In 1988 I was working for Qantas at Perth airport in the load control section. Load control was responsible for estimating the weight of the operating aircraft, the planning of the load for best trim and ensuring the maximum weights were not exceeded.
During this time, I was seconded to the Qantas operation at Harare airport in Zimbabwe. We had only two flights a week and I was able to organise a number of long weekends away at Hwange, Lake Kariba and Victoria Falls. My time went quickly and I was soon back in Perth.
I did, however, make a number of trips back with my family and we stayed with friends I had made while working.
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Over the years I completed three canoe trips down the Zambezi river from Chirundu to Mana Pools. These consisted of three days and two overnight stops. The canoes were fiberglass Canadian design about five and a half metres long with a seat at the bow and one at the stern. The person in the stern had the directional control, while both had paddles.
The river is an absolute haven for wildlife of all sorts. Photo opportunities are endless. After lunch we would take a walk through the surrounding bush encountering elephants, baboons, impala and many other animals.
There is an element of danger, or risk associated with being in a canoe on a river teeming with very big wildlife, some of which take a dim view of canoes.
One the first trip we had to porter the canoes to avoid a lone territorial bull hippo. He was very aggressive and would not let us pass his area. On another occasion a lone bull elephant charged us while we were on our after lunch walk. Both of these incidents were very exciting and got the pulse rate going.
The last trip which I did was with Stephen Butler, a friend from Adelaide, two ladies from the Netherlands and our guide Chris. This was Steve’s first trip to Africa and being a keen photographer he was quite excited about the prospect of photos.
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On the first day, Steve was very keen to get close to animals for good photos and we managed to do just that a couple of times. The day was fairly uneventful although still exciting. There were lots of hippos and crocodiles and we managed to have some good photo opportunities. We set up camp for the night on an island and after dark we walked to the water’s edge and shone our torches about.
There were lots of red eyes reflecting from crocodiles in the water, which we had to wade through the following morning.
The second day passed smoothly and we again set up camp on an island.
On the third day in the early afternoon, the river channel narrowed quite a bit and there were many hippo heads bobbing up and down. The distance between the two banks was only about 70m or so and unlike the beach-like shallow banks this underwater part of the bank was very steep. The edge dropped off underwater vertically.
Our canoe was the last of the three and when about half way through the channel the water erupted on the right as a hippo seized our canoe in its mouth about midway between the bow and stern seats. I immediately leapt from the canoe screaming for Steve to get out. He followed fairly rapidly and we both looked back at the canoe just a few metres away while the hippo savaged it again.
Chris was running towards us coking his rifle but the hippos had disappeared underwater. At this stage I began laughing almost uncontrollably. I was alive and so was Steve. We later saw the hippo was a female with a calf and we had stumbled too close for her comfort.
We still had about 10km to Mana Pools and every ripple on the water was another potential attack in our minds. Mana Pools seemed a long way away.
When I relate this story I am always told to buy a lotto ticket, but I can assure you that every bit of my good luck was used in those few seconds.
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