Here is a shot of Kariba dam wall. The concrete arch dam across the Zambezi River at Kariba Gorge, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe was completed in 1959, the structure is 420 feet (128 m) high with a crest 1,899 feet (579 m) in length and a volume of 1,032,000 cubic meters. The dam created Lake Kariba, and it supplied some 6,700,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, generated by Kariba North
Bank and South Bank companies (Zambia and Zimbabwe, respectively although this is no longer a true representation due to the state of dis-repair and chronic neglect.You can see the six sluice gates at the centre. Its creation required the resettlement of more than 30,000 Batonka tribespeople of Zambia and the evacuation of
thousands of wild animals ("Operation Noah").
Here is one of the many baobab trees at Kariba. This one is not particularly big but they are very interesting though. The locals believe that they were planted by God in anger, which is why they are upside down.
There used to be may elephant in the Kariba area, I have no idea what the population is now as poaching reached endemic proportions. We stopped by the side of the road to take a few shots of this bull.
Kariba also has a pretty largeAfrican fish eagle population. These amazing birds have a beautifuly haunting cry that carries for miles across the lake and is one of the 'true' sounds of Africa. They spend more time perched than flying, they are are monogamous and are believed to mate for life. Pairs generally remain within sight of each other for most of the day, and are intensely territorial.
We used to have a small flock of about 12 of these helmeted guinea fowl which we kept for eggs. They are terratorial and surprisingly aggresive when they have young (called 'keets') and are also very noisy at times. I miss the sound.
We were fortunate enough to walk with lions while we were in Gwelo (now Gweru) and this is a shot of the three we went for a late afternoon walk with. You can just see my shadow in the bottom of the picture while I was framing the shot.
Another shot, this time they were walking ahead of us and had stopped to let us catch up!
I have been fortunate enough to indulge one of my hobbies on a reasonable grand scale. Here I am setting up some samll 3" mortars for a display to celebrate the openeing of Sougthgate in South Africa.
There were 4 of these banks, the largest of these were for some multibreak 12" shells. The firing panel used here was homebuilt and worked perfectly. The tubes with foil covers have been completed and 'sealed off' in case of rain.
