Birding in Zimbabwe

Hi again

It is certainly time I caught up with my posts here as there is so much happening I am in serious danger of falling way behind !

When you were last listening (reading) we had just arrived at the entry gate to Chizarira – the Hidden Gorges in remote north-western Zimbabwe.

First of all lets deal with vehicles.  We are all now quite familiar with the dear old Mazda Bongo that has carried us so far.  In Hwange we met up with CvC and CH in their Toyota Prado……..

This shot also shows one of the two “Basha’s” that provided the lucky few with accommodation.

A rather poor shot of a Mazda BT 250 double cab.  Also the ablution block which was, I suppose, adequate IF it had any water.

It didn’t !

We will get on to the provenance of this vehicle a bit later.   Also we have some tented places for some folk to lay their weary heads at night.

OK – now the people.  We were joined in Chizarira by two other adventurers who drove – in the Mazda – directly from Harare.

PF…….

…….. who is standing looking chilly.

Also ANBM……………..

……… who is here hiding behind a huge grin and the peak of his cap.  I mentioned that the two girls were mad photographers – check out the lens on that camera !!

Next CvC ………

….. who is seen here giggling at the fact GJW has fallen asleep !

Finally CH……..

…… who I caught in her Basha recovering from an overdose of Imodium !   Not funny at all.  Poor girl.

Oh of course – you don’t even know where we are…………

Kaswiswi !   A fantastic camp site on the banks of a river of that name.  Which is where we got the water to make the ablutions function after a fashion.  Within a few hundred metres we found three pools suitable for bathing.  The crocs occupying them were 3, 4 and 5 metres long respectively.  Bathing didn’t happen !

And the roads ?  Not good I am afraid.

Yup we failed the exit.  It was a 500 mm vertical wall.  We built it up with rocks before the Prado made the attempt.  Fortunately the Mazda was still in camp and was fetched with a fairly short walk and quite easily extricated me.

We saw mentioned on the welcome sign something about ‘hidden gorges’ ?

The Mucheni River cuts its way through the Zambezi escarpment which makes up the Parks northern border.

It is about a 300 metre deep canyon.

It was quite spectacular – mesmerizing in fact !

We were in the Park for five nights and we reckon that to be about the minimum stay due to the huge distances involved.

When we left we popped into the Chizarira Lodge.  This lodge had it’s heyday in the late 80’s after African Pitta (Pitta angolensis) was found to breed in the forests on the escarpment, as I am sure they still do.

After leaving the Lodge we had about 3 hours on a middling bad road to the Gokwe turn-off then still a very long way home.

This post is plenty long enough so I will close off now with a big promise to be back soon with the next post being wholly dedicated to the BIRDS of Chizarira  !!

Thanks for joining us

Cheers

Tony