I feel that I have to mention this unique hotel, as this was where all our socialising would go on with the local farming community, which had wonderful people living in it.
The hotel was owned by Mr and Mrs Broomberg and was situated about ½ ways between Bulawayo and the Victoria Falls and had a reputation for their hospitality and ‘Gwaai pies’. From fishermen, businessmen, holiday makers and foreigners, they all had to stop to refuel, have a drink or one of their famous pies. There were also many a New Year’s Eve, birthday or impromptu party held there. The bar was filled with bank notes from all around the world and has been gazed at by millions. Mr Broomberg would always make a point of popping into the bar and having a chat with anyone who was there. If there was a big party going on, people would offer to buy him a drink and he would turn to the barman and say “I’ll have one of mine”, to which the barman would take a bottle of ‘whisky’ off the shelf and pour him a tot over ice. Not many people knew that that whisky bottle was filled with tea. I was never sure how some of the locals made it home as they had to cross the low level bridge, I am sure they did it VERY slowly with the wheels bouncing off the curb stones, as it was a single lane bridge. In the dining room there was a” Punka Walla” fan, and we used to laugh, as it would slow down, and then suddenly speed up and we would all say that someone must have given the boy a coke. It was a left over from the days when the hotel used to run on generators.
When we lived at Wankie, Mum and Dad regularly went to the hotel for the Lions meeting and had a social afterwards. Once it got to our bedtime we were made to go to sleep in the back of the car which was parked at the rear of the hotel. We hated to leave the fun, but one had to obey their parents!
A Zebra and a mule taking a drink from the pool
The children would have wild times in the swimming pool playing on a blown up tractor tube, or jumping on the trampoline, or occasionally playing a round of put-put while the adults had a Saturday afternoon of tennis.
Overlooking the pool to the bedrooms Trampoline
Most of the walls of the hotel and bedrooms were held together by love and white ants. If you knocked on the walls they sounded very hollow, and you certainly did not go there for a romantic weekend as your neighbours were bound to hear everything!
We even had President Mugabe fly in to visit the ceramic factory next door and have a cup of tea. There was great excitement, as it is not every day that one gets to see their President outside of a television box.
A lot of the farmers and later safari operators would order their supplies, anything from groceries to farm equipment, from Bulawayo and it would be transported up by RMS (Road Motor Transport, and was owned by the Railways), which would arrive on a Friday afternoon at the hotel and folk would collect their goods from there. This of course could easily lead to a social afternoon if people had nothing pressing on their agenda.
I did go back and visit the site in 2010, and remember all the happy memories of the hotel, and thought well that chapter of our lives is over and we are all now in a new one.
2 comments:
As an occassional visitor to Zim in my childhood, I feel this captures so well what I remember about the attitudes of the time and the people.
I stayed at the Wankie Hotel in 1972, loved the place, is this the same one? I had heard that my hotel had been destroyed during the civil war. I loved that place with the huge water hole beyond the hotel grounds were wild game would drink at night.
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