George, Stan & Rover Reunion

This reminder of the Africa trip has been written by Marg Curry.
The photographs are from “The Smith Family Collection” and the pathetic attempts at a Comic Strip are from my contribution to Graham’s journal from 1971. It may not surprise you that I did not pursue my artist talent!

African Overland Trip

After traveling 15,310 miles overland from England to India, the ship journey from Bombay to Mombasa was looked forward to as a pleasant change. Only 35 cabin class passengers, of which we were 11, the remaining passengers being bunk class and not allowed in many of the public rooms.

It was just as well we liked Indian food as we had spicy varieties for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including eating vegetarian meals with our fingers, consumed in the dining room of the cabin class passengers. Lazy days of reading, playing table tennis, sunbathing, visiting the bridge, a lifeboat drill (in which the boats could not be released) and fights with water and Gurkha badges! The only stop during the voyage was at the Seychelles Islands – a tropical paradise.


Finally, arrival on the African continent and an idyllic campsite at Whitesands Hotel, near Mombasa. We became acquainted with insects, ants, crabs and numerous black millipedes. It was in Mombassa that our tour group welcomed Jenny Jones who flew out from England to join the trip on her way home to Australia.

The camp at Whitesands was a relaxing time – swimming, sunbathing, writing, reading, playing darts and drinking at the bar, the latter our downfall as I believe we were politely asked to leave the campsite after more than one raucous evening.

Carole was not well here and had a visit to hospital. At first it was suspected hepatitis but this did not develop. However, our entire group had hepatitis injections, looking apprehensively at each other in the doctor’s waiting room, before going in one by one for a jab in the tail.

Christmas Day was a great celebration everyone helping with preparations and the cooking. Breakfast of fried eggs (no bacon) and bread with margarine for the first time since leaving Turkey. Lunch of fresh fruit salad consisting of plums, passionfruit, oranges, bananas, pineapple, paw paw, mangoes and fresh cream. Chicken and pork were cooked in a hungi on hot coals. We lazed around on Graham’s Kashmir carpet in front of a tree hung with Christmas cards. A few decorations of streamers and coloured paper and balloons completed the festivities. Afternoon tea of pineapple juice and Christmas cake. Exchanging of fun presents before dinner and plenty of drinks purchased duty free and kept cold by filling a trunk with ice.

Our next stop was Malindi 70 miles north where we camped on the beach in front of
the golf club. New Year’s eve was celebrated with dinner beside a swimming pool, followed by a discotheque. The New Year saw Brutus and Jenny being thrown into the pool, although many others went swimming.

Tsavo National Park was our first game park and time was passed by guessing what animals we would see first. When one was sighted no one knew what it was but we later decided on an Impala. We also saw elephants, zebra, gazelle, monkeys, squirrels, giraffe, foxes, rhinoceros and a hippopotamus. Mt Kilimanjaro barely visible through the cloud.

While in Nairobi, it was discovered that Graham had hepatitis so he was admitted to
hospital and each day people made trips into the town to visit him. We had to leave Graham here to convalesce but had lunch with him in the hospital grounds. Graham joined us in his pyjamas and insisted on going for a short drive checking that everything was OK with the bus. Graham was to join us later but here we farewelled Heather who left to fly home to Queensland.

We celebrated crossing the Equator by a brief mud fight and finally reached the
Ugandan border after being stopped for police checks – had to toot the horn and show that the wipers worked! The good roads near the border soon petered out and from then on we travelled on red dirt roads. The African people were always waving to us and calling out ‘Jambo’.









Our campsite at Murchison Falls National Park was memorable for finding ticks on ourselves, sleeping bags and stretchers so we spent some time de-ticking each other.
A disconcerting sign read “When pitching tents allow room for animals to roam amongst them”. Apart from in-ground loos there were no other facilities so intrepid travelers that we were resorted to having a drink in the bar at the lodge and visiting the modern toilets there to wash in the basins, having first armed ourselves with soap and towel.

Apart from seeing numerous animals in all the game parks we visited, on a launch trip up the Albert Nile to see the mighty Murchison Falls, we must have seen hundreds of hippos and crocodiles and also numerous kinds of birds such as eagles, cranes and kingfishers.

One day in western Uganda, whilst filling up with petrol, we observed a group of 20 to 30 people lying on the ground outside a police station. They appeared to be receiving some very physical interrogation from a number of police officers. In hindsight, it may have been connected with the overthrow of the Uganda Government by Idi Amin which occurred about a week later, after we had left the country.

Serengeti National Park was vast, and on asking one of the park drivers where to go to see the best viewing spots he advised we would get lost. However we set off alone and did managed to completely lose ourselves but soon saw the Park’s vehicles and followed them being lucky to see 7 lionesses in one group and also two leopards. After an afternoon’s viewing of many animals, we drove to our allocated campsite No. 9. On driving past No. 1 we noticed an elephant and there was much hilarity and apprehension as to what would be on number 9 and how we would fare during the night.



Sandy and Jean ventured to the loo but returned running back to the bus for safety having heard grunts and seen eyes shining in the darkness. Brutus who was in a tent, lifted up the flap and yelled to us to open the bus door then raced across the ground to land panting inside. In the morning we laughed over the incidents of the night before and found that some of our animals had turned out to be a tree stump and the eyes silver paper. Leaving Serengeti we witnessed the memorable sight of thousands of zebra, gazelle and wildebeest migrating across the plains.

