patham

Yes, some of the boats on the Zambesi were pretty agricultural, home-made affairs that would make any naval architect weep. On the upper reaches we didn't often get grounded on sandbanks, but would lose the shear pin holding the prop in place after bashing it on rocks. End result is similar though, with some PB having to work on fitting a new pin on the lifted outboard motor/prop at arms length, exposed to all the crocs in the vicinity. You would be going along and just hear the engine pitch suddenly increase as the motor lost resistance and the revs went up, and get that sinking feeling.....

Thanks for bringing science into the thread. Those fins coated with toxic slime are dangerous and filled me with terror as boy can these fish wriggle in the hand. My preferred method of getting them off the hook if on shore was to immobilise them underfoot (shoes being essential), get the hook out, then nudge them back into the water. They sure could squeek loud underfoot (like standing on rubber duckies for those not familiar with the breed). I just looked up the current size record for a leopard squeeker now, and at 17 cm I still think I should have it. In reality I reckon the record has been broken many times, but it's such a pathetic catch that no one ever bothers to record them and have the catch verified.

Squeekers- the curse of the Zambesi. I recall a spontaneous night fishing trip, instigated after an evening at the pub, in which we all piled into the back of a landy and headed off, sans camping gear or food to the river. As per usual, nothing but squeekers. I recall thinking the one I caught looked a little different than the rest, as it had strange discolorations. Anyways, it got chucked back in like the rest. A few months later I was reading the national angling records book at the WABC and realised I had caught a rare leopard squeeker, which is a separate recognised specie, due to its spots. It's also much smaller than the rest of the genus. If I had taken my catch to the WABC for verification I would have beaten the national record and have my name forever in the history books! Anyway, it would have been a sad, hungover brekky, but we did find a local willing to sell his catch, so fresh grilled bream was on the cards after all.

Not Russki cargo jets maybe, they don't have the worlds best sound signature ?

Random recollection mode=ON. My last few years in Zim I was up in Hwange. I only visited Msuna a few times, but hung out more at the chalets at the Wankie Angling & Boating Club, the order was WABC, the Deka Drum, Msuna as you went further downstream and/or down the road (which got progressively dodgier). The boat ride from WABC to Msuna (or further to Milibisi) is pretty cool as the Zambezi changes character quite a bit in that area, gorges, rapids, sand islands, shallower riffle sections etc and then Kariba itself. Although technically, Kariba under extreme flood conditions backs up past the WABC, the high water mark is painted on the colliery water extraction pump station there. Just downstream of the WABC is one of the last of the rapids, known as Black Rock, which needs a fair bit of skill and knowledge to navigate. The one time a friend and myself were asked to reposition an acquantance's boat down to Msuna. Sounded like a cool day out, no worries! All started off OK, but as we got into the river main stream the engine failed. No back-up engine as it was not a monster-sized boat. Look for an anchor - none present, just tie-ropes which are pretty useless in a 500 m wide river. Look for paddles, only one. No mobiles back then either. As we were drifting closer and closer to the rapids (and hence a certain flip and swim with the hippocrocoducks) my buddy was frantically trying to do an engine and carb strip, whilst I was perched on the bow paddling like no tomorrow, and making very little headway to get to the side of the river in time. Just before certain doom, a guardian angel with his home-engineered Ford Fairlane V8 inboard combined with a Volvo penta-drive (so oodles of power) came zooming past, we flagged him down and got a tow back to the WABC. To bring the story back to the NZ thread theme, the saviour guy ended up becoming my brother-in-law, and they live in Palmerston North! Learnt that day, do your equipment checks before getting your feet wet, and don't be afraid of pulling the plug on the mission if everything is not in order!

Great story. Transaero went bust in about 2015, I think a lot of their ex-planes are stored in the Mojave desert. They had ordered 2 of the 747-8 before they went bust. These have been taken over by the USAF and are being converted into the next AF1's.

A year at Thomas Baines junior, then across town to Hamilton High. There was not enough money floating around for Falcon. I went there a few times to play hockey and it did look mighty fine !

Another Bulawayo brother, deserves a thumbs up on principle, although you could have upgraded in your time in SA rather than stick to place names beginning with B (Benoni) !

That's even more pricey than my sons bike after adding on all the upgrades he has received for various birthday and Christmas presents - and I think he is overcapitalised ! At the risk of making a bad pun, the S-works Epic is rather a specialised piece of kit, and it wouIdn't be high on my personal short list even if it is a good deal. But then again, recent history shows I should not have progressed past the tricycle stage.

My son keeps asking me if its new bike time. In reality he is just building up precedent so he can ask for a new bike sooner.

Thats the one. I think (I am not sure- it all gets hazy round there) that my front wheel dug into the soft stuff too much on landing. The boulders have been cleared from the line by the ferals, but in the end my bike landed up on the new boulder garden (hence the impact damage), and I was just off to the side.

Those are now pretty much flattened. My drop-off of doom is right off Ironbark road, close to the little bus stop shelter. The approach line is to cross the road at right angles and drop off the road embankment into the creek tributary (the one that has the little wooden bridge).

