Cross Country Travels
"Travel slow, for the world whispers its secrets to those who take time to listen."
Anon
When planning the trip from Eastern Highlands to Mana Pools we looked hard for routes which avoided the main roads and cities but, apart from the main Harare road, the only viable option was the road down the Zambezi valley from Nyanga and we had been warned this would not be easily navigated in the 3 days we had allowed for the journey. The roads around the Chimanimani mountains were still fresh in our minds.
There was nothing for it but to boot up and head out on the main road to Harare. It would be a chore but at least we had Mana Pools to look forward to at the end of it.
The funny thing is how you always find unexpected treasures if you open yourself to the positives of any trip, wherever it winds or leads. So it was with our cross country route. It reminded us yet again that it is not always about the destination, good company buffers any hardship, embrace the journey!
Gosho Park
Gosho park is a well kept secret and a perfect stop over on the route from Eastern Highlands to Harare and beyond. Ken from SeldomSeen told us this was the perfect stop off point and he was not wrong. Mind you Ken mostly speaks in bird so he was recommending the bird list boasting 237 species but we found so much more.
It is an area used for conservation and education by the Peterhouse group of schools. It is situated to the north of the main Harare to Mutare road just east of Marondera. It is used for outdoor activities like hiking and orienteering by the schools but it is also open to the public with a couple of camp sites, a bush camp and picnic sites and a few rustic cottages and cabins.
Peterhouse schools are a group which include the Peterhouse boys and Springfield girls schools.
They are considered one of the best, if not the best schools in Zimbabwe. Think Michaelhouse on steroids and you will get an idea what to expect. Anyway they are fancy enough to have their own private game reserve so there you go.
Gosho is a 3.4 km2 fenced area adjacent to the Springfield girls school and was created in 1984 by a geography teacher at the school. It started with 8 impala and a sable but has grown over time to have a healthy population of sable, giraffe, zebra, kudu, eland, waterbuck, wildebeeste, bushbuck, duiker, klipspringer and steenbuck. Nothing that is going to eat you.
It cost us $US 120 to camp there for the night. No Zigs for Peterhouse! We were directed to a bush camp but found it occupied. They sent us to the hiking hut campsite which was also occupied by a bunch of school kids so we settled in the adjacent picnic site called Boulders. It did have a braai and table under a huge overhanging rock. Really pretty.
After lunch a teacher came to see us and find out what we were doing. They were hosting a prefect camp and clearly wanted us to move. We were willing but had no where else to go.
Eventually they let us be but told us we could not use the ablutions. I think she felt our boys threatened the young girls honor. I am not sure leadership lessons should include banning a bunch of pensioners from using the only toilet in the area, especially as we had paid to do so, but we agreed only to go in if we had a serious call of nature and use a bush otherwise.
Let’s be fair, we were not exactly strangers to using a bush toilet although digging a hole in those rocks would be interesting.
Balancing rocks are a bit of theme in Zimbabwe. This refers to granite rocks which have been weathered and eroded over time to produce columns or piles of rocks, some quite large, which appear to be balancing on each other.
Famous ones are at Epworth near Harare and at Matopas and they have been a feature on the ill fated trillion million banknotes. According to the government they symbolise the peace and stability of the nations economy. Nice try. Pull the other one.
Balancing rocks are formed by differential erosion. Granite and similar hard rocks were formed from magma pushed up from the earths crust billions of years ago. The surrounding rocks are significantly softer sedimentary rocks like sandstone and they wear down faster than the hard granites especially in hot dry climates.
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Eventually the hard rocks also split, developing cracks and joints in the rocks and onionskin weathering, which leads to a landscape with towering pillars and stacks of rock like a childs building blocks. They can look pretty precarious and I am sure every so often they fall so camping under a big one was a little intimidating
The vegetation at Gosho is primarily miombo woodland with rocky outcrops and areas of grassland. There are a couple of vleis and waterholes.
The birds are renowned with many of the Eastern Highlands specials, our now familiar friends. Raptors patrol the sky.
Some bushman paintings can be found in the rocky caves.