We camped at a local police station near Ngorongoro Crater for two days waiting for a Contiki tour to arrive as we hoped to use their Land Rover to go down into the crater to view the animals, and also the driver of the trip – Peter, was Jenny’s boyfriend. The wait was worth it as before we left Jenny and Peter announced their engagement. However, Peter O’Neill was diagnosed with malaria there and dosed up on quinine shots. After about a week he was back to his usual self.



We set out to walk up to the first hut on Mt. Kilimanjaro – 9,000 feet and 9 miles up. It was a steep climb and after about two hours it started to rain heavily. We found a small hut to shelter in for lunch but then decided to return as the track was now like a miniature stream. We were drenched and slid down the track through the mud and slush eventually reaching sunshine lower down the mountain.

At Dar Es Salaam we were reunited with Graham who had travelled from Nairobi with a Contiki tour. They camped nearby and we made the most of the company sharing our travel experiences. We stayed in log cabins by the beach and the bar for the complex was like a miniature zoo, being frequented by an assortment of animals – dogs, cats, mongoose and monkeys that swung from the rafters, sometimes upsetting drinks.


Heading to the Tanzanian border we were delayed as the road was just mud and slush with numerous trucks stuck and others skidding. We had tea while waiting and others investigated the conditions. We later weaved our way between trucks, the rest of us following behind giving a push when needed or jumping on the back bumper for extra weight to stop the vehicle from slipping.

At the border into Malawi, the girls were politely asked by an Immigration official to wear a dress which covered the knees. We were prepared for this and had previously obtained lengths of materials to wrap around our shorts.

We arrived in the country on the weekend of their changeover to decimal currency. At one town on asking if there was a bank, the reply was “Yes, it comes on Thursdays”. We managed to change some money but there were long queues of people as many had come to the town with their money tied up in their handkerchiefs and wanted the exact equivalent coin for their old coins.

We camped on the edges of Lake Malawi in the grounds of a hotel for 7 days. It was a lazy time, swimming and reading, the boys going fishing and we watched the local fishermen using their dugout canoes to carry their fishing nets out into the lake then sit on the beach pulling them in.

A man who had befriended us here, and who owned a garage offered the group the job of driving some Australian Holden utes and panel vans for export into Zambia. Many of the people accepted
the offer and thoroughly enjoyed themselves slithering and sliding their way along the muddy, pot-holed roads. The cars were left at the town of Chipati near the Zambian border.

Good bitumen roads to Lusaka the capital of Zambia with many modern buildings, beautiful goods on display, and in general the most civilized place we had been in for months. The camping ground was the best since Turkey and it was luxury for us to have hot running water, baths and showers.

It was Sandy’s birthday so we celebrated by having dinner at a small cafe then going onto the Chilanga Club. It turned out to be a double celebration as during the
evening much excitement was created as Carole and Peter announced their engagement. Our night ended with a 2.00am return to the campsite. Talk of ‘Stan’ being the wedding vehicle led to the bus being decorated the next day with white toilet paper and driven into town.




From Kariba Dam where the middle of the wall separates Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) from Zambia we headed to Victoria Falls – a tremendous sight. We wandered around the many viewpoints some of which it was recommended to wear raincoats and use umbrellas. We didn’t and got drenched.



At the camping ground in Salisbury the different tradesmen called at the tents each day, making it easier for buying goods but other more unwelcome visitors were hairy grubs which spun cocoons in our clothes and also white ants which took a liking to the tent bags.

Heading to Fort Victoria (now known as Masvingo) we called on a friend of Grahams, and although he was not at home his mother invited us in for tea and cakes while seated on a verandah from which to look out on a beautiful view. In exchange for petrol coupons which were used because of the shortage of fuel, we were given a turkey and roll of beef – most welcome.

Visited the Zimbabwe ruins discovered in 1868 before heading to South African border. Here we immediately became aware of the apartheid policy that existed at that time with separate entrances to Immigration marked “White” and “Non White”.

Arrived in the sprawling metropolis of Johannesburg known as “The Golden City”. Met Bernie Fisher, a friend of Grahams then headed to the camping ground only to be advised they only took caravans as campers lowered the tone. As it was late we ended up at Bernie’s home placing our stretchers around the various rooms, much to the bewilderment of his mother. The next day we found a camping ground to take us.

In Johannesburg the bus had major repairs, we held an engagement party for Carole and Peter, visited a diamond warehouse where Carole chose a ring, saw movies and slides of our trip and visited the Rand Easter Show. Then it was off travelling again towards Kruger National Park – but not for long. Just as we entered the town of Nelspruit the engine on Stan stopped. It was discovered the drive shaft in the fuel pump had gone and subsequently that the replacement part was rather expensive. As the engine generally was not in a good condition it was decided to end the trip now doing the uncompleted part prior to catching the ship to Australia.

Graham and Jean hitched back to Johannesburg to bring back a Land Rover to tow us while the rest waited patiently for their return the following day. We were towed the 230 miles back to Johannesburg in a long slow trip, while most of the group hitched to save on weight.



The following day it was job and flat hunting for most people. Carole and Peter were leaving the trip to return to Australia, and Graham hired the bus to a company doing a trip up to Nairobi. This was the end of our nomad life for a while, as, after almost nine months of travelling through numerous countries in the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa we faced the real world of work for the next 3 months.