 The road from the south african border at Beitbridge to Harare to Kariba is a very long straight and boring tar road with not much to see so our first impression of Zimbabwe wasn't very glorious. |
The previous owner of our Landrover had encouraged us to visit Zambia and to go and stay in his camp which he had built in Kafue National Park during his work as a ranger, which was a reason why we were crossing Zimbabwe.
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 Peter's friend in Harare ran a wildlife expedition at the time and soon told us where the best and remotest places in Zimbabwe are, and what to avoid. Having done no reading up about Zimbabwe we both had no idea what beautiful regions there where to discover.
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| It is very cheap to travel in Zimbabwe, even for South Africans. The people are very poor but friendly. Along the sides of the roads it is possible to buy and barter for stone and wooden skultures.
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At Kariba we crossed into Zambia on the 20th of April 1998.
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TO ZAMBIA
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| On our return on the 15th of Mai 1998 we returned from Zambia and Malawi to the tranquil water's of the 5000 km2 Lake Kariba where we met a dear family which invited us on their house boat on the lake for a few days. |
 
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| We took this opportunity to do some well needed maintenance on our Landrover and to change the tyres since the wire threads were already showing where the rubber had been stripped. |
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| Kariba is a magical place where wild animals roam around freely between the Zimbabwean resident's gardes, the african villages and through the hotel properties and campsites. It is quite dangerous to drive or walk anywhere after dark because dark shadow of elephants and buffalo regularly wander along the main road. |
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Young local artist proud with their beautiful soapstone skulpture of a black king complete with brass inlets.
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| We lost track of time and days, and after passing through Matussadona and Chisarira National Parks we eventually found ourselves in Victoria Falls. |
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This time we had the luck to be in the right place at the right time and although it is an absolute tourist trap, the falls were at their best and gigantically impressive with a permanent rainbow in the rainy season when the mighty Zambezi, the fouth biggest river in Africa thunderes into the gorge causing such a huge spray that we got totally soaked down to the skin even though we had raincoats on. The falls are named by the locals "Mosi-o-Tunya" or "smoke that thunders". Said to be 1700m wide and plunge 108m below.
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| Out next stop was the awesome Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe's largest and most varied game park +/- 14,000km's. |
 
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The waterholes and dams were filled to the brim at this time of year and the animals were abundant.
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| Wherever we drove there where huge herds of elephants sometimes up to 20/30 at a time. |
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| Wherever they wandered they totally destroyed large tracts of their sorroundings. Trees had been stripped, large branches torn off and the smaller trees and vegetaion totally trampled and destroyed. |
 
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One evening while camping near a huge dam I experience one of the most wonderful sights of my life. At around 6:00 while before there was no animal in sight, family's of elephants in single file appeared on the huge plain across which we could see to the horizon.
From every which direction they came, causing smokey dust clouds to rise about them as they trudged heavily to the water. More and more appeared and they still kept coming until the whole shoreline of the huge dam was completely sorrounded. We We counted 350 elephants when it got too dark and still there where more arriving as other family's left. The gigantic echo's of their movements in the water could be heard until late into the night.
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Some days later we passed through
into Botswana for a second time at the Border Post of Pantamatenga.
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Tour 1
Map
