sensation that it was mentioned in Parliamentary debates. His yield was over 1,000 Ibs. to the acre-almost double the then normal-and sold for the price of 8d. a lb. over average.

Apart from a wry comment by the then Minister of Finance that a special supertax should be introduced for that sort of thing, the authorities were quick to see how this pioneering effort could be turned to the national advantage. A few other farmers were granted land during the war years, and the whole area previously believed as being too unhealthy an area for farming was surveyed.

Karoi came to be one of the most successful land settlement areas immediately after the war and its real opening up began in 1947. First known as the Urungwe Area, it appropriately became called Karoi, after the Leroux’s original farm, which, also appropriately, “Robble” Robertson later added to his own property, as a result of an accidental meeting in a bar with Leroux’s executor.

Were it not for the pioneering example of the two old Leroux brothers, and the persistance and immediate success of the man who followed them, Karoi with its over three hundred successful farmers might still be one of the undeveloped instead of one of the most prosperous and enterprising areas.