On our route around we found other picnic sites with toilets so we could have been directed there if anyone had thought it through when we arrived. The booking process seemed a bit disorganized.
Brown-hooded kingfisher
You can walk around the whole park quite easily on well developed trails and the animals are pretty habituated so it is a great experience to wander the trails, past small herds of grazing animals. We were able to wander the park happily for the rest of the day and the following morning, it was really a beautiful little oasis from the chaos of the main road to Harare.
Chinhoyi Caves
The next plan was to stay at Chinoyi caves, 115 km north of Harare. They have a campsite as a base to explore the caves. The campsite is not very inviting being a barren patch of earth right next to the main Harare road. A few trees scattered around and some broken down tables and braai stands. The ablution blocks were also run down and largely broken. We were given the key to one but the water was cold and the toilets leaked.
Baboons were grazing in the middle of the camp. We felt a bit bleak but soon cheered up with supper and cold wine.
A guard came around after dark sporting an AK 47. She told us she was there to guard us against the baboons. This was even more alarming than the baboons, who had just shambled off into the bush to sleep.
We all locked our cars that night and hoped she would not shoot us when we got up for a pee. To be fair it was a bit of an odd set up. Trucks full of armed guys in camo were driving through the camp to what we assumed was a parks or army barracks. I am not sure what they were really up to. They were not friendly.
Next morning we went to explore the caves.
Chinhoyi Cave is technically a circular sink hole in the surrounding dolomite resulting in a funnel-shaped cavity in the limestone, produced by the action of water on the soluble crystalline rock. The surrounding area has other sink holes and depressions in the rock where new tunnels into the cave system will probably open in time.
The deposits of dolomite appear to have been laid down many millions of years ago in a shallow sea. Traces of algae found as fossils within the dolomites are amongst the earliest forms of life in Zimbabwe.
Dolomite is a particularly absorbent form of rock. Rain water vanishes into the rock and as it percolates downwards it absorbs carbon-dioxide from plant material. The slightly acidic solution dissolves the calcium carbonate in the dolomite so forming the characteristic underground caverns.
There are 2 access routes open for visitors down into the cave. One is a sunlit passage to Sleeping Pool, and the other via the artificially lit Dark Cave.
The Sleeping Pool is also known as Chirorodziwa, which means the Pool of the Fallen. A long inclined passage leads down to the pool which is lit by sunlight from a collapsed portion of roof. Shafts in the roof light and ventilate the passage way. On one side of the passage is a large cavern that has been occupied at different times in the history of the cave.
For generations in the past, wild animals have descended this passage to drink at the pool, and the blocks of limestone are polished smooth by the constant rubbing past of thirsty animals. I think now it’s mostly tourists that slip and slide down the rocks. The pool at the bottom is still, clear and blue with fish swimming in the shallows
Dark cave is accessed through a different entrance down very steep steps and along a narrow passage to a point just above the water at the far side of the Sleeping Pool. There is no natural light there and it is artificially lit. Stalactites decorate the ceiling.
You have to climb on slippy polished ledges and boulders to look down into the depths.
The most striking thing about the view from Dark Cave is the intense cobalt-blue colour of the water and the vertiginous sense that you can see down into crystal clear depths.
The blue colour is apparently from dispersed particles of lime.
Stalactites and the natural beauty of rock.
The pool itself is roughly rectangular. For a long time it was believed the pool was bottomless, but divers later recorded that the depth of the water varies between 80 and 90 metres depending on rainfall. It is a popular spot for cave diving because of the clarity of the water.
Several under water passages have been found leading from the Sleeping Pool, but all those so far explored lead back into the pool.
It seems probable that a whole complex of underground galleries and caverns may honeycomb the host dolomite rocks.
It is also postulated that the pool is connected to an even larger body of water as the temperature never varies from 22 C.
It is popular with recreational divers and a guy in Harare specialises in leading trips here.
Painting by light in the Dark Cave. Look at the depths in the crystal clear water.
According to local history the caves were used initially as a refuge for a notorious bandit called Nyamakwere who used to murder people by throwing them into the Sleeping Pool (hence the name Pool of the Fallen).
