SOUTH AFRICA
We flew into Johannesburg on time and once we’d been
processed and collected our luggage we made for the new Gauteng train. Our eyes
searching for any sign indicating its direction as we wearily made our way
along interminable corridors- Lea’s ears heard her name being shouted. Normally
she’d keep going as ‘lee’ ends so many words- Fortunately she turned and waving
madly was Cousin Pene and Rob Mills, waiting at the arrival barrier. It was an
amazing relief to be whisked out of the airport in our mindless state and, in
next to no time we were in Boskruin.
Rapidly, George was zoomed through appointments with doctor
and specialists and as that first week ended, George was out of hospital in the
wonderfully recuperating and caring hands of all at Heritage Rock. Of course,
he expected to come out of hospital as good as new instead he staggered out
very feak and weeble and it was
actually a full month before he felt himself again.
Despite Cousin Pene being in much demand as a Life Alignment
Practitioner and Complementary Healer and Rob caught up in mining consulting
and his Greek Cultural History – their household was always relaxed and
peaceful and these two were always ready to make a plan and see to our needs.
We felt very cosseted. Pene also teaches Alignment Therapy and Lea was most
curious to learn more about her passion. On the day her students arrived Pene’d
asked Lea to be the guinea pig!
Nervously Lea stretched out on the plinth not knowing what was expected of her.
Calmness soon took over under Penny’s voice and she was quite shaken when her
arms and upper body were assailed by jolting shocks leaving her feeling tired
but strangely at peace afterwards. She certainly slept better thereafter.
Bathroom Scales! Eagerly we jumped on. What a bonus for Lea.
She hadn’t registered that low in almost thirty years. She even weighed one
kilogram less than George who naturally was bones tied up in skin after Niassa. Our first ablutions were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
Washing the river out of our hair and suddenly feeling a silky smoothness was
bliss too. Since Pene knew a hairdresser working from home Lea decided that
for a change, she would have her hair cut professionally. Debbie’s little salon
was decorated with dragons and other mystical things so when she asked if she
could keep the 20 centimetres of hair she was about to cut off in one swoop-
Lea jokingly asked if it was for sticking needles in ... Even better! It was to go the Cancer Society
as they are always after real hair and it’s not often someone has a suitable
length cut off. That made haircutting very worthwhile.
George’s close friendship with Alan Kemp dates back to school
at Peterhouse followed by university – where Meg joined them so it was a
specially fine occasion catching up with them over Sunday lunch as soon as George felt up to it. Last time we saw these
dear friends was back in Darwin in 2000.
As soon as the first health check was over; George assured
his recovery was on track; Pene rearranged her working schedule and we eagerly
set off for Mpumalanga where Pene had designed a very special home on the
Walkerston Estate situated just outside Dullstroom (a misnomer in reality as it
is far from DULL!) within the Drakensberg Mountain Range. Over these last few years we’d read much in
the Mills letters about the planned retirement house, the mosaic work Pene had
undertaken in all three showers while the house was under construction. And,
we’d seen some of Pene’s landscape paintings of the property when she passed
through Perth in 2009. Thus, we couldn’t wait to
see it for ourselves, especially as George had the added incentive to get out
into the field and paint with Penny.
We’d been warned of the fearsome cold and winds that blow
through that area and tried to come prepared for the worst. We had beautiful
weather bar the day of our wedding anniversary when we had arranged to celebrate
with dinner out, in Dullstroom. As the day wore on we grew ever more reluctant
to leave the house as we'd woken to a thick mist enveloping the valley and it continued to
hang heavily throughout the day cutting off all views beyond our noses. The
fire was kept well stoked and there was plenty to keep us busy and content. Each
window ledge around the house is steadily being personalised with mosaic
artwork by family. George was only too delighted to learn a new craft, design a
snake and prepare tiles in readiness for transportation to one of the sitting
room windows out on the verandah. Come evening, there was no change in the
weather and Pene assured us it was probably localised and once we climbed out
of the valley would be fine. Up the steep and narrow winding road taking us to
the main road we crawled, only to find no change all fifteen or so kilometres
to Dullstroom that we could be forgiven for thinking there was a power outage
as not a light could be seen anywhere. Scary, under these circumstances
especially knowing South Africa’s notoriously high accident rates!
