2014 John and Carolyn in Zimbabwe

It is over a month now since we returned from Zimbabwe, which has included the Xmas and New Year holidays in the U.K. and all the time and energies, mental and physical, which those involve. I had intended to upload blog entries as we went along and as they were written, but this trip was somewhat different to previous ones. We spent most of the time without access to electricity, apart from the auxiliary battery which came with the Hi-Lux and we only had access to the internet on one occasion. Although I tried to keep my journal up to date some of it was in note form so I have needed to fill in the details since we returned. I have tried to be true to the events as they occurred and not edit them with the advantages of hindsight. You will see that there are almost no photographs of game and wild-life. That isn't because there wasn't any, we saw so much, but how many photographs of a zebra do we really need? This trip for us was much more about recording our experiences of the country and it's people. As usual we return from our travels with more questions than answers. There is much more research to be done. We definitely intend to do all we can to support Matsetso Stars and Jane in Chimanimani, a wonderful example of what can be achieved by a committed individual and a community of enthused and enthusiastic young people. I want to learn more about the involvement of several overseas countries, who is doing what and why. We will be following the future of Zimbabwe and hoping that things will improve for those kind and generous people.

The Toyota Hi-Lux and our ground tent

Friday 07 November - Lake Chivero, Kiumba Shiri Bird Park

Last Tuesday when we arrived seems so long ago now. The flight was tedious, but the stop-overs brief and soon passed. We travelled with Kenyan Airways and I was pleased to see how many Kiswahili words I could still recognise, although I was lost with the verbal announcements. We were met at the Airport by James, with our truck, and our first problem. He had driven the vehicle from Jo'burg through Botswana and entered Zimbabwe by the Plumtree Gate. Unusually the officials had given a permit for only 10 days and not the 31 for which we will be here. If a foreign car is brought into Zimbabwe it has to be issued with a TIP, Temporary Import Permit, valid for the number of days that it will be in the country. We know from last year's experiences we could be stopped at a road block six times in one journey and asked to show the TIP. (See last year's travel journal for what happened on the single occasion we forgot to take it with us!) So we had to go back into Harare and get the length of time extended in John's name for a further 20 days. It was surprisingly easy and non-beaurocratic, but did delay us for over an hour. Back at his hotel James went through the truck with us, including the contents and equipment. We were both tired after the long flight, but got the general hang of things. It transpired that he knows Kiumba Shiri, where we have booked for our first couple of days, very well and often stays here himself. So we have arranged that at the end of the trip we will rendezvous here rather than in Harare. The only problem in our arrangements is that the new TIP has only been extended to 02 December so we will have to be back here a day earlier than we would have liked in order for him to get the vehicle out of the country before the expiry date. It's a shame but the best we can do in the circumstances.

We were glad to get away from Harare to Kiumba Shiri, put up our tent, enjoy a nice meal and the hospitality of Elcine and Gary, before getting a good and quiet night's sleep. Kiumba Shiri is a lovely setting. We have pitched our tent in order to give us a view over Lake Chivero. There is no-one else here and it is very quiet and peaceful, the only distraction being the amazing variety of birds. Gary and Elcine have given us advice about where to shop and stock up with provisions for the trip. They are a very kind and stoical couple, both going back many generations as Zimbabweans, their ancestors being amongst the original settlers of Southern Africa, British, French and German. There have been many threats that their land will be taken away from them, they have relinquished some of it willingly. The land remaining provides a home for Gary and their son, Joshua's, collection of rescued birds of prey, and provides them with some income, chalets and bungalows to rent, a Camp Site and a Restaurant. Our Guide Book barely gives them a mention, just the Bird Park as a place to visit if you are in Harare, which is a great omission as they would be an excellent base for anyone wishing to see and experience Zimbabwe. We told Elcine and Gary that we would like to return here at the end of our visit and that James will collect the truck from here, they seem to know him well and he is a regular visitor. We have booked a chalet for the last night so that we can hopefully pack up a dry tent for our return trip.

The captive birds are beautiful, most of them have been brought to them by people who have rescued them, or they have been contacted because of an injured bird and they have gone to find it. The birds have been nursed back to health wherever possible, then exercised until it is safe for them to be released. Some are so traumatised that they can't be released, and then they might be bred and the off-spring released. We saw a beautiful falcon who had a genetic malformation of it's wing feathers. It couldn't survive in the wild and it couldn't be bred for fear of passing on the malformation, so it remains quite an attraction in the shows they give, demonstrating the flying and hunting capabilities of the birds.

