Hot Hot Hot

Fly fishing in the evening a great way to end a day out in the sun. I have a good old farmers tan you can just see the tan line at the base of the neck - if you look really carfully!

What do fish farmers do on holiday?

They go fishing. Lots of fun and lots of fish so it's Trout for every meal!

It's a lot of water!

Three pumps running for two weeks and the gravel pit is finally full it took a while seeing that it is four and a half meters deep! I have connected my old pond to the gravel pit so I can swim right up to my front door. Swimming every lunch and evening is a must with the glorious Oct weather.

The original pond as viewed from the man made mountain is now linked to the new pond via a channel to the left of the above pic and middle of the bottom pic.

To give you an idea of size you can see Terry swimming - he's the little blob on the right!

Lady of the lake - Zambian style!!

Flooding the Gravel pit

The empty gravel pit before filling started it should be about fifteen feet deep when filled.

Pool party! It's great to swim in just takes a while to do a lap!

Little fishy

One of our four hundred pet carp who we love, water and feed excessively!

This fish was ten kilos I wonder how big we can get them! One things for sure we will need a bigger landing net!

Zimbabwe - Kariba it’s a really big puddle!

Seven people on a big house boat with two small fishing boats, hippo, elephants, ridiculous numbers of crocs all made for a great fishing adventure.

The cabins were all abandoned and we slept on the top deck under the stars. Four days up with the sun and fishing until the sun set over the lake. The trees still standing fifty year after the dam wall was built.

Farther & fish

The great Zambezi fishing trip starts

Dad starts small!

Then lands this really good five and a half pound Tiger! A great fight and excellent catch.

Doug then not to be out done in the last half hour of the fishing trip hooked into this monster. At fourteen and a half ponds it's the biggest fish for two years in the lower Zambezi area! It was towing the boat and took a very tense quarter of an hour to bring it onto the boat. We released it to fight another day - what a trip, what a fish.

Flat Dogs

Just another day at the office with this 3.5m guest

Once I caught a fish alive...

On one of our commercial ponds - what cheating you say - bar humbug!

Out on the river.

Dad = seven yellow belly

Son = one yellow belly hmmmm............

Carp on the fly rod it's not conventional but it's fun!

Some nice cats.



One last chance before the sun sets. Dad is off training for a week then returns, we might do some fishing!

A joyfull splash!

Could not resist letting everyone know little sister missed the bridge. We were having a fire on the island and roasting some fish as is the custom in these parts. It was early evening and the moon had not risen so it was really really dark. Joy said i'm going to pop back to the house over the bridge" Terry said " good luck with that" Two seconds later we herd a splash and Joy was gone. We jumped up and were peering down at the water by the time sister rose to the surface in fits of giggles " It's so deep I didn't even touch the bottom - hee hee!" It transpired that little sister had not faller off the bridge but missed the bridge completely!

Gravel and the Green Giants

The gravel pit (managers fishing spot) is full steam ahead. The development wing of the Zambian army have arrived with lots of serious toys to fix up our roads.

Day one at the gravel pit looking from my house. Day three and it's looking good my house can be seen behind the machines!

Magnificent men and their flying machines.

When deciding where to build new ponds why not take to the air!
We have over a hundred ponds produced over five hundred tons and sell everything threw one shop who keep asking us to double production so we better build some more ponds. The Kafue river runs along the farm boundary the lagoons on the other side of the river you can see one of the many lagoons. It is the middle of the dry season the last rain was in march and it will not rain again until Nov hence it's dry!

My house is the one on the right you can see my pond the island and the bridge. The big hole which is rapidly expanding is the gravel pit you can see a tractor and trailer parked in the middle. At least it gives you and idea about the size the new pond will be!The farm as viewed from the east my house is just out of shot on the right you can see a little brown bit one pond in that's the gravel pit. You can't see from this height but on the left in the green reeds below the ponds is a huge croc!

Baby Elephant gets stuck again!

Our little excavator know as the baby elephant once again gets stuck. Overhauling the farms drainage has been no easy task and has resulted in many a sinking feeling.