Never-the-less we all enjoyed the warmth and ambiance of a large fire burning
brightly in a hotel pub without having to lift a finger and we got home safely
afterwards. The next day wasn’t quite as bad and by noon the mists had lifted
and soon burnt off. While Sunday dawned with quite the most perfect day that we
just could NOT leave and let it go to waste...
Three days and the job
was done - we had needed Sunday!
We drove to the highest point of Walkerston Estate and walked across the mountain top seeing springbok, blesbok and zebra as we went to look down upon the picturesque estate.
We were most averse to leaving Kingfisher Croft but back we
had to GO... As we travelled the three hours back to Boskruin and Rob, we
couldn’t help grateful contemplation over our amazing good fortune to have
‘family’ such as these two, rescue us during a time of need, so efficiently and
superbly. Taking us in very unexpectedly
for three and a half weeks is no mean feat. We found it particularly hard to
part from them as it was time we returned to our original itinerary.
Jeanette and Alan Boland collected us from Boskruin instead
of the Gautrain, as had been the original plan all those months ago. Health
problems have severely harassed these two, particularly this year. Jan, or ‘Scottie’
as Lea has always called her, arrived in Southern Rhodesia, as it was then,
during their Std 7 year and sat beside Lea at Alfred Beit School leaving her totally
baffled by a broad Glaswegian accent! “What language do you speak?” - “Scottish” was her reply and hence her name. They
re-met years later at Teacher’s College, not only sharing a room in their first
year they maintained a deep friendship thereafter. It was heart warming to be
able to share a quiet couple of days with her while Alan kindly taxied George
off to surgeon and urologist for final clearance to travel. Alan also dropped
us off for morning tea with Rod and Gill Zank, enabling us to bring them up to
speed with our joint family in Niassa. Then it was departure time for
Zimbabwe... Again, Alan helped us through the station rigmarole in Sandton. The
Gautrain was impressive as it zipped
us through to Oliver Tambo International Airport providing smooth, swift
transport rather than the likely delays of road traffic.
Zimbabwe
Luggage had to be removed from the hold for ‘no show’
passengers and ‘lost’ flight papers, of all things, held up our flight for
close on an hour before our plane was finally able to prepare for takeoff.
Further delays took place in Harare with a long slow visa queue and we emerged
into a mass of white robed Johan the Baptist devotees waiting to greet their
guests from Eritrea, on the same flight as us.
In all this congestion we weren’t sure where to find the Osterbergs so
while Lea looked after the luggage George took walks from end to end in the
arrival hall and popped outside at intervals until he struck lucky and spotted
an agitated JG before all was finally A for away. They had flown into Harare an
hour before our scheduled arrival after three months away to find No Power in Newlands. We soon learnt
power outages occurred every day for a good many hours. We just had to become
accustomed to the sequencing and daily durations and ‘make a plan’. That night we simply went out for Portuguese peri-peri chicken
at Paula’s. The first of many meals
we were to eat there during our stay as not only was it deliciously reasonable,
the staff excellent. To add further inconvenience and headaches for our hosts,
the phone and internet systems were unreliable and worse, the geyser was found
to be leaking and during the many efforts to have it repaired the wind lifted
the ladder off the roof and cracked four tiles. The swings and roundabouts of
power blackouts created problems with hot water and we just had to laugh at the
absurd way of life most Zimbabweans patiently deal with. JG used the line ‘Change and decay in all around I see’ – the sad words used by
Scottish Anglican priest Henry Francis Lyte, before he died of tuberculosis
three weeks after completing his famous hymn Abide With Me. They were so horridly appropriate that they hauntingly
hummed through our heads on all too many occasions as we travelled the majority
of suburban roads almost potholed out of existence, in this much loved country
of birth and youth.