Gary has a pet peregrine called Stella and we were so privileged to be taken by him and Gabriel on a jaunt out into the surrounding countryside at dusk, to set Stella loose to hunt for francoline. The conditions weren't good and Stella didn't make a kill, but the experience was wonderful. We drove past derelict farms previously owned by white farmers, which now lie empty and abandoned, the bush having invaded what used to be prime grazing land. To be fair we also saw some places where the land had been ploughed and crops planted. There was evidence that tractors and other machinery had been used. This type of farming seems to be at a subsistence level, whereas previously the large white-owned farms provided steady and reliable employment and an excess of produce for export. This is indeed a difficult situation to have an opinion on. It doesn't seem fair that the economy worked according to a feudal system where most of the people were dependant upon the land-owners for their livelihood. That those land-owners were white makes it a racial issue, but I think that even in Norfolk we would probably say that if your family had been resident there for 2 or 3 hundred years you qualified as 'local'. We cannot honestly form an opinion, we have no idea of the situation and condition of the black people before land reclamation. All we can see now is the majority of the black population with no income, no visible means of support and no hope for the future. The whites who are still here seem to be hanging on by the skin of their teeth, living one day at a time, no longer land-owners but making a living in what ever way they can, mostly tourism associated, but tourism is sparse, determined to stay as long as they can. They have never known any other life and have nowhere to go. Obviously the system had to change, all change is uncomfortable, but this change doesn't seem to be benefiting anyone.

We have ended up staying at Kiumba Shiri for four nights, rather than the three we originally planned which has given us three clear days to get ourselves organised and equipped for the trip and to familiarise ourselves with the vehicle. An obstacle arose as we were unable to get any bank's ATM to give us cash. Our Travelex card is Mastercard and we were advised by banks which we we went into that the most reliable bank to payout on Mastercard is Barclays. Gary and Elcine gave us directions to their nearest shopping centre, Westgate, very comprehensive, we were able to get all our provisions from the Pick and Pay there, but Barclays only had an ATM, not an actual bank. We went further, to Avondale, another shopping centre where there is a Barclays Bank. We were told that there must be a problem with the card and we needed to contact the U.K. to find out why. John telephoned Travelex and once again their customer service was very good, phoning John back to help with our costs. Our fear was that when a similar situation occurred a few years ago, in South Africa, our card had been cloned and as soon as Travelex suspected that illegal withdrawals been made, the card was stopped. The Travelex operative went through every possibility and John was assured that this was not the case, and maybe the card was damaged. So next day we returned with my card, the same account but we have a card each, which worked perfectly well. It has been annoying and time and travel consuming as it is about 30 km each way and we have been forced to make the trip into Harare three times. An anomaly is that even when all the other banks refused to accept John's card at all, one bank would allow him to withdraw $50 a day, the maximum limit it would allow anyone to withdraw. So we still don't understand how the card could be damaged?

We also rearranged the trucks storage to suit our particular needs. We acquired several cardboard boxes from Pick and Pay and clustered our provisions accordingly. Hardware included washing-up liquid and sponges, aluminium foil, insect spray, then we have dried good, tins of beans and sardines, Marmite, ever an essential, and other box for fresh foods, fruit and vegetables. Gary and Elcine gave us the name of the man they knew in the Butchery Section of the Pick and Pay, and sure enough he agreed to slice, vacuum pack and freeze slices of Rump Steak for us, to collect the next day. Once frozen we could pack them in our freezer, we bought sufficient for two weeks.

We also practised setting up the roof top tents. Our vehicle is equipped with two, so it could take a party of four. We had asked the Safari Company to remove one set of equipment such as pillows, sleeping bags and blankets, but the roof top tents are securely fixed. One is over the double cab and the other over the back of the truck. We tried them both, although James had given us a demonstration when we picked the truck up we hadn't really taken it all in, so a bit of practice was required. We decided that the front one will probably be the easiest for us, but we aren't really keen in climbing up the ladder to either of them. They are thick safari-type canvas and seem very hot and claustrophobic. We wonder how it would work if/when we encounter heavy rain as once you have climbed the ladder there is only sleeping space, where could we leave our wet clothes? We are pleased we decided to bring our own tent, with a separate sleeping area, just like a large zipped-up mosquito net, and a fly providing a porch, we know we can peel off wet clothes and still sleep in the dry. We also know from last year that if it rains when we are not travelling we still have the porch where we can sit in the dry. Some Campsites have 'lapas', but not all, so if you are stationary I suppose you have to choose between sitting in the top tent, or in the cab. So we are as equipped and prepared as we can be. We will be leaving here early tomorrow morning and embarking upon our next adventure.

Sunday 09 November - Mana Pools, Nyamepi Camp

We were up at 05.30 yesterday for an early start to Mana Pools, but it was an eventful journey as just outside Norton, about 25 kms from Kiumba Shiri we got a puncture. We missed the turning to Chinhoyi and Kariba in Norton, there are very few road signs here, and soon realised we were on the Bulawayo road instead. We stopped and asked directions from some young men at a roadside shelter and they pointed to a dirt side road we could take to save going all the way back to Norton. It was a good, graded dirt road but when we hit the tarred road again there was a vibration in the car and we assumed that something had moved going over the bumps. We went a couple of kms before John found a suitable place to pull over and rearrange the packing, and discovered a rear tyre puncture. We pulled off further into a field and started the search for jack etc., in a strange vehicle. Within five minutes we were spotted by two young men on bicycles who came to offer their help. It was much appreciated as they crawled in the dust and dirt under the truck, placing the jack and retrieving the under-slung spare. This was flat but the on-board compressor was able to bring the pressure up to normal. Another young man from the nearby village also arrived on a bicycle and sent a boy to fetch a hand pump, which fortunately we didn't need. Within three quarters of an hour, having repacked the truck and rewarded our work crew, we were back on the road again. However we then had to find a reputable tyre dealer to replace the destroyed tyre. Fortunately after some 80 kms on the road we passed through Chinhoyi, quite a large town, where we were directed to a high quality tyre company, equal to any in the U.K., and the tyre was soon replaced.