Thanks Graham. When I said local, I do mean local ! It was Cicada Park, on Ironbark, the one that's closest to Chapel Hill School. When they say most accidents happen at, or near home, they are right. Talking of Gap Creek and drop-offs. My youngster went to Gap Creek yesterday afternoon. At the BBQ area there was a crazy teen that climbed up one of the BBQ shelters (corrugated iron roof), had his buddies lift his Commencal up to him, and he rode off the roof - he made it though. Who knows why he thought it was a good idea. My son tracked down the video on Instagram last night - bit scary. Hopefully it does not give the more impressionable youths bad ideas.

General shout out to WP and every-one else - thanks for the well-wishes. No-one intends to be "that" guy who ends up in a bad wipe-out, but I suppose the odds catch up to us eventually. The man card is due to my doctors - it literally is a case of "You have broken your back in 4 places, take 2 paracetemol and I'll see you in the morning." But I suppose they had given me stronger jabs on admission to the ER first thing in the morning. The problem with my shifter is that I am not convinced I can easily get a replacement. With various versions of Shimano I-spec, and being an 11 speed I struggled to get that specific combination, six months later and top of the range having moved onto 12 speed it can only be harder.

Thanks RossW. For most of the first day I was under neck and spine precautions, dropped the next day to spine precautions only, dropped fully after X-rays confirmed the fractures were stable. Nothing like being trussed up unable to move to make you appreciate what you do have. Will be doing more CT scans in 2 weeks and follow up visits, but I am guessing to most likely to be off for 8 weeks, and start off gradually. On the plus side, after having my vitals checked every hour I now know I have great blood pressure stats and a resting heart rate that is phenomenally low given that I am no pro-athlete!

On the good, bad and ugly theme, the bad thing about being on the upside-down part of the world is that gravity sucks just as hard here as anywhere else. OTB'ed last Saturday on a drop-off in a local park (constructed by the local feral dirt-jumper and enduro-bro teen wolfpack). Did a right proper job of it, 4 compression fractures of the upper vertebrae, 3 chipped teeth, 2 broken ribs and a partridge in a pear tree. Helmet pics in the other current thread. 4 days in hospital, nice individual room in the nearest private hospital. And now back in lockdown mode as in working from home again for the next 6 weeks or so. The Docs do want me to work to the best of my tolerance to speed up the healing process, but recommend lots of position changes, small breaks, stretches etc, which don't work so well in the office environment. In a few weeks it will be time to think about what I need to do to fix up the bike, my new XTR shifter has shattered, dropper no longer works and I don't yet have the strength to muck around with the RD which is in a weird position entangled with a dropped chain. Fun, fun, fun.

One of my bugbears- NBN and telcos here in Aus are positively Telkom-ish, and I mean old-school monopoly Telkom. The NBN used to have a Technology Choice option, where if you had a spare $10 k cash, you could cough up for fibre to your premises. That option had faded away by the time NBN came to my suburb, but I gather quite a few people paid that, and more (I think the highest personal install cost was $250 k). The only option for me was "take what's offered, otherwise you get nothing." The best part of the NBN/telco handover was that I requested my home phone number be transferred to the new VOIP system that is part of the NBN. The system has given my a phone line that works, but has been assigned an unknown phone number. Not just unknown to me, but also the telco - they have not been able to tell me what it is. On the plus side, I can dial out without anyone knowing my identity, and there are no more surveys, spammers or scammers dialling in, as even random number generators have not cracked it.

Income tax is one thing. A wealth tax, especially one at that kicks in at that relatively low level, is a whole different kettle of fish. Let's say you work your whole life, finally pay off your Auckland house worth $1M at age 50, so you just qualify for the wealth tax. If you live to 90, you need to find spare cash to the order of $400 K to pay in tax in order to have retained that asset and pass it on to your kids. That's a hefty inheritance tax. In any event, the really wealthy will just structure their accounts so that on paper they are only worth $999 k at any one time (or some flavour thereof, ala Dave King). The only people who will benefit are the tax accountants.

Gotcha. But I was also hinting that one of you takes a hike to get out of earshot......

WP, the Sony's as per my post above ? For meetings I did not need to look at the screen for, I could wonder outside, skim leaves off the pool, all whilst bluetooth connected. The range is pretty good !

I got myself a pair of the Sony WH-1000XM3' at the start of lockdown for use as a videoconferencing headset. Not as good a manufacturing quality and comfort as my 6 year old MDR-1's, but the sound and noise cancelling is great. They fold into a much more compact space as well. I was on a call last week with someone on the other side of the city, when I could hear a loud jet plane noise picked up by the others persons mike- they apologised, stopped talking for a while and said it was a loud fighter jet flypast. The noise-cancelling was so good I never heard the same plane at all when it flew over our suburb, but my youngster in the local school down the road said it was really, really, really loud !

Not if you were the poor throttle jockey in the cockpit .

I really feel for you. I remember our own transition time of living out of luggage for a month or two in a 2 bed flat in S.A. whilst our stuff was shipped ahead. That was bad, can't imagine how that must feel when your life and future gets put on indefinite hold, and all you get is government bureaucracy.

Parents of friends of ours are also heading back on that flight after a 3 month stay courtesy of lockdowns. They had to wait for a direct flight to happen as they are only SA permanent residents, so no other country would take allow them to transit.

I gather it's normally in the fine print in the T&C's, only one body per seat. And if a body does not show up for the extra seat, it's a no-show, and the airline can fill that seat with a stand-by if they want to. Otherwise we would all buy 3 x discount economy seats for long haul and stretch out in a make-shift lie-flat. But I don't have the days and high powered magnifying glasses to read through the fine print myself to verify that.