Lea’s ears pricked up at the mention of church at Arundel -
her old senior school. On querying why JG and Lynne go across the city to
attend at Arundel rather than familiar Avondale's St Mary Magdalene, we learnt
one of Mugabe’s political priests resides there!
Arundel Chapel is no
longer the “Upper Room” of my day and it was good to return and wander amongst
the pink building with Lynne after nearly 50 years away and yet all my happy
recollections flooded back, as if it was yesterday.
With Arundel School on the brain, Lea caught up with her
close friend Penny Robb, nee Lilford one afternoon and Pene had a most special
gift awaiting ‘Dusty Road’ – A taste of
farm life and living in Zimbabwe, a book written by her niece, Sarah
Lilford, who grew up on Mvuramachena Farm
built by her grandparents and where Lea spent some incredibly happy school
holidays and half terms over the years with Penny, her parents Jack and Jessie
Lilford and brothers Dave and Steve. Sarah’s mother, the late Mary Lilford nee Brown was
also at Arundel and Mary and Lea were in the school swimming team together.
This book, bursts with gorgeous glossy pictures, delicious recipes and the
Family Trees remind Lea of all, whose lives touched hers – not to mention
the links to her father as he was an old Prunian boy along with many Lilfords.
Mostly, the words and pictures about Mvuramachena
Farm out there in Horseshoe Block (Umvukwe Sipolilo area) raised a multitude of memories
to stir Lea’s senses.
We tracked down Scott and Toni Honey - who whisked us off for a peri-peri lunch on the edge of the city but come dawn on the 30th August, we took the once very familiar Lomagundi road to Kariba paying two toll taxes of one US dollar along the road. We’d been warned of many Police blocks but we encountered none as we passed through Banket, Chinoyi with a pit stop outside Karoi at the Twin Rivers Motel. Obviously a popular stopover although the motel wasn’t doing a roaring business only the loo! Thanks to JG’s inimitable way, we were soon chatting to Kirsty Coventry, the Zimbabwean backstroke Olympic Gold medallist in the company of renowned silversmith Patrick Mavros’ two sons, who kindly gave us a ‘yabby’ trap for the freshwater crayfish that now inhabit the lake. At Makuti we kept going north to just beyond Marangora, as on board were the ashes of Peter Begg, George’s brother along with a plaque from his daughters to be placed at the lookout over the Zambezi Valley and the road to Mana Pools, before turning back up the escarpment riddled with wreckage from ill-fated trucks that had come to grief on those steep inclines. Back at Makuti we turned onto the Kariba road loaded with many memories from the past. Merely talking about them seemed to cut the journey by half and we were soon in sight of the vast expanse of Lake Kariba.
It was glorious to be back in this idyllic environment despite incredibly hazy skies. Actually, we’d encountered this haziness from the first moment we
flew over Zimbabwean territory into Harare, which was caused in most parts by the many
fires burning throughout the country. Aside from the haze, lake conditions were perfect; not too hot either. We’d spent
eight years living in Kariba, which naturally evoked many recollections from
one end to the other of what was once the largest man-made lake in the world
and we felt an overwhelming sense of pleasure to be back in this very place where
we began our first jobs – as a limnologist and a teacher. Much as we wished to
ignore the town’s matchmakers our relationship also began and the rest, as they say
became our history!
To the calls of the fish eagles RELAX we did... Five nights
out on the lake and five different environments made up our lake tour. Wonderful
days watching the scenery pass; plenty of napping; the inevitable eating - with
Lynne’s very generous catering and Ben the Chef’s delicious productions out of
the galley there was no consideration given to waistlines and very little
exercise to be had aboard KALAI. And, JG always ensured folk had a glass in hand – what a life!
In the last glowing light of sunset the tenders would return
and as that in itself was thirsty work, we’d retire to the top deck to convivially
quench thirsts and pig out of on biltong, sometimes a hippo would add a grunted
chuckle to our conversations, other times large crocs would nonchalantly glide
past our paradise.