This delay meant that we were two hours behind schedule and it was about 14.00 before we reached Marongora, where the Mana Pools Park Office is located. We explained to a very obliging woman that we would like to camp in the Park, but hadn't made a reservation. Our Bradt guide book says that booking is essential for all Parks campsites and especially Mana. She assured us that with our own tent we wouldn't have any problems just turning up at any of the Parks campsites. Last year when we were in Zimbabwe we avoided the Parks campsites as the Bradt guide made staying in them sound so beaurocratic and difficult, all bookings to made in the Harare Head Office. The friendly and helpful attitude of the woman at Marongora was quite the reverse of this. We then went through two more gates, having our entry permit papers checked, before we finally reached the campsite reception, where we found we had to pay an extortionate amount of money for a pitch. There is a line of pitches at the river bank, costing $100 per pitch, or there are other pitches set back from the river charged at $20 per person. As our main purpose for coming to Mana was to be beside the Zambezi we splashed out on a $100 pitch, so the cost for two nights camping here, including Park and Conservation fees, is $290. The facilities are barely adequate. However, to be fair, the cost is per pitch, we could easily get 4 tents on ours so it could work out well for a larger group,we don't know if there is any additional charge for extra people. It still seems very expensive for what we are getting and could easily be a deterrent to other tourists using the National Parks Campsites.

We were relieved to be told that is safe to pitch a ground tent at Nyamepi, so we don't have to sleep in the top sweat box. This site site is unfenced, but unlike the smaller, unserviced sites scattered around the Park, it is considered safe to sleep on the ground. Dusk was pulling in as we completed pitching so we decided to swop the braai for a shower and have a cold supper instead. It was hot, although not as hot as we expected, we had been warned about temperatures as high as 50C. It was probably not as high as 40C, but very humid. With no electricity and no light pollution for miles around we sat outside the tent in moonlight. Hearing a noise, I glanced over my right shoulder, to see a silhouette of what could only be an elephant about three metres away. Fortunately I froze, rather than panicked. The elephant calmly made it's way between the tree and us, pulling leaves off the branches. We saw that there were two cows and a calf, grazing and making their way along the river's edge. We learnt this morning, from another couple who had pitched further along the bank from us, but almost at the water's edge, that later they were joined by a large bull who came very quickly, heading straight for their tent but he went round it and no damage was done.

After that I had a restless night. It was very hot and sticky, it would have been unbearable in the top-tent. We had all the ventilation panels in our tent open and left the front unzipped to encourage a through draft. The worst deterrent to sleep was the noises around and the fear that a whole herd of elephants, not just a family group, might be passing through. The trumpeting of elephants and the snorting of hippos was accompanied by many other unidentifiable sounds. Today I realise that sounds travel far over the water and certainly the hippos and maybe the elephants weren't on our shore at all, but on one of the islands or promontories in the river.

The Zambezi is vast, and fast flowing. In the distance we can see Zambia on the other side, and last night we thought we saw lights from there. We weren't sure in the dark if they were from the far bank, or one of the many islands in the river. We were up at 05.00 this morning, dawn, and sitting and drinking coffee in the early morning cool, looking out over the river was magical.+ We took a drive in the Park before the heat of the day. We are now sitting in the shade of a large tree, loved by elephants, enjoying the breeze and a cold beer. The on-board fridge/freezer seems to be working well, my beer was as cold as I would expect one to be at home. The Park is dry and desolate. This is as dry as it gets, the rains start any time soon and in December it is closed as by then it is flooded and impassable. We saw very little game, only impala, kudu, zebra, elephant, lots of monkeys and baboons. It is impossible to see where the herbivores can find any grazing, the plains are just sand, even the scrub has few leaves, the birds are much more interesting. The scenery is not as diverse as Kruger, which for us is a major attraction. We don't really get excited at the sight of zebra, antelope and elephants anymore, even lions. I love the elephants, I could watch them for ever, but I appreciate the scenery, geology, and increasingly the birds, much more. The Zambezi river is impressive, I am so pleased we came here and decided on a riverside pitch. I think it is the most impressive river I have ever seen. Tomorrow we will move on to Kariba, the town at the head of Lake Kariba where the river is dammed to form the Lake.

+Additional note. The magical times camping at Mana where 05.30 in the morning, sitting with a cup of coffee, feeling the breeze from the river, as the dim light of the early morning became day. Then, in the evening, between 18.00 and 19.00, sitting in the same place, once again enjoying the breeze from the river, but this time with a glass of rich, red wine. Gradually the sun dropped into the horizon, almost visibly losing it's soul-searing intensity. As the light decreased birds headed for their roosting places, the carmine bee-eaters hanging on to the last, swooping and diving over the river, then squabbling in the trees. As the light finally went the fire-flies appeared, fluorescent dots dancing with each other over the river, and the hippos woke from their daytime wallowing to start the cacophony of snorting and hooting.

