 |
|||||||||||
Home | About Us
Our Storyand why we created this website about Victoria Falls... My name is Tony and together with my wife Boo we created this website out of a passion for our home country Zimbabwe and our love for the African Bush, wildlife and adventure.
We met in Victoria Falls 26 years ago and have been married for 21 years. We have three wonderful sons. When we met I was a Rafting Guide and Boo (that’s right Boo, real name Aileen) was the secretary to the general manager of Victoria Falls hotel. Those were wonderful and exciting days and memories of them always bring a smile to my face. From then until now we have had an incredible journey, with many highs and many lows. We've been through the mill and faced many challenges. Zimbabwe is an incredible country and there is hardly ever a dull moment. The people are wonderful as is the countryside, it was once considered the Jewel of Africa and rightly so. Unfortunately Political madness has stripped it of that accolade but hopefully one day it will regain its rightful status. We feel very fortunate that life has led us to the making of this website. It's a fantastic lifestyle, we work together and make a living doing what we love to do. 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. At the tender age of 20 I was brought in along with a few other guides to train and become an oarsman. It was an exciting time!
Twenty five 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 Railway 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 an African Game Farm and in 1995 we managed to buy one. A beautiful 3500 acre farm of virgin bush only 50 kilometres north of Harare, 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 sold our business and 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 possessions 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 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 England 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. Was this our ticket back to Africa ? So I bought every "How To Make Money on the Internet" package I could find and did learn 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. Too many blanks. Things were looking bleak but 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 and people will flock to your website eager for that information. So there you have it, in December 2007 with the wind back in our sails we once again packed up all our belongings and moved back to Africa and started building this website, which thankfully has grown from strength to strength and provides us with the lifestyle we dreamed of.
We currently 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 We are extremely happy and settled here. Despite the challenges that face South Africa we are so grateful to be back in Africa where our hearts lie. We very much belong to a strong and alive church called NCF and we give thanks to God for all our blessings and every day that passes. NCF has several community projects, we head up one of these projects which feeds orphaned children every month. We get to travel up to Victoria Falls, Botswana and the surrounding area on a 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 to Victoria Falls or merely doing some research. We sincerely hope that our experience and information will be of some help to you. We get so many people asking us about How SBI works so I decided to add another page to our site to explain exactly what it did for us and How it has Changed our Lives. You can Read it Here If you are at all interested in making a living out of what you know and love, I would highly recommend you having a look at Site Build It they show you step by step how to do it. Even if you know absolutely nothing about websites or the internet. They help you find the perfect topic for your site, How to build it, How to get traffic to it, and then they even teach you how to make money with it, no matter what it is about. So 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" Thanks for your reading this far, if you would like to ask a question or make any comments please do so in the box below.
Questions or CommentsIf there is anything you would like to ask us or say, please enter it into the box below. Questions and Comments from other VisitorsClick below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
Pictures
Great Website!
LOOKING FOR STEWART IRVINE
Help please
Not rated yet
Use a pic
Not rated yet
Great Site
Not rated yet
You have a GREAT site
Not rated yet
The Zimbabwe Land question
Not rated yet
The way was long
Not rated yet
Inspiration
Not rated yet
|
Share with others!
Download This Guide
|
||||||||||
|
[?] Subscribe To This Site
|
|||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||