Wonderful sightings of elephant and hippo, baboons too kept us entertained us with their hilarious
antics and we saw plenty of impala, some kudu, even a large croc lying on the shore, allowed
us to approach closely. Another evening
as the light fell and the tender turned for home, an unexpected sound had us
all whip round in time to see a lioness giving a croc a little rev! As she
sauntered back up the undulating bank we realised she was one of a large pride
of ten, including teenage cubs, resting imperiously on a slight rise. What a
bonus! We could so easily have missed these well camouflaged beasts. Alas, bad
light prevented Chris, on his first visit to Africa and equipped with a 500m
zoom telephoto lens and image stabiliser, to capture the lions on camera.
During an afternoon’s game viewing trip in the vicinity of
the Chura River we came across an old elephant carrying very large tusks – the
straightest of which almost touched the ground. This time it was the density of
the bushes he was feeding in that prevented Chris from getting good photos. Shortly
after leaving the next morning on our way to Gordon’s Bay, we spotted the old
fella feeding out on the lake shore. All it took thereafter was a quick trip
inshore on one of the tender boats to secure the photo shown below.
With wind showing signs of getting up
we left Gordon’s Bay early next day, passing Fothergill Island (the safari camp
there now deserted / closed) and headed for the Sanyati Gorge, one of George’s
most hallowed grounds, that he was keen to spend our last night there. In
recent years one pays for the privilege of visiting the Sanyati and as we were
to discover, literally pay through the nose! George and JG jumped in a tender
and went to the tiny National Park’s hut on the shoreline to pay the fees
required where they found they first had to beat a rusty old 44gal drum to
alert the “receiver of revenue”. While JG went through the schedule of prices with
the Ranger – fees for each person aboard, fees for each boat, fees for fishing
and fees for staying overnight ... all adding up to US$260 just to spend the night in the gorge never
mind the park fees we’d already paid before leaving Andora Harbour! The ranger couldn’t help but notice George’s
‘body language’ as he sat stiffly in the tender listening in disgust. Fortunately
JG’s Dale Carnegie skills lightened the moment and they ‘merely’ paid US$45 for
us all to go up the Sanyati Gorge for little over an hour in a tender boat,
after KALAI had tied up in Seiche Tower Bay
where George had once put up a field station for himself - this was no longer
in existence. Other than a few fishermen (probably poachers) there wasn’t a boat
to be seen in the Sanyati and the upper reaches of the gorge proved inaccessible due to a
thick mat of water hyacinth.
‘Sanyati George of the Gorge’ demonstrated his fitness and agility climbing up the rocky waterfall. A
few memorial plaques are fastened to the rock face of this Sanyati landmark where
George too, would like his ashes scattered. Captain Dan paid due attention. 
Nearing Antelope Island we were
astounded at the extent of the bream (T.
nilotica) cage-culture industry – a huge investment made by a company
called Lake Harvest that export the frozen fillets overseas. There were also
numerous sardine rigs all over the place – some tucked away in small bays; others
anchored offshore and as the sun set, a flurry of slow moving rigs chugged past
us. We camped for the night in a small bay to Antelope Island where just
through the trees we could see a large troop of baboons at play in an obvious
clearing and, more interestingly a large sign ‘Feeding Station’. Our curiosity was
resolved when shortly after docking, a boat arrived with bales of hay, molasses
and bags of ground feed. A total lack of grass covering has resulted in this
special feeding station for the fourteen buffalo residing on the island.
Although the baboons had retreated to
the sidelines they were, never-the-less, seasoned snatchers ready to grab
anything worth eating. Temba had gathered a small supply of stones at the prow
just in case these incorrigible creatures came our way. An elephant joined the feeding throng and all
spent the rest of the afternoon feeding in front of us. That night, we were
amazed to see the crew painstakingly chaining together the boats and outboard
motors with padlocks. Such was their
fear of theft they warned us to safely put away our personal possessions and the
fishing rods. Proximity to the mainland apparently entices thieves to slip across
the waters during the night and rob houseboats. Over ‘sundowners’ we gazed across
at the wide spread glittering lights of Kariba town and on retiring we took
precautions. All went well for our last night.