It was full moon a couple of days ago, and soon after sunset the glowing ball of the moon appeared high in the sky and soon the bare ground was lit with a white eerie glow. I woke in the night and glancing out of the tent's gauze meshing had a bizarre moment when I thought perhaps it had snowed.

The great Zambesi

It's the dry season, and baboons play in the shallows

Monday 10 November – Kariba, Warthogs

The road out of Mana Pools was worse than I remembered from the way in, maybe I was too busy looking for animals, John said he was aware of what was coming. Although graded in most places it was hard and corrugated, the entire vehicle shook continually. The truck is equipped with a folding metal table which is hung from the top of the back of the truck, like a false ceiling. On the way in the catch holding it in place had worn through and the table had fallen down. John has tried some sort of repair but we still can't manage to lock it in place so it has to lie in the back, wedged on top of everything else. Once out of the Mana Pools Park we stopped at a set of road side rubbish bins to get rid of our rubbish. The Parks are supposed to have a carry out rubbish policy, we had read that it was strictly adhered to, that you were given a large marked plastic bag on your way in and you had to return it with your rubbish on the way out. If you didn't have it with you to hand in you were liable to be sent back to collect it. We weren't given a bag on the way in, and we weren't asked for one on the way out, we provided our own and so disposed of it ourselves. There are no bins in the Park and we didn't see any rubbish so we assume that all other visitors conform to that code of behaviour, which is excellent. Getting our rubbish bag out of the back of the truck, we noticed that the jerry can of spare fuel was missing. The pin holding it in place had sheared off and we had lost the can. There was nothing we could do about it, we had no idea when or where on the 86 km exit road it had happened, and we were now a further 80 kms on, on the way to Kariba. If we had dropped it on the tarmac road we would certainly have know about it. We are thinking we have now been unlucky twice with this vehicle, first the table and now the jerry can. Both are due to normal wear and tear in a vehicle such as this in these conditions, but we have not done anything extreme, no serious off-roading, just sticking to Park tracks.

We arrived in Kariba at lunchtime, and after an initial wrong turn, found the Warthogs Campsite. It was a bit off-putting at first, very sparse vegetation and a small campsite which really seemed to accommodate only Overlanders with very small tents. There were 3 ready erected tents and spaces for maybe 4 more. These were on raised areas filled in with sand and only large enough to take a small basic tent. We tried to put ours up in a central area between some trees, but the ground was very rocky and the tree branches too low, so we decided to put just the bedroom unit up on one of the sandy pitches. This meant that we took a gamble that there wouldn't be any rain. Putting the tent up was not a comfortable task. It was late lunchtime when we arrived and the temperature must have been well into the 40's. We put the poles in the bedroom unit and I kicked off my flip-flops to step inside and open up the ventilation screens. I screeched with pain as my bare feet touched the already burning base. I quickly stepped back outside to screech again as the sand also scorched my feet. I managed to empty a few basic things into the tent, keeping my flip-flops on.

We went over to the Camp Bar, hoping to get some information about the feasibility of driving from Kariba following the southern shore of the Lake, to join up with the tarmac road from Hwange to Binga which we used last year from the Hwange direction to come as far as Milibizi. We knew that we would have to drop inland in order to get round the Sanyati Gorge. Evidently in the dry season it is possible to cross it, but there are no roads and it is very rough going and easy to get lost. We were directed to a group of 3 women and their dogs sitting at a table in the corner, looking out over the Lake. Lots of discussion followed, phone calls were made and emails sent, getting information for us. One of the women, probably the youngest, is involved in tourism, with properties and bases in both Kariba and Harare, which she rents, together with a number of houseboats. There doesn't seem to be a broadband connection here and the internet is accessed through pre-loaded mobile data dongles. Some people, like the woman involved in tourism, have more than one, on some days, in some places, one works better than the other. The advice and instructions didn't really seem conclusive, apart from the fact that most people attempt this route in a convoy and that it will be advisable for us to telephone ahead to Gache Gache to let someone there know that we are on the way, so if we don't arrive a search party can be sent out. It all seemed a bit daunting and although we like a challenge we decided that it would be foolish for us to set out, on our own, with no experience of serious off-roading and without a SatNav, so we have decided to give that part of the road a miss and take the longer route back to Makuti and then to Karoi and take a better road through to Binga, the one which the Combi mini-buses take. We have decided to take the turning from that road into Matusadona National Park, where a campsite is shown on a promontory into the Lake at Buma Bay. Looks magic.

