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Having heard horror stories about crossing the border into Zimbabwe, I was a little apprehensive but it all went smoothly and quickly. We were finally on our way to Victoria Falls. I never really thought much about going to Vic Falls and I was shocked to pay $50 to enter into the “park” but I guess it was pretty impressive. I am more partial to its African name though – Mosi-oa-Tunya, or “The Smoke that Thunders.” I didn’t take this photo but it gives a good idea of its magnificence.

It is a beautiful walk along the path where you can view the different falls. The mass of water is just overwhelming and the roaring sound is all you can hear. In parts, you get soaked and there are beautiful, huge rainbows as you walk. I forgot to say that Geoff had his birthday in Vic Fall and that this is his second birthday there. He was here for his 17th too!

This was sadly the time we had to say goodbye to Dave and Jackie! They made their way back to Maputo and home and we continued through Zimbabwe. Our next stop was Kariba where we took the ferry across Lake Kariba on our way to Mana Pools. There was an option to drive 3 days on awful roads or take the ferry for 25 hours. I’m glad we took the ferry, it was beautiful and relaxing. It is a smallish boat and there were only 8 of us. They stop at some point where it is deep and you can jump in. Being hot water babes, we decided to watch as they shivered. The crossing was perfect . The lake was calm and serene, no wind, no waves, very peaceful with beautiful views. We had a sunset and a sunrise and very good food. Sleeping was either inside or on deck. We opted to sleep out, went to sleep looking at the stars and listening to the water and woke up to a beautiful sunrise. Highly recommend crossing the lake by ferry!

The road from Vic Falls to Mlibizi starts off well but it soon descends into a horror show! A tarmac road, covered in potholes and broken tarmac, absolutely exhausting. On the way, the came across a broken down car and stopped to help. Two guys from Harare on the way to an NGO meeting. Sadly, we weren’t able to fix the car but left them with water and a promise to get them help which we did. We exchanged emails and received the loveliest message thanking us for stopping to help. We often hear how we need to be careful and not to stop, but we have always done so and have had amazing experiences when we have helped others. Lovely connections….

Before catching the ferry, we stayed the night in a local place, Mlibizi Zambezi Resort. Very nice and comfortable, we had a huge 3 bed chalet all to ourselves with views of the lake. The place is run down and the pool had seen better days and we found this review in our chalet comments book. We only saw crocs in the lake, not in the resort but we did find these scorpions in our bedroom. Geoff found out that they were highly venomous and it was pure luck we didn’t step on them. We think they were Mozambique Thicktail Scorpions (Parabuthus mossambicensis), let us know if you know better. The venom is considered dangerous, and stings should be treated in hospital – wouldn’t have been great….

Getting into the ferry has to be done backwards, a bit of a challenge…

There is nothing much around so the ferry departing is an event. We had a small entourage seeing us off.

The MV Sealion was built by Zambezi Coachworks in 1973 to be used as a cargo carrying vessel operating the lake shores of Kariba. It was then acquired by the Reg Harris group of companies in 1974 and transformed into a passenger and car ferry. It is 107ft long making it the 3rd largest vessel on the Kariba waters, and the only passenger/car ferry in operation on the lake. Given that it can carry up to 65 passengers, and 15 vehicles, we were lucky there were only 3 cars and 8 people.  

Lots of fishing boats passed us by…

We stopped by to look at the dam which is HUGE! There is a small office where you can look at old photos and learn more about the history of the lake and the dam with a very informative guide – donations are expected. We learned that the dam wall is 128 metres high and 617 metres long. It has 6 flood gates and was built between 1955 and 1959. Lake Kariba is the 4th largest man-made lake in the world and the 2nd largest in Africa. Its construction displaced people and animals and the local people believed that the dam’s construction would anger the Zambezi River god, Nyaminyami. They believed that Nyaminyami would break down the bridge and cause catastrophic floods. To this day, it is believed that Nyaminyami lives under a rock close to the Lake Kariba dam wall. The rock has been named “Kariwa“, which means to trap. The locals have warned that canoeing past this location can be fatal. This is where the name Kariba comes from.

From Kariba, we made our way to Mana Pools. Everyone we spoke to told us how wonderful it is so we were excited to get there. The camp is beautiful along the river, full of hippos and crocs. I thought as the bank was quite high that the hippos wouldn’t come up but I was wrong. We saw a couple of hippos walking by our tent two days in a row. Elephants and various types of bucks also visited camp as well as plenty of monkeys and baboons. The monkeys and baboons are usually trying to loot for food and as soon as we took our eyes off anything, they were fast. We lost 2 cartoons of milk and an almost empty packet of rusks. It made for good photos as they were hanging around, posing. The hyenas like to come to camp and at night they run around making lots of noise. Surprisingly, I slept through it all…

Mana Pools is a beautiful park with the mighty Zambezi river running through, the one we had just seen at Vic Falls. Although it was the dry season, there were some pools where animals come to drink. Long pool was teeming with crocs, everywhere you looked there were crocs and more crocs, and hundreds of birds. Stunning scenery and sounds all around. A place where you could just sit, watch and be content.

The day after my birthday, we went on a walking safari. We left at sunrise which made for a beautiful walk and the light was soft and warm. Just the 2 of us with a guide who took us on a military style walk! He was a man of few words and wasn’t really into stopping much. We did manage to make some quick stops to snap some shots and stopped for a bit at Long Pool to look at the hippos. We saw elephants, warthogs and loads of different bucks. At the pool there were many hippos and birds, didn’t see any crocs…

It is difficult to find a signal so we made our way to the camping office where you can access their wifi. The usual monkeys were lurking about and I had been told the elephants like to pass here to eat the pods from the tree that the monkeys drop on the ground. As we were looking at maps and routes, we heard the call “elephant”. There was one and then 2 more. They came pretty close and at one point I tried to take a photo of Geoff on the bench but as he saw the elephant, he made a run for it! I am always amazed by these giants. They are so quiet and so gentle. you can’t hear them coming at all and they step around the smallest things with such grace.