Once our long awaited trip on the lake was over, JG oversaw
the refuelling / unpacking of the KALAI while
the rest of us took a speedy trip down memory lane; a drive around Kariba
township (like Rome, it was constructed over seven hills) to show Chris the
tourist sights: the dam wall (from the observation point); Kariba Heights, the
residential area and the houses we had once occupied. To our shock and regret
the once thriving “CBD” as we knew it
with its Heights Hotel, Post Office, the banks and especially the shopping centre looked
horribly run down, dirty and semi-deserted. The Catholic Church as a memorial
to the Italians who lost their lives during the building of the dam wall seemed
well cared for and the Country Club with its adjoining outdoor cinema looked as
if it’d recently been given a coat of pale green paint; the two bowling greens
had understandably, certainly passed their glory days . Perhaps a sign of the
times as well as an eyesore was a relatively new boundary fence running from
the shops, past the greens and across the cinema parking lot to the cinema
building itself. Rubbish was strewn along its length, some of which had been
burnt in an attempt to eradicate it. SAD but true there is a season for
everything! The waters of the open lake may still be in much the same condition
as we knew it, but the adjoining lands definitely not so and the line from Abide with Me played on...
Six up in
the car, large suitcases and essentials for the return journey had JG
hyperventilating for days in the lead up but all slotted in well and Lynne, in
her quiet way took the squeeze in the jump seat encircled by all the baggage
and knitted her way home. Police in evidence along the route back to Harare but
we were not held up and made the journey in good time.
Leecy was keen to fast track Chris through her early life
growing up in Zimbabwe. In true Zimbabwean spirit we ‘made a plan’ when our
first day’s schedule was disrupted as she required a medical jab in her rear to
stop a bad bout of vomiting and dehydration especially as we had a mob of old
friends gathering for fillet steak and boerewors
braaivleis (wonderfully decadent)
that evening. Di and Tim Tanser, Dave and Lyn Mills, Pud and Heather Godden and
Hilary Middleton gathered for a noisily happy evening together – camera somehow forgotten about unfortunately! The following day Lynne was made designated driver for the barmy
road rules that exist around town as a result of road ruts and robots that
don’t work and we set off on a sentimental morning...
Much was packed into the remaining hours and before we could blink JG was whipping Chris and Leecy out to the
airport to continue their holiday in South Africa and we were packed ready for
collection and our last weekend with Hilary Middleton, Lea’s close shamwari
from Teacher’s College and the teachers’ house, Kariba –where so many tales
grew into mythology! To lessen the sorrow of parting, Hilary invited the
Osterbergs to her Saturday night braai.
Hil’s Brother Ray, Tracey and son Kieran also joined us, as did niece
Tracey, Grant and their twins from Mozambique staying with Hilary on the
enormous and beautiful property or classy commune, belonging to her youngest brother Alistair and
Ashley Middleton. We all talked nineteen
to the dozen of course!
Despite everything Zimbabwe still gripped our hearts and
holds a big part of our history. To be back was special and we were glad to
have had the opportunity of returning and reliving the changing leaves of the M’sasa
, the red blooms on the Erythrina and of course, the many memories wrapped up
in the country.
We flew back
to Johannesburg for our last three nights in Africa with more dear friends from
our Kariba days- Jan and Jean de Waal.
An empty
packet on the bedroom floor had our hearts lurch- what happened to the 500g of
biltong? Next day, Quiara, the young German shepherd gave the game away when she
left bad odours in her trail... Jan had to reinforce her training ‘not to eat
any food unless she is given her code word’!
Our time in
Africa was up and once again we were in the bitter sweet position of saying
goodbye to dear friends while excitement was building up for England and the
long awaited visit to Justine, Dan and their trio Otto, Roo and Kiki. Thanks to
Lynne de Waal, a Travel Consultant who kindly confirmed our flight bookings and
pre-booked seats for us. It was our best flight ever as we had plenty of room
for our legs!
“A
journey is best measured in
friends, rather than miles”