We stayed talking to the women for a while, 2 beers length, and the conversation was very interesting. We learnt a lot about the past and present situation for white landowners. The other 2 women were older, probably quite a few years older than us. I got the feeling that they are both widows, husbands referred to in the past tense. One has lived in Zimbabwe for 40 years, originally from the U.K., her husband came to work on the hydro-electric dam in the Zambezi river which created Lake Kariba. After he retired they stayed on and bought into local Kapenta fishing business. Kapenta are a fresh water sardine like fish which were introduced to the Lake to provide occupation and a food source after it was realised that the water was too deep for the river fish which had previously inhabited it. The Kapenta business is in decline, partly due to too many fishing licences being allowed and partly to a reduction in fish numbers due to the invasion of a crayfish predator. Maybe a crayfish business will develop. She didn't mention any children or family so I assume she is on her own here.

The other woman had owned a large farm which had been taken from her and was now divided into smaller packages and had been re-allocated. She told a horrible story of how she, (she used the term 'we', but I'm not sure who that was as she mentioned 2 children, but not a husband) managed to escape from the farm in 2002, when they were warned that a group of 'War Vets' were headed for them. They fled to Kariba and stayed there for a while until they felt it was safe to return. The farm was not occupied, the group had just moved on, but they had killed a lot of animals, torn down fences and completely destroyed and desecrated their house, smashing everything it was possible to break, tearing down curtains and doors off their hinges, besides committing all sorts of insanitary violations. Her son was determined to stay and they cleaned everywhere up and repaired as much damage as they could. However after two years of struggling to work the land against every obstacle, including the constant fear of further invasion and their safety, he decided to emigrate. He now has a family and farms elsewhere. Her daughter has also left the country and with her husband farms elsewhere. She has chosen to stay and lives alone in Kariba. I have no idea how she manages for income as she was able to take nothing from the farm. In such a brief encounter it was not seemly to question her about her tenacity and determination to remain in Zimbabwe when both her children have left the country. Maybe like Gary and Elcine her Zimbabwean ancestry goes back hundreds of years and she was born here and wants to die here. Their stories are humbling and I reflect back to my earlier comment about how change was required, but this does not seem right.

They all condemned the actions, or rather non-action, of the British governments. The Thatcher government knew in the 1980s that Mugabe and his followers had performed ethnic cleansing of his opposition and massacred over 20,000 and raped many more Ndebele people in Matabeleland. No action was taken, in fact Thatcher continued to court Mugabe. In the 90s when the Land Reform Act was enforced the Blair government paid £44M to Mugabe for compensation to the white farmers who were losing their land. There was no auditing of the funds, and when the British Government, I believe it was Claire Short who pulled the plug, realised the money was not reaching the destination for which it was intended, they called a halt. The opinion here is that the Blair government committed a great indiscretion by giving such a vast amount of money to Mugabe without setting up a monitoring process. If they had done that they would have realised very early on that it was misappropriated and the intention abused. No exit compensation was being paid to the white farmers and the farms were not going to poor blacks but to members of Mugabe's government and family. It was suggested that if the monies had remained in the U.K. and a system put in place where white farmers who had lost their land could provide proof of previous ownership and apply individually for compensation, it would have been much further. These people we met in Kariba were very bitter about the role of U.K. governments and I am sure they are representative of many more.

We had planned to spend 2 nights at Kariba, but we have decided to move on tomorrow. The campsite at Warthogs is OK, but this time of the year it's very hot and dry. Our camping experience has not been enhanced by the fact that while we were at the Bar an enthusiastic employee watered the site and the approach to our tent has become a muddy quagmire. Everywhere there are signs warning of theft, that we should take any valuables to the Bar and get them locked up. We haven't encountered this elsewhere and it feels uncomfortable. Finally we hear that the rains are imminent and the approach to Matasudona Park can be rocky, so we think it would be good to get there earlier, so a 05.00 start in the morning. In some ways I am sorry about not staying here longer, we had an invitation from one of the women to go to her house for a 'sundowner', up in 'The Heights', the original settlement of Kariba and evidently still very colonial. It would have been nice to see some of the old buildings and get a feel of how it must have been for white colonials living here 50 years ago. It would be easy to dismiss all the colonial intervention and activity as negative, but the dam was built by them, amongst many other developments in the country. That period of history is just as important as previous and later periods and must be seen in the context of where Zimbabwe is today.

Wednesday 12 November – Binga, Chililia Lodge

What a day we had yesterday. The first part was fine, we were away early and made good time and progress as there was more tarmac than we expected. A long bridge took us over the Sanyati Canyon with wonderful views. However as soon as the tarmac ended conditions deteriorated, similar to the Mana Pools access road it had been badly graded giving rise to a corrugated and uneven surface, rocky and pot-holed. We took the turning off to Matusadona Park and followed the road up to a Park check-in point. This was a rather grubby clearing in the bush where a young man got us to sign in a book. We then proceeded further along the road and took a turning into the Park itself. The track was not good, but we assumed it would soon get better, as the young man at the check-in desk had told us it would take about 3 hours to cover the 66 kms to the Tashinga campsite. However it soon deteriorated and we were exclusively in 4-wheel drive and frequently needed to use the crawler gear. In some places we were crossing dry river beds, just long stretches of rocks. Large boulders were distributed amongst the rocks and the Hi-Lux had to be teased over and around them, taking care not to get the wheels stuck. I didn't see how, if the forecast rains came they could be crossed in a vehicle which didn't have caterpillar tracks. John was not as alarmed as me, but when we realised that it had taken us an hour and a half to cover 22 kilometres we decided to turn back. If we had continued at the same pace we would only just reach Tashinga by dusk, of more concern was the fact that if it rained we could be trapped there for several days.

