If, like us, you prefer to camp at rather remote locations, getting a good cell phone signal is an important issue. I remember it not being a problem during our earlier bush adventures but life has changed.

We need to stay in touch with our children, check on the latest world news (I wonder what for!) and, for some people like me, listen to a few talk and sport shows on the internet radio. Other communications options do exist but to get a satellite phone is very costly not to consider buying its airtime. Recently, I was given a new gadget called a “satellite link” that enables your cell phone to send text messages, a bit like what we do with WhatsApp but via a satellite. However, I have not tried yet as it does not seem to function in this latitude.

However, not all is lost as you can still, by some miracle of the cell phone signals, get communication (albeit sometimes precarious) from some areas in the bush. Interestingly, these are very precise locations and, usually, associated with trees.

We came across the well sign-posted cell phone bench, under a large tree, at Sirheni Bush camp in the Kruger National Park where people would sit to talk on the phone. At Mandavu dam in Hwange National Park, the exact location of the signal was marked by a shampoo container that had been cut to allow the perfect fit of a cell phone. If you moved one metre in any other direction your signal was gone!

More recently, we found the best example, so far, of one such places located at Chishakwe Safaris at the Save Conservancy in the Zimbabwe low veldt. In this case it was a large baobab that was clearly advertised and also offered a dead tree trunk where you could sit on to enjoy your conversation!

Needless to say that I have thought about how this takes place and I still cannot find a clear explanation. I believe that the tree could act as a screen where the signal would, for some reason get “trapped” there. The fact that this “phone tree” was a leafless baobab destroyed one of my theories that the leaves had something to do with it!

Even more difficult to explain is the finding of really specific signal areas like the one I described of the cut shampoo container! I have searched Google for an answer and did not find any. More recently, I have consulted some experts in communications and I am waiting for their reply.