Thursday, 20 June 2013

Crook's Corner

By Lewis Walter (DC Intaf)

I wonder how many of our readers will remember the remote Portuguese wine shop at Crooks' Corner on the Limpopo River where Rhodesia, South Africa and Mocambique came together at single point. This area was beloved of "Bvekenya" Barnard, the well-known hunter/poacher, and other miscreants. The story is that when the police of one or other of the countries in which they were wanted got too close, they would merely move a few yards to the safety of a neighbouring country...... Some of Bvekenya's offspring still lived thereabouts in the 1960s.

The photos were taken in 1963 when I was stationed at Nuanetsi.

Innocence Personified


Where do we start?
 In the wine shop are Rob Knights (Intaf), Albert Blamire (Schoolmaster, Bindura School) and Henny Olwage (Intaf). All off-duty of course !

End
Many thanks to Lewis for sharing this information with ORAFs. It is so rewarding to learn of these oddities for the first time and to read the personal experiences thereafter. Boy it certainly makes my job a lot easier.
Please send your recollections. memories of Crook's Corner to orafs11@gmail.com and share them with all ORAFs and fair amount of other readers who are mainly not-Rhodesian.

The book " The Ivory Trail" is a story of a larger than life hunter and poacher told by one of South Africa's most popular travel and adventure writers.

This is the story of legendary hunter/poacher S.C. 'Bvekenya' Barnard who lived in the Limpopo River region. It tells of his hunting expeditions that revolved around Crook's Corner, where he could take refuge from the country's police. An outlaw for twenty years, Bvekenya was one of the most colorful personalities in Africa, who fought a one-man war against all control and authority. The life of Bvekenya and his exploits as an ivory poacher, blackbirder, outdoorsman and perhaps surprisingly for some, a conservationist, was told to Bulpin by Barnard himself.


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Ref. Rhodesia

Further information received from Lewis.

 Crooks' Corner
By Lewis Walter (DC)

Thanks to John Hill and others for comments on Crooks' Corner.  Re John's remark that the building may have been washed away, this is very probable. This photograph shows just how close the wine shop was to the river bank, and the big tree was already being undermined fifty years ago. 


I wonder what has happened to the DC's Field Quarters at Malipati, and Palfrey's store which was right on the Mozambique border some miles north of the Limpopo.   

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To view the complete story, please click on the image or on the link below.
Visit.

Thanks to Lewis for making the photograph and story available to ORAFs.
 
Comments are welcome - please send them to Eddy Norris at orafs11@gmail.com
 
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(Please visit our previous posts and archives

 Ref. Rhodesia

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posted by Rhodesia Remembered @ 20:46   7 Comments