It was about 16.00 when we got back to the sign-in point and we then had to make a decision about what to do next. There were not many choices open to us. We could have gone back to Kariba, but that didn't appeal to either of us. The young man at check-in offered us to camp in his clearing, but a woman there warned us that there were no toilet facilities. Earlier, when we had signed in, I had seen a toilet but it had an old crate on it. The Parks employees obviously live here permanently with no sanitation. There were flies everywhere. The final choice and the one we decided to make, was to continue on the same road to Binga, the first place where we might find a campsite, or any other accommodation. We reached Binga at 20.30, John had been driving for 14 hours, the last 2 hours in darkness. As usual the road was good and bad in places, some well graded stretches and then suddenly we would come across collections of potholes. The average speed for the whole day, including the tarmac stretches was 28 kms an hour. I was so relieved to reach the tarmac at the Binga junction.

We continued into Binga and followed the signs to Chililia Lodge. Everywhere was in complete darkness, a night watchman met us at the gate and showed us where the campsite was. It was so dark, no moon, and we had to find a flat space by torchlight. Using the headlights we put just the bedroom unit up, and decided that after the stressful day we really weren't hungry, but we could settle for a couple of cold beers. We were not long in bed, maybe around 23.00 when we saw flashes of lightening and the sounds of thunder, so we decided to get up and put the fly over. We just got back into bed when the rain came, it wasn't a lot but we would probably have got wet.

We have had a rest day today. It was very windy this morning so we moved our tent. In the dark last night we had pitched at the bottom of the site, very close to the water, it's actually an inlet of the lake. So we have moved further back, against a fence and parked the truck between us and the lake to break up some of the wind. We have had a good day catching up, some washing and rearranging of the truck. We went into Binga to get fuel and tried to do some shopping there, but the so-called supermarket was similar to the one at Milibizi last year, some soap, coca-cola and sacks of sadza. We did however manage to get some potatoes at a small market there. A surprising thing here has been the lack of insects, we expected to by hunted by battalions of mosquitoes. This means we have had two lovely braai evenings. It's a very nice campsite, good clean toilets and showers, an electricity point and braai facilities. Once again it seems odd that we are the only people here. It brings home once more the fact that Zimbabwe gets such bad press coverage it is not considered as a tourist destination. The real situation could not be further from that, as elsewhere everyone here is kind and helpful, eager to please. OK, in some cases the facilities are a bit tired and could do with updating, but they are always clean and well cared for. Our media has a lot to answer for, Zimbabwe is the ideal destination for independent travellers. Tomorrow we move on, back to Tuskers at Ivory Lodge, which we enjoyed last year.

Friday 14 November – Hwange, Tuskers, Ivory Lodge

On the way here yesterday we picked up some beautiful tomatoes from a roadside stall at Hwange crossroads to supplement our vegetables. When we arrived we were initially alarmed to hear that they were expecting an overland truck later in the day, but no-one is booked in for tomorrow night. We tucked ourselves away in the same place we pitched last year, at the back of the site underneath some trees, and then parked the truck in front to give us a screen. We were sorry to hear that Patrick, who had looked after us so well last year was working at another site, however he walked past on his way to the Lodge and we said hello.

As we drove along the road from Binga towards Hawange I was again impressed with the way in which the Batonga people living here have adapted their building style to take into account the very high temperatures and humidity. The round walls of the huts are made from sun-baked bricks but are not solid. The bricks are staggered with gaps between them, allowing air to pass through. The thatched roof overlaps the walls but is not fixed to it, it rests on wooden poles on the outside of the walls, thus allowing a flow of air between the walls and the roof. This must mean that hot air is not trapped inside the hut and it is cooler in the intense and wet summer heat.

A German couple living in Namibia drew in and enquired about camping, but when we said that an overland truck was expected they beat a hasty repeat. Another couple also arrived looking for a campsite, they were also German, but like us on holiday from Europe. They pitched the other side of the lapa, well away from the fire-pit, where we assumed the overlanders would gather. We were told that the overlanders would arrive around midday, do a game drive from 2 until 7 and then come back to braai. All of those times passed and there was no sign of them. The German couple said they were told that the truck was delayed and would be late. A load of wood was delivered and stacked up by the fire-pit and we all wondered how late was late. The German couple were very friendly, they had an equipped Hi-Lux like ours. It had a Namibian plate, but they had rented it from a South African company and drove it from Jo'burg. We all sat up on the lookout at dusk but there weren't any animals about, so we went back to the tent and settled down by the fire in our braai. An hour or so later they came to get us as a herd of elephants were approaching the waterhole. The Lodge has lights over the waterhole so that the guests staying in the Lodges could see the animals at night, they have also placed a salt lick in front of the hide and the elephants head for it. I don't think the Lodge guests get as close to the elephants as we did at Mana Pools though, we didn't have any barriers between them and us.

