WTF Friday – Which Way Africa Style (Part eight)

Sadly Cee’s Which Way Challenge comes to an end next week, so this will be my last entry for this challenge. Cee will be hosting a brand new Compose Yourself Photo Challenge starting next week and I look forward to taking part in that.

I will continue to enter her other challenges and will also try to continue with my own WTF Friday theme.

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After what feels like a record long dry season we are finally heading towards the rains. The dust will settle and the cooler temperatures will be a relief.

I took the next three photos while driving through the Mashonaland Province of Zimbabwe a few years ago.

It was during the rainy season.

 

 

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WTF Friday – Which Way Africa Style (Part seven)

It seems the whole of Southern Africa has retreated to the Dark Ages – literally.

In short, there is not enough electricity being generated – in the entire region – to meet demand.

There are many theories and rumours about why this has happened, ranging from ineptitude, to not enough rain to feed the rivers providing the hydro-electric power, to sub-standard equipment supplied during a dodgy tender deal. I suspect all are true to some extent but no-one is prepared to shed any light (sorry) on the matter and tell us what is really going on.

What this means is that we are now being subjected to load shedding. In my case, for six days a week we have no electricity for eight hours a day and on the seventh day – fingers crossed – the electricity does not go off at all. Last week it was only five hours off for five days of the week, so it is getting worse: the poor folk in Lusaka are enduring ten-hour cuts, with a fourteen hour cut one day a week, so I am thankful I don’t live there!

This makes keeping up to date with work – and more importantly, blogging! – very difficult and until we can make a plan with a generator and/or solar power both are going to be a bit sketchy and intermittent.

Any Zimbabweans reading this will be wondering what I am moaning about – they have dealt with severe load shedding for the last fifteen years (some are lucky if they receive two hours electricity supply a day) – and I apologise. But having thought I had left all that behind me I am taking a while to re-adjust.

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In the mean time, here are my entries for this week’s Which Way Challenge.

Once a week Cee from Cee’s Photography Blog runs a Which Way Photo Challenge – everyone is welcome to take part. You can read the rules for the challenge here.

Birchenough Bridge, Zimbabwe – taken in the late 1980’s

Rural fuel station in Zimbabwe

Eastern Highlands, Zimbabwe

WTF Friday – Which Way Africa Style (Part six)

Once a week Cee from Cee’s Photography Blog runs a Which Way Photo Challenge – everyone is welcome to take part. You can read the rules for the challenge here.

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For this week’s challenge I share with you a few of the pictures I took on the way to Munyemeshe in the Lower Zambezi.

On the escarpment, heading down into the Zambezi Valley

Three rows of (large!) vehicles on a two lane road …

This is more like my kind of road

No road trip is complete without running repairs.

Africa-Style aircon!

The new Kafue River Bridge

“We clean carperts, blankets, suits etc”

 

 

WTF Friday – Which Way Africa Style (Part Five)

Once a week Cee from Cee’s Photography Blog runs a Which Way Photo Challenge – everyone is welcome to take part.

You can read the rules for the challenge here.

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Coconut Bay – near Inhambane in Mocambique

This man looks very happy with life – despite (or perhaps because of) the wet weather.

A Day At The Beach

I’ve recently been on a trip to the UK to visit my family. Now that I am back home I’m pretty busy with boring stuff like catching up with work I missed and don’t have much time for blogging. I am posting this in haste while the Daily Post Photo Challenge: On The Way is still current. This post is also my entry into this week’s Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge.

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I took these photos over the Bank Holiday weekend a couple of weeks ago. First Born and his wife had recently moved over to the UK from South Africa and they wanted to do some exploring, Archie (Last Born’s hyperactive dog) needed an outing and my Dad wanted to show us one of his old childhood haunts – as a child he would cycle from his home in Manchester to Ainsdale Beach – so we all piled into the vehicles and drove to the seaside. An hour or so into the journey someone shouted “there’s an elephant!” Wishful thinking I thought but sure enough, there was an elephant deep in the wilds of Merseyside! As tempting as it was to turn off to have a look, we continued with our original plan.   Hopefully soon I will be up to date with my work and will have time for the more important stuff in life, like getting back in touch with the World of Blog. Until then, Happy Thursday.

WTF Friday – Which Way Africa Style (Part Four)

Once a week Cee from Cee’s Photography Blog runs a Which Way Photo Challenge – everyone is welcome to take part.

You can read the rules for the challenge here.

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We came upon this bridge while travelling in Mocambique some years ago. It didn’t even look safe enough to walk across but we had to get to the other side …

On my last trip to Zimbabwe I happened across this accident. It was late afternoon and I didn’t want to be on the road after dark, so after an hour of sitting around waiting while nothing happened I decided to ‘bundu bash’ through the bush to get around the truck and continue my journey. Thankfully no one was injured.

One of my neighbours hung this hopeful sign on her vegetable garden fence.  I wonder if the hippos take any notice?

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To see last week’s wonderful Which Way entries click on the thumbnail below.

WTF Friday – Which Way Africa Style (Part Three)

Once a week Cee from Cee’s Photography Blog runs a Which Way Photo Challenge – everyone is welcome to take part.

You can read the rules for the challenge here. (I tried to copy them to this post for easier reference but the formatting went haywire!)

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A few years ago we were lucky to be invited by friends to join them at the impala hunting camp they had bought in the Lower Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe.

Of course, being a Land Rover (apologies to all Land Rover fans out there), things didn’t always run smoothly.  Most of the Lower Zambezi Valley is a wildlife area and there are many dangerous animals around – lions, elephants, buffalo, you name it, it lives there. So we had a few tense hours sitting on the side of the road while the men carried out running repairs.

Reading Genis’s Fat Dog Diary’s post this week (Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge (Day 3): The Joke is on Me) reminded me of this picture I took at Livingstone Gwembe Safaris Crocodile Farm. I think Genis will be relieved to know this!

Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge (Day Three): WTF Friday

Thank you to Cee from Cee’s Photography Blog for inviting me to join in this challenge. Please pop over to her site and feast your eyes on some beautiful, inspiring pictures .

“The rules of Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo (It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph) and then nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge. Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command.”

Today I have invited Sue Vincent from the Daily Echo to join in the fun. Sue originally hails from my ‘Home From Home”, near the Peak District in the UK. Her posts are always thought-provoking and her photographs are stunning.

My post today is also a contribution to Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge which I try to take part in each Friday.

This challenge subject is all about capturing the roads, walks, trails, rails, we move from one place to another on.  You can walk on them, climb them, drive them, ride them, as long as the way is visible.  Any angle of a bridge is acceptable as are any signs.

There is never a topic to this challenge.  All you need have is the “way” visible and the main focus of your photo.

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Which Way Africa Style (Part Three)

As I’ve mentioned before, we have recently experienced some unseasonal rain storms and I think these first two pictures speak for themselves.

This track, seen in Namibia, seems to lead to nowhere.

I have no explanation for this last one (except perhaps that dead maids are so inconvenient)!

Which Way Africa Style (Part Two)

I took this photo many years ago somewhere in Botswana. It was a very hot day and I wasn’t sure how the shimmering heat would turn out in the picture. This was in the days before digital cameras so had to wait a while for the pictures to be developed  – I was quite pleased with the result.

We followed behind this bus for some time while travelling in Mocambique. I felt very sorry for those goats!

I still can’t make sense of this sign, seen in Botswana. I wonder if anyone else can work out what it means?

Which Way Africa Style (Part One)

Tofu, Mocambique

Prepared for every eventuality