By Paul Topping

David Livingstone was the first white explorer to see the Victoria Falls in central Africa in 1865. The Zambezi River drops 354 feet into the gorge and is over a mile long. So why was the river of the falls not called “Livingstone”? Frank “Zambezi Watson took the first photo, the oldest of the falls, which became famous.

I recall in my early years the numerous visits we took as a family to the Victoria Falls; the David Livingstone statue I thought was massive. Not what I think decades later. There was only one hotel on the river then; now there are over twenty-four major hotels. A bit ugly.

Livingstone town is close to the falls that has the longest curtain of falling water in the world. We’ve been more frequently in the last thirty years to the area. Jezzabel and I were the only ones in our group of eight to do the microlite trip over the falls and canyon. Our pilot was a sacked Zimbabwean military pilot.

A Whinging Pome moment, “he is still alive”.

We also did the gorge in a helicopter, Jezzabel complaining it was not dramatic enough, so the company gave us another ride the next day. It was for sure more dramatic!!!

At five years of age I sometimes would come down to breakfast in the manse, my dad was the church minister, and meet a perfect stranger. One was an American chap who had attempted to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge. My dad had gone out with the police and talked the chap off the bridge. Life as a young boy was amazing.

On the way to the falls when I was five, an American lady in a big car ran into the back of our Morris Minor. The car went into a ditch and hit a tree; I flew through the windscreen, hit the tree and bounced back into the car. No seatbelts. Unconscious for two and a half days, I wasn’t going to make it. On a stretcher, I was put into a small plane and flown off to Lusaka. My parents prayed, and I got through it after 12 weeks in a hospital; an Indian doctor saved my life and ensured I could walk again.

Today you can raft down the gorge after the falls and even bungee jump off the falls bridge.

I’ve never walked across the top falls, which is done in the dry season, never sat on the Devil's Pool. I would not trust my stability, not that I’m clumsy. On the last visit we went back to the Victoria Falls Hotel. As a kid, it’s where we went for ice cream. The hotel is a classic.

The pioneer Cecil Roads built the railroad in 1904, and trains reached the falls site from Cape Town. Rhodes wanted the most dramatic view when crossing the bridge. Now there are one and a half million visitors a year to the falls.

If you make it to Livingstone, drop into the David Livingstone Museum; it is the largest and oldest in Zambia. Mahendra Ambahera, a friend who lives in the same apartment as me, is delivering some newspapers published before and just after the bridge was built to the museum. I’ve had them from a young age.

Victoria Falls is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is one of the great natural wonders of the world.