We stayed with Dave's Uncle in Bulawayo on the way up and Chooks gave me an early birthday present which was a pair of Courteney Boots so I'm so excited and ready to tackle the bush again in my Safari Boots!!
We continued our journey at some ridiculous hour the following morning and made it to Harare just about lunchtime. We met up with DK (Dave's best friend) and his girlfriend Kal and drove on in convoy to Chirundu in the Zambezi Valley. The drive up to Harare had been beautiful. I've seen several amazing sunsets but sunrise is my best. Especially over that characteristic vista of the Zimbawean midlands.
By the time we got to Chirundu the headache, which had been slowly growing all day had reached it's peak and once settled in the chalet at Tiger Safaris I went straight to bed. The next morning I was informed I'd missed a great night involving an elephant bull at the fence around our chalet and a crocodile in the pool, where Dave and DK had been swimming.
Luckily the croc was only about a meter long so the boys quickly caught it and released it in the bushes!!
We were up early the next day to make the most of our time on the river. Now I've never even held a rod before so fishing is completely alien to me. We spent a couple of hours on the Zambezi which is complete bliss as you don't see another human for hours. Unfortunately we didn't catch anything. I was later to learn that fishing involves a lot of sitting and waiting with not a lot of catching. Later that afternoon Dave's cousin Lesley, her boyfriend Peter and another family friend Uncle Mike arrived. We spent a couple of hours lounging around the pool, which is very hard to relax in now that you spend the whole time on constant look out for other crocs. Well I did anyway everyone else was very blasé about the fact that a croc may slip in while we're not looking.
At 3.30pm we headed back to the boats with a cooler box so full I thought we would never get through it (how wrong was I). We had two boats and spent the whole afternoon catching up and enjoying the amazing view and of course a few beverages. We spent about an hour very close to a pod of hippos, which I could spend all day watch them.
We were after the famous Tiger Fish but it was getting close to home time when I was beginning to think they were another Zimbabwean myth. We spent half an hour fishing for Bream off the edge of the river.
We were typically split one boat for the boys and us girls were in the other. My about 4pm Kal and I had become more interested in our drinks and gossip so neither of us had a rod in. You can imagine our surprise when we heard that zzz zzz zzzing of the line running. We looked over to Lesley and there she was rod almost bent in half trying to reel this fish in. They put up quite a fight these tigers but Lesley professionally landed the fish and it weighed 2.5kg. So we were very proud and ready to get ashore to show everyone our fish and because unbelievable the cooler box was running low.
The sunset on our return to the chalet was beautiful. I can honestly say I cant think of any better place I’d rather be.
The boys were very impressed and the evening got very out of hand as the drinking increased. We had a food fight, which I ended up with 2 eggs cracked over my head, followed by a game of spin the bottle in the pool. So you can imagine the worse.
We weren’t so early out on the river the next day as we were all feeling a bit sorry for ourselves from the night before. We took 2 boats out again and the rest of our party drove through Dave’s old estate and met us by a tree on the river bank where we had lunch.
Kal, DK, Dave and I slept like children in the shade of a tree for a couple of hours and then we were back on the boat again late afternoon. It was a very unsuccessful day for all as we caught absolutely nothing. When we got back to the house Uncle Mike got out his guitar and we sat around the fire listening to him play until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer.
We decided to make a bet with the boys this morning after some typical male egotistical boasting so we were keen for a good day of sport. So far we had only managed to catch the one fish between us all so we were confident our luck was about to change. And boy did it change. Within a few minutes of casting my rod for the first time that morning we heard that zzz zzzing again. Now I’d caught a lot of reeds over the weekend so I wasn’t too confident that it was a fish but Kelvin pulled slightly on the line and confirmed it was a fish. Now all attention was on me all the girls quickly reeled in their lines and were focused on cheering me on. First I had to let him run with the bait for a bit and then on Kelvin’s sign I striked hard with the rod, I had to strike a couple of times before I’d hooked him. I had no idea that it was going to be so heavy. Those tiger fish are awesome they give such a fight. My rod was almost doubled over whilst I pulled and reeled away trying not to let the line go slack. Just when I was starting to think is there really a fish on the end of this hook he flipped up in the air in protest. The girls started cheering again as they could see it was a big fish. I was still reeling in and my arms were really beginning to ache now. Finally we could see him close to the boat and Kelvin dropped the net in and fished him out. I was very impressed, I was beginning to think this fishing malarkey was a waste of time but after that moment when I held my first fish I’m on for the competition.
Mine was a 3.5kg tiger fish, which I’m told isn’t too shabby for my first fish. My arms didn’t stop shaking for a good hour after from the adrenalin but my rod was straight back in after I’d bagged that. Lesley caught another one that day, which was even bigger than mine so we were ready to call it a day and compare, catches with the boys. Well the boys had caught nothing again so we won fair and square.
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