We agreed
that we shoot off early back to the Manor house and then come back for brunch
but before we left I managed to persuade Ernest to come with me for a quick dip
in the hot spring. I had quickly washed my hair and wanted to rinse it in the
hot water so off we ducked and relaxed in the pool for a while. We had a hard time
pulling ourselves out of the water. The whole spring is lined with these huge
palm nuts palms which are the staple diet of the palm nut vultures that can be
seen in this area.
It was
a half hour drive back to the Manor House; we decided to all squash into the
two cars and leave the truck at the campsite. I think Ernest just couldn't
confront driving Ten ton Tess back down the farm road. I must say driving in
Kim's car was a pleasure, I had forgotten how comfortable a car actually is
compared to the jumping around in the truck. Our seats are on air cushions but
that does not make up for the hard suspension and tires. This truck was built
to be robust and not for comfort and after a full day in the truck I have as
numb a bum as I did on that really bad game drive. We do however have the best
selection of music ever, Lisa downloaded her whole collection onto an I-pod for
us and we travel with music blaring out of the windows in competition to any
local who might be playing any form of music. And when there is a particularly
good cut we even blare it over the Radios between the three cars so they hear
our music whether they want to or not!
Anyway
I digress from the story of the day. We arrived back at the Manor House and
walked up their very long avenue of the oldest gum trees that I have ever seen.
We tried to take photos that would give some idea of the Sheer hugeness of them
but the picture would only go to about half way up the tree. We entered one of
those old metal gates and walked up the manicured pathway and flower beds. No
longer very neat but you could just picture the magnificence of old and at the
front door we were greeted by Charles Harvey, the present owner of the house
and Grandson to Stewart Cor-Brown who built the place.
He told
us a little of the history of the family and that he had farmed down near
Lusaka for 18 years and then when his father and mother had been murdered 14
years ago, he had returned to the old house to restart the farming. They now
have 1600 herd of cattle, a large amount of game, chickens and eggs, all free
range and producing thousands of eggs a day. In fact he told us that apart from
alcohol and soap they were totally self-sufficient on the farm and produced
everything that they needed. They have two children but neither of them are on
the farm but live in Lusaka.
He then
introduced us to Wisdom, the guide for our tour, who is apparently also the
house cook. His Zinglish was even worse than Kenneth so I think we missed a lot
of the history. He started us off in the old Chappell which did have a few
explanation plaques on the wall so we could follow the history. It appeared
that Steward was quite a prominent figure in British history. He was a
lieutenant colonel in the British army during WW2 and many important British
dignitaries visited the farm during the years that he lived there. There were
pictures of 12 British bishops plus the airstrip on the farm was used as a stopover
for the first planes that flew out from England to South Africa ....BOAC. They
used to have an overnight stop at the farm where everyone was wined and dined
and then next morning took off again after a good night’s sleep in a
comfortable bed and a hearty breakfast and a few lines of “God save the King”.
Stewart
had apparently wanted to get married to the love of his life but his Aunt had
forbade the marriage saying that he had not yet made anything of himself or
built up anything to give his wife so he was sent to Africa, borrowed the money
from his Aunt, started the farming activities and built the house. By the time
he got back to England to claim his bride she had already married a doctor and
settled in South Africa. On one of his many trips back to London he found
himself at the funeral of the love of his life (the woman he had wanted to
marry) and her husband. At this funeral was her 17 year old daughter who was
apparently just like her mother. He fell in love again, married her and brought
her out to the Manor house. They had two daughters but she was apparently not a
happy woman, very lonely in this remote part of Zambia.
We were
then taken on a tour of the house and the section which they have turned into a
B&B. The condition of the house was appalling but then I think during his
fathers’ time they had let it go a bit to ruin. The floors are stone and have
become quite uneven and worn. The walls were at least a foot thick and few
windows so it was very dark and dingy inside. The whole house was made out of
local material, all bricks were made on the farm and all wood cut from the
local forests and even the clay roof tiles were made on the farm.
The dining
room had the original dining room table, made from local wood with all the
family silver still intact in the display Cabinets. There were 8 guest bedrooms
and a master bedroom. The upstairs has a very large library
of the most ancient books, things that are very valuable but simply not read in
today's day and age. Like the memoirs and letters of Elizabeth Hague, volume
one and two, whoever the hell she was!
There
were three magnificent gold and silver ornaments which were apparently
presented to Stewart by King George. We were then shown all the family pictures
and then into the lounge where there were some biscuits and tea but our guide,
Wisdom said that we weren't allowed any. However Rouvierre, ever the rebel
helped herself to a biscuit...Oh my god you can't take them anywhere, the shame
of it!
I think
poor old Wisdom tried to get us out of there before anymore of the prize
biscuits disappeared; hell we paid 100 Kwacha each (R250) to see the house, and
you would have thought they would just have given us a cup of tea and a
biscuit. Anyway Wisdom frog marched us out and onto the path to see the old
graves and then bade us a fond farewell. He knew how far it was and wasn't
going to traipse up the hill with us. A good 30 minutes later of a steep uphill
walk and we got to the grave yard!! Shew it was hot and we had no water, this
was the second root march in two days.
Charles'
parents were both buried there and of course they both died on the same day
which now had our curiosity really peeked. We just had to find the reason why
they were murdered. Ernest found a guy who was helping out on the farm and he
told us that they were murdered in South Luangwa Reserve, something to do with
rhino poaching. Same old story it seems, guys high up in the Government of the
day somehow involved and the old couple knew too much and there was a lot of
money passing hands. There seems to be some ANC connection there too as the
money was possibly being used to fund the struggle. Anyway as I say they knew
too much and got wiped out, pretty rough hey!
Then we
went for a bit of a drive around, saw a lot of game, Wildebeest, Letchwe, Puku,
and saw the airstrip where they landed the planes of old. After that we all had
enough and high tailed it back to the hot springs for our slap up brunch,
everyone was moaning about being hungry except Rouvierre of course who had a
biscuit!!
The
afternoon was spent sitting in the warm water until it got just too hot and we
all retreated to the cool shade next to the river.
It was
well worth the time spent and we will be leaving tomorrow.
I am going to send this off now as we will be
out of signal range until we arrive at Isanga Bay.
Signing
off!
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