Hello

Here are some more photos which you may find interesting. They are scanned so the quality is not that great, but I'm sure some of you will appreciate them. No set topic, just random pictures. I wanted to post others (particularly of Clem Coetsee), but sadly we had a power surge and the printer blew up.
Most of these pictures were taken in the 80s and 90s, when my family lived on Ruware in the Chiredzi Conservancy. A little known fact about the Chiredzi Conservancy is that it was the first conservation area of its kind in Zim - established before the bigger and more well known conservancies. Founder members were my dad (Ruware), the Style family (Buffalo Range) and Tore Ballance (Mungwezi). Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Dave


Elephant translocation exercise carried out in Gonarezhou by the late Clem Coetsee. I must say that although I have come across many admirable people in mylife, Clem Coetsee ranks right at the top of that list. What a man he was. To my knowledge, Clem Coetsee shot more elephant than any man who ever lived - I believe about 12000. He also did more more for elephant than any man who ever lived. You and I can understand that, just hard for the misinformed to make sense of it.
Clem is the guy in the green hat and Tore Ballance is the guy with no hat and lots of hair. Clem and Tore were both in Parks for many years.




Going down













Tore Ballance and drugged ele. The ear is shielding its exposed eye from the sun







Clem and Tore in action. I wonder how many elephants, alive and dead, Clem leaned on in his life? Unfortunately the printer blew up before I could scan better pictures of Clem, but I'll get around to it some time







Capturing undrugged calf



Small but incredibly strong




Clem's trucks loaded with elephants and heading off to the Save Conservancy




Rhino Boma, Ruware






Construction of buffalo paddock fence on Ruware. I can't tell you how many hundreds of kilometers of perimeter/buffalo fencing my dad and his guys put up over the years









Temporary buffalo boma




Reintroducing buffalo to the lowveld, 1992
















The rest of the pictures are of my family 'and other animals', except for a couple which I'll explain




Many moons ago - my brother Jonathan, my cousin Thomas and I. We lived a carefree existence back then




Dad sharing his grub with the zebra




My sister Janna and sister-in-law Nina with bushpig orphans






Janna and cousin Tom chilling with Hamish and Hernia




Mum and Kenwood






Mum and Ottie




This has to be edible!




This certainly is!




Puffadder, yikes!




Off to duiker heaven




Meg the gun dog




My brother with Phylis Tucker and her lion, and PH Dzingai Makoni, in the early years of his hunting career




My brother Jonathan with the award for the best PH on the proficiency exam




Ruware: Chehondo plain by moonlight




Here's an interesting one. Seen in this photo are Jimmy Whittall (Roger's father) and my grandfather, Walter (Boof) Bridges, in 1950, on the the Sabi River. Jimmy is standing by the cab, and Boof is sitting in the back with the kids. Those kids are assorted Whittalls and Bridges, and somewhere in there are Roger and Richard, and my aunts and uncles. My mum was only one year old then probably didn't accompany this outing!

Great pics and thanks for sharing. Zim was a remarkable place at that time.

Once again, outstanding!

All of these wonderful photos really need to be archived somewhere. I know they're family memories but they are also a treasure for all of us who have a love of African hunting and long for the days represented in this collection.

Great pictures and a good story, must been a lot of fun growing up in Africa.

Is this the Jonathan Hulme of todays "Zambezi Hunters?"

Wonderful stuff! thanks for sharing.

Most excellent pictures!

I am glad you like the pictures, thanks for the comments. The 80s and 90s in this country truly was a remarkable time and we were blessed to experience it.

quote:

Originally posted by Pegleg:
Is this the Jonathan Hulme of todays "Zambezi Hunters?"

Pegleg: Yes, the very Jonathan Hulme. Then he worked for ZH and now he is the owner.

Dave

I have a safari upcoming is September of 09 scheduled through Mark Young of Adams Clements Safaris,( who has been absolutely great to work with and a tremendous amount of help)with Zambezi Hunters. It just keeps getting better. This is truly an inspiration. Thank you so much for the posting and history!
Pegleg

What a life!

Really cool pics !

I could spend hours looking at pics like this. What an incredible place to grow up in!!!

Keith

Great stuff mate, keep em coming.

Fantastic!

Dave thanks for the pictures,they are very nice.

Dave, thanks so much for posting your family photos. These are just wonderful. The memories have to be bittersweet for you now. It was a charmed life for the kids for sure.

David, your photos are so wonderfully nostalgic that it almost hurts to see them.

They are a great record, and a great testament, to good times gone by. Thanks for sharing them with us.

Get that printer sorted out and post some more. Wonderfull photos.

That is really neat. Thank you.