Manyara Hotel

Great news being told of your web site. I was at Arusha school from 1949-1954 when I was enrolled at Kongwa until I left school in 1957.

My father, Russell Bowker-Douglass started Tanganyika Tours & Safaris from Arusha and went on to build and own Lake Manyara Hotel until he was nationalized like every one else by the Nyerere government.

I went on to be involved in aviation until I retired at the end of 1999 when I was a "Jumbo" captain and instructor pilot for a major airline and 25,000hrs flying experience!

As you can see from my address, I live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Its where the expression, "Godzone" came into being!! I have the good fortune to be surrounded by not only ex-Arusha School but ex-Kongwa-ites too. To name but a few, Peter Taverner, Denton Webster and Nigel Borrissow.

Numerous ex-Kenyans live near me too, Thadie and Lavinia(nee Allan) Ryan, Dave Power, Peggy Tisdall, John & Robin Channer and Dennis & Anne Bower to name but few. The local Ex Kenya Regiments meetings from this area often fronts up over 100 at curry do's.

I would like you to publish what you can of this letter in the hope I may get in touch with friends from long ago.

Best regards, Rusty

Russ Bowker-Douglass

My name is Eric Six, Geoff Jones gave me your website, and it was fascinating to read about folks about whom I had not thought in years, surprisingly I was more familiar with the adult names than fellow students. I attended Arusha 1955 to 1958, then went on to Iringa, where I stayed till it closed in1963. There were only a handful that saw the entire life of StM & StG. I completed High School at Prince of Wales in Nairobi.

For those that knew me in school it comes as a surprise that I eventually became a Neurosurgeon, as I have to confess being a fairly lousy student, being more familiar with the tacky, and cane or cricket bat (if you crossed HA Jones); than with prizes in the school magazine. I too was brought up in the bush, in Kiru Valley about 100 miles from Arusha on the way to Babati.( David you were familiar with North Lewis, they lived about 25 miles from us off the Singida road.) Hunting was a way of life on the farm, but after doing that much hunting as a youth, I shoot only with a camera now.

David, I noticed that Elizabeth Palfry also lives in Texas---- I would appreciate you giving her my web address if she would like to write. I am familiar with her Dad, through my parents of course. Funnily enough I also knew Pete Hugo, and a number of the farmers from the Olmolog area.

I was sitting here trying to recall the names of classmates from 50 years ago with little success.

Geoff Jones (BLs son),

Corky Morgan {Father's namesake the old man liked to pull on your ears.},

Gerald Hunwick, {TFA}

John Cashin {PWD},

Clara De Liva,

Paul Marsh,

David Ulyate {farm},

Leslie Hague {The Beehive Restaurant}

Bizarrely I cannot recall but the one girl!

(Fritz Jacobs, Erik Larsen.Klaus Gaitja, Alex Zikakis, Hannes Matasen, Ivo Santi Barry Jones Louis van Royen Kevin Legrange were on either side of us) I am told that George Angelides still lives in Arusha and has a great reputation as a hunter guide.

Do you remember that little dog of Hamshire's, the miserable devil loved to chase us, I happened to be amongst those she caught and got bitten by, I still have the scar..

Sorry about all the parentheses but saves a whole lot of explaining.

After independence my Dad built a number of hotels in Tanzania ,amongst them Lobo lodge, Ngorongoro crater lodge ( the hotel on the rim just before getting to the original rondavels) and rebuilt the hotel on manyara escarpment, those all happened in the late 60's. They also managed Hotels in Zanzibar, and Dar-- the New Africa and Kilimanjaro being better known.

Enough from me. Please remember to pass my address to Elizabeth.

Russell [Douglas] built a major tourist destination with construction of the Lake Manyara Hotel, which has a marvelous view overlooking the Great Rift Valley.

At Arusha we were met by the new Director of National Parks in Tanganyika, John Owen, our guide all the time we were in Tanganyika.

Arusha itself with its cosy individual character, is unlike any other town I have seen in Africa. It was built by the Germans when they owned the province; they also built the road leading out of town, on which we met many Masai marching proudly and arrogantly with an accomplished feline grace.

....

To begin with, John Owen took us up to the Ngordoto Crater, a very recently created National Park, only an hour�s drive from Arusha.

... [after a visit to Lake Manyara]

The Land-Rover lurched and plunged on the broken track, roared its way through torrents whose rush seems to have doubled in noise and intensity. I began to wonder how I should like to spend a night here with a breakdown, in this forest which now assumed a sombre and malevolent power.

We emerged after what seemed like an eternity, and with some relief returned to our perch on the rim; [the brand new Hotel Manyara] to a bath of kipper smelling water, a drink at the smart bar and a tranquil evening by the welcome fire. The young warden, Max Morgan Davies, joined us for dinner. ..

... [at Ngorongoro crater] Mr Phersen the district officer was putting us up.

... [to Seronera] We drove on to the warden�s house. Mrs. Harver received us, and took us straight to the guest-house for a welcome bath.

... In the afternoon, the Chairman of the Tanganyika National Parks, Mr. Hunter, took us up in his small plane and flew us right over the Serengeti Plain.

... [Next stop Dar-es-Salaam.] The pilot of the small charter plane accommodatingly took us right over the splendid grey ash cone of Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Masai�s Mountain of the Gods, a still sub-active volcano, puffing out clouds of sulphuric gases. A minute later we looked down into its neighbour the Embegi volcano, now extinct, its forested crater containing a lake. Clouds of flamingos were whirling like pink snow below us, shimmering against the blue water. The sides were very steep, their ravines thick with ancient forests. Such an intimate view of this farouche lonely giant could never have been achieved in any other way.