PART 1 of this article ended with Steve camped beside the Sanyati River, 40km from where it enters Lake Kariba, waiting to rendezvous with ‘Tom’. Prior to this, Tom had accompanied Steve down the Umfuli to its confluence with the Sanyati, but then left his canoe and gear with a road-gang near the Umfuli-Sanyati confluence and returned home to appear in court. Steve had gone on to canoe the difficult and dangerous Sanyati alone, Tom having promised to motor back with replacement provisions, pick up his canoe and bring it by road to meet Steve at the lower Sanyati bridge. Together they would then canoe to Kariba and on down the Zambezi through Rhodesia and Mozambique to the Indian Ocean.
Steve’s food had run out, and, without his fishing tackle (left with his lifejacket in Tom’s canoe to be brought on to the rendezvous point) his only source of protein was guineafowl he’d shot. However, Tom never pitched. After several days, having no money to catch a bus to Karoi, Steve asked a bus driver to deliver a letter asking the Karoi police to contact Tom and inform him of Steve’s plight. On 13 May, Steve’s sister-in-law and his
