The local race track, not only home to the local horse races every two weeks but also the place where the body lies in state for any prominent person who dies.

There was also a KICK ASS pub attached to this place....one of those buildings on the bottom right where the road curves!!!

My dad and uncle`s business helped build this University - the biggest in the country.

view of my old High Scool - that blue was our pool, the big brown track on the right our sports field where i had TOO many a day doing Althetics Team practises. The small brown square next to it was the netball pitch - we made history in our school - only team to win tournaments 5 years ahead of us in the age groups and me and another girl the only two to represent the school in Form 2 ( a privillege only for girls 4 years above us!) The entire block to the left of the swimming pool was our school and the building in the bottom middle was the place I went to night school when I was putting myself through University!

The towers of the power station... fuelled by coal

You think YOUR lunch is expensive???? yeah right! And this is when you can actually find something on the menu to order

The shoe shop has.... erm... run out of shoes.... quite literally!

How many notes???????

At one stage there wanst` anything to put on the shelves so they were loaded with toilet paper... apparently it was cheaper to wipe your *ss with a bank note than with toilet paper!

Normally all those grey trees are the vibrant purple of jakaranda`s in full bloom

Balancing rocks

a bus - ok African buses can have anything on the roof.... from chickens to goats to bikes... and the people crammed inside??? just because there are 70 seats doesn`t mean 150 people can`t fit inside, with a few dangling out the open door and the suspension so bad it SLIDES around the road as opposed to actually being ON the road. Obligatory belches of smoke errupt from the exhaust and banana peels are OFTEN thrown from the windows. ALWAYS wave to the people of the backseat - they will 9/10 times be waving at you already!

The Castle - a posh weekend getaway

THE FOUNTAIN! hehehehe at NY people would sneak up and pour washing powder into it - it just became a fountain of foam!

City Hall

THE MILK MAN!!! we never got our milk from the shops ours was delivered to our doorsteps every morning in big glass bottles with foil lids and about 3cm of cream! He would come around at about 6am ringing his bell and we would all run to the gate and buy chocolate milk or orange juice in plastic bags about 10cm long and 5cm wide!

ICE CREAM MEN!!!! wooooohooooooo! ok the red guy was from one company and the blue guy another. Like you have the ice cream vans that drive around so we had these guys RIDE around. Those boses there were basically ice boxes and we would jump up onto the boke wheel and peer inside for the ice cream we wanted. .... notice infront of the blue ice cream man... that`s the public dustbin!

ontop ofthe gomo - you gotta love it!

The local shopping centre

One of the High Schools in my town - imagine going to school surrounded by such beauty?

ahhh Victoria Falls - at one stage one of the natural wonders of the world - the longest spanning waterfall in the world (I think?????) The spray from this baby sends so much water into the air that it creates a rainforest.... literally a RAIN forest. They hire out raincoats as you enter the grounds or else you can go like we did and get wet, soaked and let the vibrancy of the place soak right into your skin. THE place to go for New Years - we had many a new year celebrated watching the sun rise over the Falls!!!!

Hillside Dams - I lived about a 5 minute walk away from here. As beautiful as what it was it was also dangerous during my younger years. People would jog through here, although a few women were pulled into the bushes and raped and my sister was lucky to escape from a cobra bite. Did that stop us? NNNNAAAAAHHHHHH you gotta be kidding! When it rained this dam overflowed and was AMAZINGLY BEAUTFUL!!!!

BORROWSTREET!! This was the public swimming pool. They had a line of lockers which were of every colour you could imagine and just as bright as what they were so there were as many chips of paint peeling off the doors. Every Saturday we had to line the lanes during the school gala`s... but they had the best tuck shop.... marshmallow snakes..... YUM!

The emblem of Bulawayo - the greatest city on Earth! that middle shield was also part of my high school emblem

Another street view - this was the way I used to drive everyday to work. In the background you can see the massive power supply station. Those were powered by HUGE mounds of coal that were visisble when you got closer. They were massive vats of steaming water... one day a man committes suicide by jumping down one of those. It was the talk of the town.

ESATS was where we used to buy all our school clothes.

A view of Haddon and Sly (look further down for commentary)

HA!!!! ok every year it was a tradition to go to the park and ride on the miniature steam train at christmas time. there was this huge park, sort of like the Botanical Gardens in Australia, that the train would run through. We had tunnels and bridges and it passed through Story Land where there was a HUGE Old Mother Hubbards Shoe, as well as many, many other replica`s of childrens fairtales. There was also Miniature Golf and and a playground and a little station where, as kids, we all stood eagerly with out tickets waiting for the train! GOOD TIMES PEOPLE!!!

don`t you love our robots (traffic lights)??? it`s not like you could miss them eh???

ahhhhhhh Jakaranda`s.... PINK EYE season! but you also knew - if you hadn`t started studying by the time the jakaranda`s bloomed you had left it too late! the road leading into town was lined by jakaranda`s as well as the road leading to our school. Every year it was a purple paradise!

Slipping and sliding down these waterfalls was our favourite pasttime!

ahhhh Matopos, famous for its balancing rocks! This was Maleme a favourite for us! If you got a piece of meat, stood REALLY still and waved it in the air you would attract the local Kite (a bird, sort of like a Hawk) population. Being careful not to be too long you could throw it up in the air and watch as these glorious creatures swooped down to grab it in their sharp talons.

It was also a GREAT camping place where you would wake up to a family of warthog happily munching outside your tent door!

OK! on the left you have Haddon and Sly which was a MASSIVE shop where you could buy ANYTHING you wanted - groceries, furniture, crockery, cutlery, material artwork... and they had Sisters - a restaurant that made kick ass pies and chips!

Don`t you love our streetlights.... awwwwwwww

On the right was the shoe shop BATA, but outside here were vendors... they would have pieces of cardboard with every watch imaginable pinned to it... and they didn`t take no for an answer!

One of the many talented artsits at City Hall

City Hall

Curio Sellers

The City Hall was the place for tourists to go.... to get ripped off!!!! Or if you wanted to buy cheap flowers! This was the place for artists, sculptors and any 'self employed' person to be. You could also score weed and other products here!

Eskimo Hut

This is Eskimo Hut, the KING of ice cream places. If you want to taste ice cream that rivals the Italians come here.... especially for a Pink Panther, Wimbledon Wonder or Green Mamba!

This also used to be where we hired pirated movies from! hehehehehe! GOOD TIMES!