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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 23, 2018 7:59:20 GMT 2
the thing is, there was no way in to the conical structures nor openings of any sort. I don't know if they were solid or hollow and I couldn't work out what they were for, unless you put a ladder up against to get to the top and used it as like a watch tower.
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Post by Voy on Oct 23, 2018 14:49:05 GMT 2
very strange ! and thanks for the answer, and - for the whole thing !
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Post by slowcoach on Oct 25, 2018 10:19:21 GMT 2
There is a main building with bar and restaurant, with a few rooms set out in the gardens and dotted about. Imagine an old English pub trading on past times but with a lot of character. In Africa you can imagine all the Percy’s and Algernon’s, the disgraced third sons of the hoi polloi, propping up the bar talking about how you cannot get the staff nowadays to run your farm whilst their wives are having an affair with the rake from Italy who is just ‘passing through’. Latterly, I have heard the term hoi polloi used in the sense you have more often than it meaning quite the opposite. "Hoi Polloi" (Ancient Greek for "The Many") , "The Common People" , "The Plebs", etc.,
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Post by slowcoach on Oct 25, 2018 11:30:12 GMT 2
Callum McKenzie drew up simple plans on a cigarette packet (maybe, maybe not but it adds to a good story) and the place was built within two years by, and it surprised me a bit to find out, but by Italian POWs, and opened in 1946.
They would be of the Italian 10th Army.
I just got to the bit in "The World at War" where almost the entire army (> 130,000 troops) surrendered to British Army raiding parties in the Western Desert.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 13:19:30 GMT 2
Slow, I think you are right. It was my misuse of the word. My excuse is I was writing it quickly and got the opposite meaning.
Italian tanks had one forward gear and seven reverse - apparently.
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Post by auntieannie on Oct 25, 2018 13:25:12 GMT 2
umh... I had only seen "hoi polloi" referring to the few /rich before Slow set us right. I guess somewhere, sometime, someone, misused it and now some haven't done the work of looking for its meaning before using it.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 14:59:37 GMT 2
I think we knew what I meant. It's the thought that counts.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 15:02:11 GMT 2
As for painting a picture...... we made our way the next day to Bulawayo. We were to have a night here in a nice hotel, but we called for a late breakfast first at a cafe called the Indaba Book Cafe. “Indaba” means conference, where/when things of importance are discussed, that sort of thing. It was interesting and had good decor with numerous pictures from local artists. A place students would hang out - The experience was soured somewhat, though the food and drink was good, in that no sooner had we finished nearly, the waitress came and started clearing up and cleaning/wiping the table. Mrs M asked her if she’d been instructed to do this. Yes, was the reply, standard procedure from the (white) owner. She didn’t want anyone hanging around all day one on cup of coffee. Considering Mrs M had not finished hers anyway, she told the waitress to come back when she had. We could see though the girl watching us and as soon as Mrs M put the mug to her lips for a final slurp, the waitress moved towards us. It was not her fault at all, she was just wanting to keep her job. I, as usual, wanted to ‘speak’ with the owner woman who I could see behind the counter to clarify her policy. Mrs M dragged me away. The hotel we stayed at, built in a Tudor style, was the Cresta Churchill - www.crestahotels.com/hotels/cresta-churchill/
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 15:11:56 GMT 2
Quite a reasonable hotel, it had a dress code for dinner, and not that old but well maintained. Part of a chain. I only took a quick picture of the pool - Our room was room only, no breakfast, and as it was $25 USD each, we gave it a miss and went to another cafe in Bulawayo. Friendly and good food, called Middy’s. I’d go there again. I’d managed to fill up with fuel again after looking all doe-eyed at a woman petrol station attendant. Mrs M wasn’t with me, she was having a snooze at the hotel whilst I nipped out to see if I could get any. I saw the station was empty of cars but there were two female attendants standing and chatting near the pumps. I pulled up and asked if they had any fuel. They hesitated. They had seen me in a Zambian registered car as I slowly pulled in. I told the one who looked more in charge the following story - I’ve just this morning driven down from Zambia as my wife is in hospital here (Bulawayo) because she was hit by a taxi. She is being released tomorrow and I need to get her home where she wants to be, back to our family, but I don’t now have enough petrol to get all the way there and across the border - pause for sad expression. Where can I get some? Do you have any? I will pay with American dollars. It worked. She unlocked the pumps and filled me up. I’m shocking really. Next stop, next day, was a hilltop. Made of granite. Cecil John Rhodes........ you’ve heard of him? One of the most controversial figures in history. Born in 1853 and died in 1902 and was buried in Zimbabwe. Apparently he did well to live forty eight years as he was often sickly, but he was a proponent of the Cape to Cairo railway, going through British territory, which was one of his objectives. He lived in the times of when the British Empire in Africa was at its height and the railway was only a small part of what he achieved and wished to achieve. There is far too much written about him that is able to be summarised other than to say he was a mining magnate, a businessman and a politician. Any of these fields could have been minor but he always thought big, for example, he established De Beers mining company which at one time had control over 100% of the diamond market. Currently it is at 35%. But, just to point out where he stood and his principles, he stated that the Anglo-Saxon race was, "the first race in the world" and, "the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race" plus that he describing the black population as largely "in a state of barbarism" and should be governed as a "subject race". He never married, pleading too much work to do so, however, I bet he liked kittens, so he couldn’t be all bad. He is buried in the Matopo Hills in Zimbabwe, to the south of Bulawayo, as per his wishes in his will at a place on a hill he called the “View of the World.” A few times demands have been made for its removal, once citing that it caused bad weather in the area, but even when Mugabe loyalists also made the demand, Mugabe himself refused due to its historical significance. On a more personal note, I stood in the footsteps and actually the motorbike tracks of my father. I was in Bulawayo many years ago, I went a few times, but had never been to Rhodes grave site. I phoned my parents to tell them I was fit and well, as I did periodically but as my mother said, “Not often enough.” That time my father answered the phone and I told him where I was. He asked if I’d been to the grave. I replied in the negative and he happened to then drop into the conversation that he had. I expressed surprise. Not wanting me to use up a lot of money on the call he said he’d tell me about it when I next came home. So when I did, I asked him about it. Towards the end of WWII my father was in the Royal Air Force. He had joined in Kenya and part of his training was done in Bulawayo (by the time he eventually did complete his training the war had just ended). He borrowed a friend’s motorbike one weekend and rode to the grave site. Seeing as it was up a large hilly rock, which he couldn’t be bothered to climb, he rode up it to the top and parked his bike next to the grave. Apparently he then had a cigarette and rode back down again and back to the city. I always remembered this and when I managed to visit a few days ago, I made a pretence of looking for his tyre tracks. Mrs M thought I was mad. Made me feel better though. Two other men are buried up there, contemporaries of Rhodes. Sir Leander Starr and Sir Charles Coghlan. I found one of the graves but not the other. Both were also historical figures from Zimbabwe’s past -
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 15:13:15 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 15:15:08 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 15:16:51 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 15:18:27 GMT 2
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Post by Baz Faz on Oct 25, 2018 19:04:53 GMT 2
The rocks are strange. I wonder how they got there. It seems so unlikely that everything eroded round them.
BTW the correct collective term for a bunch of schoolgirls is a Giggle of schoolgirls. Perhaps someone knows what it id for boys.
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Post by shrjeff on Oct 25, 2018 19:32:06 GMT 2
The rocks are strange. I wonder how they got there. It seems so unlikely that everything eroded round them. BTW the correct collective term for a bunch of schoolgirls is a Giggle of schoolgirls. Perhaps someone knows what it id for boys. agree, 'id' for a bunch of boys sounds about right...
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 25, 2018 19:45:40 GMT 2
Any geologists on here?
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Post by auntieannie on Oct 25, 2018 20:55:44 GMT 2
I've seen that kind of rock formation in India somewhat halfway between Bangalore and Hyderabad. But I'm no geologist.
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Post by sophie on Oct 26, 2018 6:10:39 GMT 2
Thanks for the wonderful memories. I loved that area and Bulawayo, and remember seeing Rhodes’ grave. Great story about your dad.
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Post by slowcoach on Oct 26, 2018 6:40:30 GMT 2
About 10 minute walk from here:
It is also granite, and there are single boulders and salients as there are in your images. It is erosion, I am sure, but not of softer non-granitic rocks but of weaknesses in the granite itself, that leave these types of features which pretty universal wherever their is granite.
That the landscape and flora is also similar is a coincidence of climates, I think.
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Post by Scrubb on Oct 26, 2018 7:06:41 GMT 2
YOur photos reminded me that when we went to Rhodes' grave there was a daycare or kindergarten visiting. The kids were just tiny and all wearing a blue uniform.
I really must scan all my photos from that trip.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:37:44 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:39:14 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:40:52 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:41:52 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:43:25 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:44:37 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:45:43 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:47:39 GMT 2
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 26, 2018 12:48:46 GMT 2
Fear not. There are no more pictures of that lodge to come.
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Post by Voy on Oct 26, 2018 15:18:33 GMT 2
I think I'm afraid to ask... how much did that cost per night ?? it really IS totally amazing and beautiful ! (tho I think the other is more my style) have I mentioned: thanks !
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