Zim-tastic!

Zim-tastic!

Zimbabwe: a country with recent troubles; should we be here at all?  After our 47 day tour of this intriguing country – I can categorically say ‘yes’.

We crossed into Zim over the magnificent dam at the north eastern end of Lake Kariba.  This is a very quiet border post and entry was relatively easy.  After a week at a nice campsite on the lake’s shore, and during which we had a toilet failure necessitating multiple strip downs (who says our lives aren’t glamourous?!), we headed towards Mana Pools.  Unfortunately, a dilapidated and very small bridge prevented our entry and so we instead took the ‘road’ towards Victoria Falls along the southern shore of the lake.  On our way, we made a 140km diversion into Matusadona National Park, via a very rough and narrow track, and as Jimmy Cliff sang, Many Rivers to Cross. However, the 5 hour one way trip was totally worth it and we spent three days at a campsite on the shores of the lake with just elephants for company. Dave went fishing and Francine cooked fresh bream for dinner.

We also took a diversion up to Chizarira NP and camped overlooking a beautiful gorge. Finding ourselves low on bread, David baked his best loaf yet.  From here we ventured on to the magnificent Victoria Falls; our third visit.

The town of Victoria Falls we thought to be altogether nicer than Livingstone on the Zambian side, and, as we later determined, is one of the more pleasant towns in Zim.  The water was flowing hard in May and generated so much mist that much of the Falls were obscured; but this just added to the experience.  We also had a delightful High Tea at the very posh Victoria Falls Hotel, overlooking green lawns and the Falls in the distance. We both dressed up, which doesn’t happen much these days!

From Victoria Falls we headed cross country on back roads towards Harare.  These roads are tough and we stopped a few times to help others: we provided some materials to help reassemble a bus’s rear axle, we towed a minibus to the next village and we jumpstarted a bus that’s batteries had failed. Team Big Bertha definitely won some friends on this leg of the trip! We wild-camped one night and the next morning the local farmer insisted we visit his gold mine.  This was very interesting – seeing the shafts he and his workers had hand dug many meters into the ground.

We were very fortunate to have had an invitation from James, Ruth and family to stay with them in their house in Harare.  James and Ruth have started a solar energy company (Solar by Design) and Dave spent many hours learning from James who is Victron trained (Victron kit powers Big Bertha). It was a lovely stay.

Next came the Eastern Highlands. We were warned it would be cold, and cold it was, falling to 5⁰c in the mornings. Nevermind, Big Bertha is well insulated and we turned the heating on.

We first stayed at a dairy farm which served a delicious cream tea, with cream and milk fresh from the cows.  Next we wild-camped at the top of a cliff – World’s View at 2260M.  An amazing view, but the wind was such that we thought Big Bertha was airborne at one point in the night.

Descending down to the eastern city of Mutare, we were made very welcome at the local golf course by Kevin.  From here we explored the town and walked around the beautiful course each morning.

Then we climbed up again into Vumba where we stayed at a wonderful campsite overlooking the hills.  We could not visit Vumba without partaking in tea and cake at the long established Tony’s Café – not cheap, in fact damned expensive, but the cake was, as Francine would say, a–maz–ing.

We were also lucky enough to visit on the weekend of the Friends of the Vumba hiking trip.  Though steep, the hike up to Beacon Hill was good exercise and the views from the top were a fine reward. We were even invited back for lunch by Sally and Stuart.

We descended once again, drove a bit and ascended to Chimanimani , which is the most spectacular mountain range straddling Zim and Mozambique.  Here we hiked to waterfalls and camped in some fantastic locations, including ‘Pork Pie’ hill (so called because of its flat top), which gave 360 views.

This was the end of the high altitude leg of our trip and we then headed for Great Zimbabwe, crossing Birchenough Bridge – the prototype for the Sydney Harbour Bridge and by the same designer.

Great Zimbabwe is home to the ruins of an ancient civilisation whose impressive stone structures date back to 1400AD.  We spent the day exploring and in the evening climbed to the top of the hill to watch the sunset.

David chose to celebrate his 60^th birthday at the Bulawayo Club which turned out to be a good choice.  Having seen this place on the BBC’s “Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan”, it did not disappoint.  It is a time capsule dating back to the 50’s – an old gentleman’s club from the colonial days.

While in Bulawayo, we visited the railway museum and the working steam sheds where David managed to blag a ride on the footplate of a Garratt steam locomotive. A-maz-ing.

South of Bulawayo is the Matopos NP, known for its balancing rocks and we spent a day absorbing its magnificent scenery.  Cecil John Rhodes grave is also here and David thought he has picked a fitting location. There we also helped out a stranded truck.

This ended our circumnavigation of Zim and we crossed into Botswana via the Plumtree border post which turned out to be a very easy crossing.

Zimbabwe did not disappoint!

Francine’s footnote – It’s all in a name …

Having lived in Asia, we are used to names which might sound a bit odd in the UK (how could forget Winky Lam, our account manager at HSBC, Hong Kong?), but parents in Zimbabwe have a certain creative flair for naming their children, which we haven’t encountered before.  We have met Forget, Patient, Enough (not sure if his mother or father chose that name!), Memory (Forget’s friend), Marvellous (who Dave kept calling “Fabulous”), Kindness (ok, we didn’t meet him – he’s a Government Minister), Gift, Knowledge and (my favourite) Trymore.  It makes English names of our generation sound rather dull by comparison, doesn’t it?