I woke abruptly during the night, to noise very close to the rear of the tent. I thought I could hear the usual elephant sounds of branches being torn and chomping, but I was concerned about what sounded like running and low rumbling. I woke John to listen too, and he agreed that the sounds were very close, it must be a large herd of elephants. I checked that the truck was unlocked, in case I felt I needed to rush for shelter. We stayed awake for about an hour and the noise gradually reduced and we drifted off to sleep. This morning the German couple, who stayed awake longer than us and were in the tent on top of their truck, said a large herd of buffalo came up from the waterhole heading straight for the campsite. However they divided and went either side of it, joining up again behind our tent. If I had known it was buffalo and not elephants I would definitely have fled to the safety of the truck.

The German couple, whose names we didn't get, left this morning. They are headed up to Vic Falls and then crossing into Botswana, we talked yesterday about our wonderful experiences at Supopo Swamp a few years ago and they are are going to take a look. I hope it is OK for them as it was the end of November when we were there and the flood waters had only just gone down. We sat under the lapa for a while chatting about our travels and also about Europe and the current troubles it is going through. The woman works in an area to do with agricultural policies and doesn't think subsidies for farmers are a good idea, they should be financially independent. She also thought that they used far too many chemicals and their practices were ruining the environment. I had to differ as it seems to me that in order to make a profit in the cut-throat world of food production they had to take every measure possible. I am thinking particularly of cheap imports such as grains and meat, and of the unfair dealings by large supermarkets, such as in the price of milk. If we want our food produced in an environmentally sensitive manner, with regard to animal welfare at a price that everyone can afford I can't see how this can be achieved without subsidy. I was sorry to see them go, we had enjoyed their company.

At 12.00 we heard a large vehicle approaching through the bush, and an overland truck drew into the campsite. It turned out that the office staff had made a mistake with which week it is, so instead of an overland group here on the first night and a quiet night tonight it has turned out the other way round. We were both sitting under the lapa when they arrived, eating some lunch, beautiful sandwiches with the tomatoes we bought yesterday. They are a small group, 8 people and a single leader/tour guide and seem quite travel weary. It turns out that they are at the end of a 28 day trip, they left Cape Town 22 days ago and travelled up the west coast and into Namibia, continuing north through Etosha and then crossing over into Botswana, through Okavango and entering Zimbabwe at Vic Falls. They have a couple more stops in Zimbabwe and finish the trip in Jo'burg in 4 days time. They had some lunch and then went on a game drive organised by the lodge, leaving their leader here with the truck to get things organised and their supper sorted. He is a very nice Zimbabwean guy and we chatted to him, exchanging travel information and also information about the situation in Zimbabwe. He seems to think that things have deteriorated in the past year. I got the impression that the degree and extent of poverty afflicting the non-elite has increased. The only people living comfortable lives are the leading members of Zanu-PF, and Mugabe's family and entourage. As many people are struggling just to survive, to feed their families, so less emphasis is being placed on the care of their environment. Scenes with which I am familiar from my time in Tanzania and in other Southern African countries we have visited, of people carefully sweeping the dirt in front of their huts and around them each day, of all the rubbish swept into a pile and set fire to, might not be happening so regularly. I know from other situations, even in the U.K., that absolute poverty drains the energy, both physically and mentally, that what were once mundane tasks can no longer be undertaken. If this is the case here then I am so sad for these kind, generous and proud people.

We have made sure that we had our braai, ate our meal and got showered before the group returned from their game drive just after dusk. By then we were settled down with a nice fire going in the braai and a bottle of wine. They weren't noisy and we had a good night's sleep, with no buffalo as far as we were aware.

Wednesday 12 November – Binga, Chililia Lodge

Friday 14 November – Hwange, Tuskers, Ivory Lodge

Elephants at the water hole at Tuskers. I got a much better photo last year, which I am still using as my profile picture.

Saturday 15 November – Jabulani, Shangani, Matabeleland

We were away early this morning, made a quick stop at the Ascot Shopping Centre in Bulawayo, which we know from last year and were here by early afternoon. The TM at Ascot has become a Pick 'n Pay, and is amazingly well stocked compared to last year. In fact it is as well stocked and comprehensive as many Pick 'n Pays we have seen in S.A. The clouds were amassing as we approached Jabulani, which is quite a long way from the main road. Richard and Win were here to greet us on our arrival with cold drinks and seem an amazingly nice couple who couldn't do enough to help us, even bringing a flask of iced water as we put the tent up. There is no-one else camping here so we had the choice of a pitch. They have only just started to arrange a campsite so it is all very informal. We have selected a nice shady place beneath some trees in the designated area. We hardly had the tent up when the rain started. We have made for the lapa with a cold supper, as even though wood has been put out for us at the braai and around the firepit the intensity of the storm means we aren't going to do much outside.