This was a particularly exciting game of stuck in the mud as the machine was sinking so fast we put in two pumps to try and remove the water but as it got deeper we had to remove the battery and the only possibility was our new big toy which we only took out the box last month. I had to walk the big excavator along some very thin pond banks which were collapsing under the weight and across a papyrus swamp at one point It got so deep I had to use my feet to stop mud coming in the door! The baby elephant was lifted out and lives after some tender loving care.

Another example of "I'm falling, I'm Falling - can't let go - really don't want to be here!"

Going Bannanas!

The first fruits of my green fingered gardening around my pond.

Check out my Gravel Pit!

Beat this Gardeners world!

I am conducting some landscaping of the back garden involving a D7 Dozer with ripper, two excavators and several tractors and tipper trailers.

The aim is to remove a few thousand tons of gravel to overhaul our roads and supply multiple building project. The resulting hole will be about twelve feet deep and big! It just so happens that the gravel extraction is just off to the side of my house and pond. Come November the wall between my pond and the gravel pit will be removed resulting in a rather serious pond extension.

Back in Zambia

The arrival back from Aus was great all was dry and looking promising. A grave error of judgment on my part as we then had nine inches of rain in a few days. The rainy season lived up to it’s name.

Riding my bike with obligatory umbrella down the road or should I say river! This is where we had a croc swimming up the road last year.

At least we could fish from the veranda!
Terry (my partner in crime on the fish farm) and his cousin taking up position for some serious fishing.

Fishing again on a very nice boat a few hours upstream from our farm produced some fantastic fish. The photo shows how small he river is, we are in the middle!


Down on the Zambezi trying our luck with the tigers, Terry left, Doug on the right and Terry’s mum surveying the intrepid anglers.

Our finest catch!!! The trouble with photos is you can't lie about size!

Barra, Cars and wake boards.

The great Aussie Barramundi are really easy to catch every cast lands a fish -forget oceans and rivers it's a lot more fun if you fish on a fish farm!

What happens if you a child's ride on Action Man electric car with a top speed of 4km an hour and squeeze in a nice big Honda engine in? You crash at speeds up to 60km an hour, cool !

This is perhaps the most insane mode of transport I have ever tried to ride. First off Dan did a demonstration hurtling along the pond banks bouncing in the air with a trail of dust and stones before a slight miss calculation caused him to end up on two wheels around a corner and come flying off. Well I had been threw all the safely brief - "she's pretty wild mate,don't come off!"

The clutch in on a switch so it is on or off, forget gently letting the clutch out! I turned up the revs switch the clutch on an before I new It I was flying along on the pond bank on two wheels with the front wheels in the air. Flicking the clutch off brought the front wheels down so I hit the switch again and was once again looking at the clouds. I made it about thirty meters on the back wheels leaning forward trying to get the front onto the ground before a corner. Then due to a slight bout of extreme terror my clenched hands were left holding a little plastic steering wheel which was no longer attached to the car. At that point I came flying off the back skidding along the gravel. Dan came running over to me as I lay wide eyed, white knuckled and still clenching the steering wheel - "That was awesome, Mate"
Post crash reconstruction - don't try this at home kids!

At the cable ski park waiting to be pulled violently from the edge. If you survive the start you then fly across the water around a lake being pulled by an overhead cable until you hit a ramp fly into the air smash into the water face first. By some complete fluke and of course a lot of skill I even landed a jump and kept on going, much to the disappointment of the onlookers who really enjoyed my "stack it" technique! I am limping about today like a cripple and everything aches but it was fantastic fun.

Sun, sea and sand

Sailing in a lagoon with the cousins whilst staying on the sunshine coast.

Beach bum!

Down Under.

Greetings from Aus, life here is awesome its great catching up with old friends. I arrived the day before I turned thirty - just in time for cake!

Uni friend Tim and his boat. As we left the marina the radio chirped up " this is the Queensland Coast Guard with a sever weather warning" it was a little windy but lots of fun can't wait to get back out.

Cricket may have been rained off just as it was getting good, at least the bar stayed open.