He was eventually defeated by Chinhoyi who was then appointed the local Mashona chief and gave his name to the caves.
He used the caves to take refuge from raids by the Ndebele looking for cattle. The Ndebele tribe was formed by Zulus displaced by Shaka and they brought the warrior culture into Zimbabwe.
He also hid there when the Europeans arrived in 1887, but later he moved on with his people towards Lomagundi. He was clearly following a policy of avoidance and not conflict.
Emerging from Dark Cave into the light
We enjoyed our morning there and had fun practicing flash photography and painting with light. They are a designated national monument and recreational park but seem under utilized, perhaps because the management is a bit slack. Also it is home to lots of guys in camo with AK 47s which is a bit off putting.
It is a bit run down and the staff seem to do the least they can. The balustrades were broken and covered in baboon poo. Still it was worth the visit and I would love to dive there. Next time.
Karoi
The road out of town became gradually worse, the road edges very eroded and truck traffic heavy and slow. We headed for Spring River Lodge outside Karoi which advertised waterfront camping.
It was a strange set up on a big farm with a restaurant and a rather new/unfinished lodge which was empty. The manager loaded into Ian’s car and drove us down through the farm to a dam where they were still in the process of developing ablutions, chalets and shade spots. Good intentions but a bit rough and ready. He then told us cheerfully to camp anywhere but that he was expecting 31 more campers en route to Mana pools that day.
Oh well we settled in. It was windy but warm and we managed to shower and wash clothes which dried remarkably quickly in the wind. An overland truck pulled in around 4.00 and disgorged its passengers, presumably the 31 expected campers. The truck was Zimbabwean and full of young first time campers headed for Mana.
We shared the fire with the Zim truck. Watching them cook for 30-40 people made me happy we were a more manageably sized group. Caldrons of rice and pap simmered on the stove and herds of animals hit the grill. As dusk fell the campsite was illuminated with gestapo lights. First sign of things to come.
The gestapo light in the background and the overland truck just visible behind the beast
We retired while the overlanders were still cooking. Predictably there was quite a lot of noise. Not least was the boom box which continued until the early hours of the morning.
Just when we breathed a sigh of relief they had finally gone to bed, an almighty racket came from the truck. It seems someone bought some spares so at 1.00 am they started to fix the truck with much banging metal on metal. We pulled our hair out. At the same time the drivers and fixers were communicating with each other at full volume with a muted boom box in the background. More hair was pulled out but at some point we must have drifted off to sleep.
The noise restarted as everyone started getting up. We immediately thought it was morning and gave up on sleep but when we got up it was not yet 4.00 am and they were preparing breakfast and mobbing the bathrooms with half naked girls. The resilience of youth.
The reduction in overlander trucks has been notable since Covid but they may just be coming back into fashion. They radiate joie de vie and youthful energy but sharing campsites with them can be challenging. I found myself hoping we would be camping far apart in Mana. As it happened we never saw them again. I wonder if the elephants saw them off for smuggling fruit? More of that later….
Sunset over the lake. The lake was pretty with some water birds but they had a huge water pipe and pump front and centre.
We left early for obvious reasons, happy to wipe the dust from our shoes and most of us somewhat sleep deprived.
Makuti
We continued to make slow progress on the main road. The quality of the road deteriorated to a potholed, barely single lane road with really bad eroded edges. Half the time we were off the road altogether. There were increasing numbers of heavy trucks as the morning progressed.
We were headed for Makuti to get fuel and pay our park permits. Predictably the most expensive fuel in Zim.
The Parks office was pleasantly well organised and we were soon back en route with the necessary paper work.
7 km further on the road improved dramatically. This is the road to the Zambia border so clearly they have redone the first part of the road and ran out of steam for the rest.
We had dreaded the cross country journey to Mana but in fact we had found it to be less of a journey and more an adventure and laced with gems well worth the visit. We should have stopped at Epworth to see more of the balancing rocks and maybe a detour to Harare will be worthwhile in the future but the Beast and cities, eish, not sure it is worth the risk.