Our Story

and why we created this website about Victoria falls....

My name is Tony and I am married to Boo (that’s right Boo, real name Aileen) a nickname given to her by her Dad as a baby which has stuck, she would love to change it but there’s no way now….

Us after a recent Elephant Back Safari

Together we have created this site out of a passion for our home country Zimbabwe and our love for the African Bush, wildlife and adventure.

We met in Victoria Falls 25 years ago and have been married for 20 of those years.  At the time I was a Rafting Guide and Boo was the secretary to the general manager of Victoria Falls hotel.  Those days were wonderful and memories of them always bring a smile to my face.

From then until now we have had a tumultuous time, with many highs and many lows. We been through the mill and faced many challenges, like so many people in the world these days, our goals and dreams didn’t turn out exactly how we had envisaged them, when we were in our teens.

That doesn’t have to always be the case…Fortunately life us led us to the making of this website and we can now live our dream life,  being together and making a living from what we love doing.

 This is our Story.......

Both Boo and I were brought up in Harare in Zimbabwe, we were teenagers during the guerrilla war that shook Rhodesia (as it was called then) and its people during the 1970’s, but which eventually brought about independence in 1980 and the dawn of a new era.

We started our careers in the travel industry Boo worked in Hotels (mostly in the food and beverage side) and I was a Canoeing Safari guide on the Lower Zambezi River.

We were both transferred to Victoria Falls in 1985. The company I was working for was expanding into a new and exciting operation… White Water Rafting.

Can you believe at that stage only a few very adventurous people had ever been rafting on the wild river below Victoria Falls. I at the tender age of 20 was brought in along with a few other guides to train and become an oarsman. It was an exciting time!

This photo is taken in 1986 and that's me in the purple life jacket. The river hasn't changed much, but I sure have!!!

Twenty four years later thousands of people have been rafting and Victoria Falls is considered the Adventure Capital of Africa with so many exciting activities to do it is almost impossible to list them all.

I must say that I feel very privileged to have been involved in those pioneering days, strong friendships were forged that still last to this day.

The Highs...

Several years later we decided to start our own business making Furniture from Teak wooden Railways Sleepers (Ties). It was a completely unique concept and this furniture proved to be extremely popular and our business flourished. We exported furniture all around the world and had a few outlets in Harare and one in the UK which was run by family living there.

During the early 90’s we were extremely blessed to have 3 beautiful sons born, they continue to be our pride and joy, and are highest of the highs we have ever had.

Our dream was to own and live on a African Game Farm and in 1995 we managed to acquire one. A beautiful 3500 acre farm 50 kilometres north of Harare, the land was virgin bush and we built it up from scratch putting in roads and fences, electricity and workshops. We built a beautiful house, and also a cottage for my Mum and Dad.

We invested everything we had in this piece of land

We introduced lots of Game including Giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeest, Eland and many more. Life was bliss and we were on a high.

The Lows...

However Zimbabwe was in for some tough times ahead as Robert Mugabe surged forward with his land redistribution policy. In 2002 when it was no longer safe for us to stay living on the farm and we had to abandon it.

We were more fortunate than some farmers during that time and we managed to get most of our possession off the farm and we moved back into Harare. From a high to now a very low and a big lesson in life sent to teach us humility and forgiveness.

We decided at this stage to move to England as we still had an interest in the furniture business there and I had family there. We initially planned to go for 2 years thinking that the madness in Zimbabwe would not go on for any longer than that. Well five years later the situation in Zimbabwe had worsened and the prospect of moving back to our farm was more distant than ever.

A new opportunity came along...

While in the UK I was lucky enough to get invited to a World Internet Summit conference being held in London. It revolutionised my thinking. The power and the functionality of the internet meant that you can make a substantial living from your computer anywhere in the world, as long as there is an internet connection.

 I bought just about every creating wealth on the internet package you could find.
We longed to get back to Africa and this I believed was our ticket!!

I tried them all and learnt an awful lot, but still didn’t make the vast sums of money promised in these packages. Great sales letters but then when you buy the program it is never quite as easy as they make out. Lots of blanks.

Then I came across SBI (Site Build It) whose approach was not a get rich quick scheme but a much longer deep rooted system based on a solid foundation. Building a website about what you know and love, what turns you on… what flicks your switch!!

Let people know what you know about, on any given subject, in our case Victoria Falls. People will then come to your site eager for that information.

A question everyone asks when we tell them about SBI is well that’s nice but how do you make any money?

Well there are lots of ways, in our case you will notice on many of our pages advertising blocks like the one opposite here. Advertisers pay Google to place these ads on relevant websites like ours, then when visitors click on those ads Google pays us. How cool is that, once it has been set up, it’s automatic money, night or day whether we decide to work or not Google pays us.

But that’s just one way, we also get paid referral fees from the tour operators and hotels if we send bookings through to them. We plan to shortly have a downloadable Guide to the Falls, some screensavers and photographs these will all bring in extra revenue.

Every site is different but There are endless ways to monetise your site once you have visitors, and SBI shows you how to get those visitors.

Excuse my waffling but I could go on forever about how good SBI is. If you know absolutely nothing about websites or the internet. Site Build It shows you step by step how to do it.

They help you find the perfect topic for your site, to build it, to get traffic to it, and then they even teach you how to make money with it, no matter what it is about!

We get so many people asking us about How Site Build it Works that I decided to add another page to our site to explain exactly what it does for you How it has Change our Lives. Read it Here

If you are prepared to put in some hard work and can see the bigger picture, I would encourage you to do this too. If we can do this, I can assure you anyone can…

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step"

In 2007 we finally moved back to Africa and now live in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa where two of our boys are at high school and our eldest son Daniel is a Safari Guide in the Kruger National park. Dan writes a really interesting Blog about all his exciting game viewing experiences, it's a great read, have a look...Daniel's Blog

Our Family on Holiday in Botswana in our overland Vehicle "Arnie"

We are extremely happy and settled here. Despite the challenges that face South Africa we are so grateful to be back where our hearts lie.

We very much belong to a strong and alive church which has several community projects, we head up one of these projects which feeds orphaned children every month. The need is vast.

We travel up to Victoria Falls, Botswana and the surrounding area on regular basis, to keep abreast with all that is happening there and visit our numerous friends who still live there. We just love it...

If you are planning a visit or merely doing some research. We sincerely hope that our experience and information will be of some help to you.

Thanks for your time....

[Top of Page]