We’d heard about the elephants at Mana Pool and how some of them have learned to go up on their hind legs to reach the acacia tree leaves. Boswell is the park’s most famous elephant and he is huge! He is known for his ability to stand on his hind legs and break branches out of reach of most other elephants. Others have learned from him and have mastered how to do this. We were lucky to see 3 elephants do this. It is quite impressive to see such a huge animal go up on their hind legs and fall back down again! Even if they don’t go up all the way, some are very stretchy, like a yoga pose.

There are a few pools in the park but Long Pool and Chisasiko Pool were the best ones. Chisasiko had a lot of hippo, elephant, vervet monkeys and baboon activity and this is where we left the car for our walking safari. On the way back, we took time to watch activity at this pool. A lone elephant enjoyed drinking and the monkeys were scurrying about looking for food.

It is not always easy to spot lions and sometimes we don’t see any at all. We were lucky to find this lone female chilling in the shade. She is normally part of a pack but somehow we didn’t find the others. She kind of looked sad… We watched her for ages and she eventually moved and settled in for her afternoon nap.

There are so many beautiful areas in the park. The mighty Zambezi provides stunning views with a backdrop of mountains. This is at Old Ndungu camp, a wild campsite without facilities with sweeping views of the river and mountains.

Boswell came to visit us at camp and I took the opportunity to go and watch with his entourage. Geoff stayed behind, I think he had enough of elephants by now! Boswell would pull the branches down and the other 3 would try to get some food off him. He wasn’t too happy about it and it was fun watching their interaction. I was pretty close to them and one decided to explore and come towards me. It was too late to drive away so I sat and watched as he looked inside a car and around some tents and then promptly walked towards my car.

Some people were camping nearby and the elephant explored their car first and then moved towards my car. They took a photo and I can’t believe how massive this beast is, and he was one of the smaller ones!

From Mana Pools we made our way all the way down the country to Gonarezhou National Park. We stopped in Chinhoyi in a lovely BnB called Zebras Dazzle and at Antelope Park in Gweru. Zebras Dazzle was a lovely stop and I would recommend this as a stopover. Not sure I would recommend Antelope Park as I am not sure how kosher they really are. They are part of the African Lion and Environmental Research Trust (ALERT) and are supposedly meant to be releasing lions into the wild. However, for the past few years, their release programme has not released many at all. They recently stopped their lion walks after controversy. We were asked if we wanted to pay $20 to pet a lion cub. When I questioned this and the fact that the lion would never be able to be released into the wild, they fobbed me off with some nonsense. I tried to speak to someone in the lion programme but wasn’t able to. We decided not to stay an extra night there as felt very uncomfortable. If you are ever that way, I wouldn’t recommend this place although their website makes it sound amazing.

We finally made it to our final destination – Gonarezhou. Wow, what a stunning park! Gonarezhou, named “The Place of Elephants“, is Zimbabwe’s second-largest National Park and one of its most famed wilderness areas hence there are many photos of elephants in this blog!! The Save, Runde and Mwenezi rivers flow through the park attracting animals and birds to the water. We stayed at Chipinda pools the first night, by the river. Beautiful spot with plenty of hippos, elephants and springbok.

We moved on to Chinguli camp. A beautiful spot, pretty isolated and quiet by the river. The camp itself is small and very private so no danger of feeling crowded or being surrounded by people. I was worried that being so rocky we wouldn’t get animals walking around but I was wrong! Hippos, crocs and elephants were aplenty as well as the cries of leopards in the night. To get to the campsite, you need to cross the river, where you can see more animals coming to the water to drink. There were quite a few river crossings in the park and there is information on which are safe to cross.

The most well known and prominent feature of the Park is the Chilojo Cliffs, sandstone cliffs towering 180 meters high and running for some 20 kilometers along the south bank of the Runde River. Very impressive and beautiful in the sunlight.

At one of the viewpoints at the top of the cliffs. It is like being on top of the world. Stunning views as far as the eye can see. The hills are dotted with huge baobab trees and the isolation and silence is breathtaking. Once you are there, you don’t want to leave…

Here are some birds…

As you drive around the park, the scenery changes completely. You can be in a forest, or in a desert, crossing a river… We saw large herds of animals, many giraffes and large elephant families with elephants of all ages. The animals are skittish as they are not so used to people but there were still some great sightings to be had. Here are some curious giraffes.

Lots of elephants as the park, known as “the place of elephants”, is home to over 11,500 of these gentle giants, one of the highest densities of pachyderms in any protected area in Africa. They are the most beautiful giants, so graceful and gentle.

We drove the length of the park towards the border with Mozambique at Sango and into Chicualacuala. It took about 4 hours where we didn’t see another soul or animals. The southern part of the park is not as full of game or as scenic but it is still beautiful. The road deteriorated in parts but nothing our beast couldn’t handle. The border crossing took a long time. We thought that it would be quick as it is a small border, but no! We were the only people there and they had to find the immigration official, apparently they have about 6 people cross per day. They all wanted to chat to us so 1.5 hours later we finally managed to cross into Mozambique. We heard bad things about hassle and corruption at this border post but we experienced only friendliness and warmth.

And so our trip comes to an end. A fabulous time in the wilderness where we felt contented and at peace, well, apart from the time when awful roads went on forever! Botswana and Zimbabwe are wonderful countries with friendly, welcoming people. The wildlife is abundant and I love the way the parks feel properly wild and there are animals walking around freely both day and night. A truly amazing experience.