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Memories of Rhodesia

The Road to a New Life . . .

I had just turned eleven when we crossed the over the Limpopo River to start our new life in Rhodesia. The year was 1969, it was just before Christmas and, for me at least, it was a great adventure.

We traveled in convoy, my father, brother, sister and two basset hounds in the car in front with my mother and me in her newly acquired bright red Triumph Spitfire bringing up the rear, I felt special to have my mum all to myself, lighting her cigarettes and pouring her cups of coffee from the big shiny new flask at my feet.

I don't remember much of the actual border crossing. It was raining and I remember being told that the swollen river flowing angrily under the bridge was known as the great, grey, greasy, Limpopo River' and that, as far as my mother was concerned, it was the last frontier of civilisation as she knew it!

Originally a strip road, by 1969 the main Beit Bridge to Salisbury road had been improved by the filling in of the area between the strips and the addition of a new surface. The history of the underlying strips could still be read in places where the new tar had cracked away from the harder surface underneath. I remember looking at the thin ribbon of road stretching into the distance and wondering what happened when a car came from the other direction. I also remember being quite astonished when the inevitable happened and we had to pull over to the left, leaving only one set of wheels on the tar and the other on the dirt shoulder of the road to make room for the two cars to pass each other.

Crossing a flooded low level bridge was quite exciting for an eleven year old, especially in a Spitfire with very low clearance! As we crept slowly across the bridge I remember leaning out the window and watching the water level rising slowly higher and higher until it started to seep in under the door, never doubting for one moment my mother's ability to get us to the other side or thinking of the possibility of the car being swept off the bridge into the fast flowing river. In retrospect, I can only admire my mother's calm and determined 'attack' of that bridge. At no time did she imply anything but a cool control of the situation and a confidence that we would make it to the other side. She must have been quaking inside, once committed there was no turning back!

I remember rain! Lots and lots of rain and with it, lots of mud. We had arrived at the beginning of the rainy season and it seemed to rain continuously

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