The next part of the adventure involved exploring the northern and eastern mountainous areas of Zimbabwe – I chose these areas as they are known for their birdlife, and beautiful hiking opportunities. We left the Zambezi Valley and headed back on to Zimbabwe’s main “highway” – the A1 – many trucks, and the road is all single lane, so tough driving. The scenery, though, is beautiful. Abandoned and some regenerated farms, small villages and homesteads, bushveld, and towns. Potholes, livestock on the road…
We broke the journey at Chinhoyi, a town well-known for an interesting geological and archaeological site – the Chinhoyi Caves. We set up camp at the campsite, which doubles up as a picnic site during the day. We were the only campers there and were given keys to the newly renovated ablution block, so we really enjoyed our hot showers.
Before we set up camp, we visited the cave system. It is pretty much at the entrance to the picnic site. The cave has a bit of a gruesome history (see the photo with the info). One walks down into an open tunnel to the cavern below. This is filled with sapphire blue water which reflects onto the steep cavern walls above. I managed to get about halfway down before my fear of heights and steep inclines got the better of me. Conveniently there is a bench at this spot where I could park myself while the others walked to the waters edge. I was not alone – I had the company of a young boy, who was really not happy about this, and his family had left him to sit there too. We could not speak each other’s language – did not matter a dot. He took MANY photos with my phone, jabbering away happily until his family came back up to fetch him.
Next morning, we wound our way northwards, up the mountains to Mavuradonha. Oh my, I was weepy with the sheer beauty of the ancient African landscape, the rolling mountains, granite batholiths, decorated with bushveld. Just over the rise, turn right to a camp nestled in a forested valley. Camping on grass – what a treat, even though the facilities are a little run down. Our home for the next two nights was Mavuradona Wilderness Eco-Lodge, at approximately 1000m above mean sea level. Mavuradonha is a Shona name meaning “land of falling water”. It is a Wilderness area and is afforded National Park conservation and managed by the community. The area is an IBA – Important Bird Area. A quick stroll around the camp provided me with two gorgeous lifers – Red-throated Twinspot and busy Red-backed Mannikins.
The ablution block was being rethatched, so we showered and abluted under the big African sky. The staff, as usual, had oodles of the Zimbabwe hospitality. We booked a long hike for Scott and Shelley, and a bird walk for Rich and I for the next morning.
Our walk landed up being a bit of a hike – there was some information lost in translation, but before we landed up clambering up a koppie, our trainee guide, Nomsa, realised we wanted to bird, so we turned around and headed to the bits of forest reasonably close to water to find some bird parties. We did find a few, and got to see some interesting, feathered friends. Happily, we didn’t bump into any elephant – they are definitely around, and one bull is known to visit the camp nearly every evening. We heard him in the forest on our first night, but not again
Relaxed during the heat of the day, and Shelley and I went with …. For a late afternoon stroll to find more birds. We got distracted by a nursery run by a Zambezi Valley Biodiversity Project, to rewood areas where communities have cut trees for fuel and to make place for crops, especially now protected tree species. The trees and shrubs are grown in the nursery and distributed at no cost to people and communities who would like them. All part of trying to encourage sustainable living WITH the environment, and not just removing flora and fauna from the land, protected or unprotected.
On advice from the guides, after we packed up camp the next morning, we drove around 5 km down the escarpment with vistas over the Zambezi Valley, to a waterfall. Sohwe Falls tumbles down the escarpment in steps – we just walked to the top of the first bit of the falls. Truly spectacular.
Mavuradonha is a place that needs to be visited – partly ethereal, partly harsh, rolling never-ending mountains, forested valleys, springs and streams, vistas forever, and birds abound.
Heading off to the Eastern Highlands – Nyanga. We realised our one front tyre had developed a slow leak! We stopped a couple of times to pump air in and stopped in Harare to have the tyre repaired. A nail imbedded in the tyre was the culprit. Scott and Shelley found A food Lovers Market and did some retail therapy while we sorted tyres out. Back on the road, and started to climb up ,up, up the next escarpment to the high lying grasslands that Cecil John Rhodes loved around the area of Nyanga.
