Finally home

We wanted to stop in at the Matopo's, but as we entered the area, the rain came down, so we decided to head for home!

The border crossing at Beitbridge was a BREEZE compared to the 4 1/2 hours of chaos at the beginning of the trip.

15 minutes was all the time it took to cross from Zimbabwe into SA!

The trip covered about 4500km and we used 621 litres of diesel @ $1-30/l

Mana Pools

Mana Pools is a really beautiful area of Zimbabwe.  I'm sure that after good rains, the bush must be buzzing with birds and animals.  Nyamepi Camp where we stayed, lies on the river which is the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Elephants are constantly walking through and around the campsite.  At first it's quite daunting, we soon got used to them being there. The main rainy season starts in November, so the elephants wade/swim across the river to a small island and back again with ease as the river is lower than after the rainy season.

I think the monkeys have all had 'speed training'.  They dash in, steal whatever they can get their tiny little claws onto and dash off so quickly it was amazing!  Even Laura's Tabasco sauce wasn't safe, until a brilliant throw by Garth caused the thief to drop the box!  Would have been interesting to see what the monkey would have done if it managed to get the bottle open and take a swig!

Ellie checking that the solar panels were still in the sun!

Sunrise at Mana Pools

Sunset at Mana Pools

The one thing that you had to remember was the need for caution when visiting the ablutions at night.  No lights in camp after everyone had gone to sleep, meant that it would be quite easy to stumble into the bum of one of the resident ellie's.  This wouldn't be fun for either the dozing ellie or the half-asleep human!

Birds, hippo's and water monitor lizards made breakfast and afternoon coffee stops interesting.

Grey Heron

White-fronted Bee-eaters

3-banded Plover

Black-winged Stilt

Saddlebilled Stork

Water Monitor Lizard

"Apple slices" and a flower from the Sausage tree we camped under

Ellie about 8m from our house!

On our last night, a few buffalo made an appearance in camp, but didn't venture as close to us as the ellies did!

Chinhoyi Caves

If we thought that the ablutions at Mabalauta was bad, then the campsite at Chinhoyi Caves plumbed new lows! Dirty ablutions, dustbins overflowing with rubbish and a general feeling of "couldn't give a damn" about the place,  but let's charge $2-00 per person to look at the caves! 

Oh, you want to take your camera into the caves? That'll be another $2-00 per camera (not Zim Dollars either!)

After a  fairly broken night's sleep due to parties being had all around us and the smell of something burning (someone mentioned "pointy cigarettes" ... Or was it dead bodies?) we were all up and at the reception by 06:00 when they opened. 

We paid our $2-00 and proceeded to the caves, of which there were only 2!  We only ventured into the Sleeping Pool Cave, although our Designated Explorer Jeremy, went into the Dark Cave.

We left and made our way to have a quick look down at Kariba before heading on to Mana Pools.

The Great Zimbabwe Ruins

Thanks to a good suggestion from Jeremy,  we left Gonarezhou National Park a day before the rest of the group and made our way to the Great Zimbabwe Ruins.

After a pleasant evening at Norma Jean's we left for the ruins at 06:00, to do avoid the heat.

Our guide 'Lovemore" was very knowledgeable about the history of the ruins and he told us a lot about the traditions and culture of the Zimbabwe people.

We completed our tour by 09:00 and were on our way to the Chinhoyi caves campsite for the night to rejoin the group before heading off to what we hoped would be the highlight of the trip,

Mana Pools.

Chilojo Cliffs

We followed our usual "bush routine" - Up and out early and back in camp by latest 11:00 to try avoid the midday heat, which was peaking at around 40+ degrees. Then a short afternoon drive to properly top off the batteries which were plugged into our solar panels between drives.

We saw a fair amount of elephants and general game, including eland, sable and buffalo.  The terrain is extremely dry and in places, it is evident that there are 11000 elephants in the park.  

Although we saw a fair amount of birds, the variety wasn't as high as we expected. I guess the poor rainfall over the last 2 years has a lot to do with that.

The view from both the bottom and top of the cliffs is quite beautiful.  I'm sure it must be really spectacular after good rains when the bush is green and lush.

Chipinda Pools

Arriving a day earlier at Chipinda Pools was a bit of a challenge for the lady on duty, as they only receive the bookings for the day on the day.

A call was made and 2 very official looking chaps arrived in a Merc and sat chatting in the car! In the meantime we waited patiently for something to happen.

The officials sat in the vehicle for about 10 minutes before one of them came to the office to chat to us.  After a further 10 minutes the second chap joined us and confirmed that they still hadn't received the bookings for the day from Harare. He then advised us that he didn't have any airtime to phone HO, and after we paid for his airtime, we were allowed to proceed to the campsite!  Only in Africa!

After the Mabalauta campsite,  Chipinda Pools was luxury!  Nice river-view with a nice big shady tree, lots of hippos in the river and elephants walking about 30m from our tent. Clean ablutions and even hot water!

This was what we were hoping for.

View of ellies on the bank below our tent