Back to Rhodesia for a visit - Umtali and Eastern Highlands

Martins Falls

Many of us ex-Rhodesians left shortly after the bush war from the mid 70's onwards to the mid 80's.  As such the many pages you will find on Facebook are proliferated with memorabilia from this war interspersed with day to day civilian life and memories. This was a time when a fit male aged 18 was conscripted to national service and trained to be a soldier where much of the rest of the world, the youth were free to grow up normally.

We did did not have a normal youth and as such developed a culture of allegiance that has lived on in our diaspora all over the world. Our generation has not many years left to tell this story of betrayal and the way we stood alongside each other, revelling in each day as it could have been our last, in a mine detonation or terrorist ambush.



  

Umtali (renamed Mutare)

Umtali was founded in 1897 as a fort, about 8km from the border with Mozambique, and is just 290km from the Mozambican port of Beira, earning Umtali the title of "Rhodesia's Gateway to the Sea". It is sometimes also called "Gateway to the Eastern Highlands". Zimbabweans refer to it as 'Kumakomoyo' (place of many mountains). There is a border railway station on the railway line from Salisbury (Harare) to Beira with a railways mechanical work shop. (wiki edited)

Umtali in the Manicaland Province, the Eastern Highlands was one of the hot zones of the bush war being the border to Mozambique.

Msasa trees in Spring - Eastern Highlands

I only visited this town once as a youth but it is a beautiful site to behold. I did date two girls from this town.

 

Road to Umtali from Fort Victoria

Umtali street scenes and Flamboyant trees

Umtali Main Street

Troutbeck Inn

Lake and Troutbeck Inn

Chimanimani mountains

Marymount College and mountains

I never got to see too much up close here as we only did the tourista spots we could get to by car.

The area was/is known for the tea plantations and some of the finest tea comes from here (I am biased of course)

Chimanimani Mountains and Melsetter
  

A tad north is the Nyanga National Park

Nyanga (formerly known as Inyanga) is a town in the province of Manicaland, Zimbabwe, located adjacent to Nyanga National Park in the Eastern Highlands about 105 km north of Mutare. 

The highest mountain in Zimbabwe, Mount Nyangani lies about 15 km from the village. Its highest peak rises to 2,600 m above sea level. Nyanga is a popular tourist destination with its trout fishing, golf courses, mountain hikes and holiday resorts.

 

Nyanga National Park, Gairezi Rapids, Nyangombe falls, Leopards Rock hotel

World's View Nyanga

 Vumba Botanical Gardens

 A 100 or so years of colonisation brought western civilisation to the region with agriculture and forestry.  If the white man never came, they would probably still be running around in loin cloths with rudimentary spears. The demise of much of Zimbabwe is testimony to global politics and interrupting the evolution of the black man to become a useful contributor to society. Sadly the evidence speaks for itself with mass exodus of the whites from this once garden of Eden.

A 100 years was not enough to teach them the new world ways.

Acknowledgements for pics Rhodesia Memories various members