Monday 17 November - Jabulani

Jabulani is an amazing place, I cannot recommend it highly enough for other travellers. It is a large spacious area in the grounds of what used to be a much larger farm. The property itself has been reduced a lot by the Land Reclamation activities but the owner has managed to retain what seems to be a successful construction business and the Camp, with its very nice chalets and rooms is part of a diversification. Field trips are offered to schools as part of a Community Development Programme. There are 2 dorms, which we initially thought were for overland truckers, but the environment here isn't really conducive to those, the emphasis is definitely on peace and tranquillity. School groups come for anything ranging from a simple overnight to week long study trips. All sorts of activities may be offered, from familiarisation with their own history, part of the curriculum, to team building. Nearby is a school, originally for the children of farm workers, but now that the farm as such no longer exists it has been opened up to the local community. The owner, obviously a local benefactor, subsidises the state paid salaries of the teachers to bring them up to a living wage.

The regard with which the long established family is held was illustrated by the funeral of the owner's mother, which was held on Sunday, the day after our arrival. When we arrived at Jabulani on Saturday Richard and Win apologised for the lack of tables anywhere, and the fact that they would be busy preparing for and attending the funeral. The owner's mother had died a few days previously at the age of 89, having been hale and hearty and living independently until a week before her death. The funeral was to be held at the owner's house, 12 or so kms away, over 200 guests had been invited, many no longer resident in Zimbabwe, and many local people would also want to attend, possibly swelling the numbers to over 400. Marquees had been set up and all the tables had been taken from the Camp, ready to provide food and refreshments for all those people.

Quite a lot has happened since Saturday night, the storm intensified, thunder and lightening became simultaneous, and it became apparent that we had chosen a very bad place to pitch our tent. Yes, we had shade from the trees, but shade was not a priority, we needed drainage. We had picked the one spot in the camping area which was low lying without any grass. The rain hammered down around us and the water flowed under the tent, over the groundsheet and around our feet. We tried bending the ground sheet back at the edges, with a small degree of success. John even got the spade from the truck and tried trenching, but the hard, dry earth was unforgiving and uncooperative. Fortunately the inner bedroom unit remained dry and we settled down to a slightly anxious night.

Yesterday, Sunday, dawned quite well. The rain had stopped and the site had drained well. We decided to move the tent to higher ground, as the skies were still heavy and it seemed as if further rain might follow. We moved to a well grassed area between one of the dorms and the communal dining hall. It was on slightly higher ground and the buildings might offer some shelter from strong winds. Win and Richard, both anxious and concerned about our welfare, came to see how we were, so apologetic about going to the funeral and assuring us that the staff remaining would do every thing they could if there was any thing we needed. As usually happens in tropical countries, in our experience, we were completely dried out by mid-morning, and pitched in a much more secure site.

We made a trip with the resident Camp guide to visit some of the archaeological sites nearby. First we went to Bila ruins, which is on Jabulani property. Little reconstruction has been done here and we saw some very old walls encircling an area within which were several piles of stones. As with much archaeology there are several theories as to the origin and use of the site, one being that it was for the circumcision ritual. It sounded very similar to Maasai tradition, groups of young men undergoing circumcision and then experiencing a period of bonding and self-sufficiency with their peers. This theory suggests that the removed foreskins were buried and a pile of rocks put over the site. There are also several other theories.

We climbed up over granite rocks covered with lichen, similar to those we had seen in Matopos, to a high point where there was a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside. After the rain the sky was clear of dust and pollution and visibility was excellent. As far as we could see there was no sign of occupation or habitation, it was very wooded, with just a few patches of open savannah. We could see neighbouring hill tops, including Nalatale, the sight of some other ruins which we wanted to visit.

We were shown a large natural cave, significant to Shona people even today. It has been, and is still used as a sacred place where people can congregate to make contact with the spirits of their ancestors, who hold all knowledge. I often experience a tingling sensation when in sites such as this and the cave was no exception. It felt irreverent to speak above a whisper and make any loud noises.

We moved on to another important site, an overhanging granite cliff decorated with some very fine rock paintings. They are entirely open to the elements, with no protection at all and must be steadily deteriorating, which seems a great shame.

When we got back to the campsite the clouds were thickening and once again rain felt as if it wasn't far away so we decided to braai quite soon. We ate under the lapa as the temperature dropped, adding warmer clothes. Richard and Win returned from the funeral to check that we were OK. We told them that we would be tucking ourselves up in the tent quite soon and getting an early night. The rain began, and although not as violent as the previous night, continued and continued. Through the fog I saw the herd of Wildebeest as they grazed the area in front of the lapa. Their shapes came and went as the tendrils of white mist curled around them. We hoped it would follow the same pattern as the previous day and clear overnight, but we woke this morning to find that we were fog bound with a permanent drizzle. In fact, at 1,500 metres we were in low cloud. Moving pitch had been good as we had remained dry, and without a groundsheet the grassed area in front of the tent had drained well, but it was very cold, 'Bushman's Nek' weather.

The rain cleared a little and we wrapped up and went to the Nalatale ruins. They were impressive, quite rightly earning their status, as the third most important in the country, following Great Zimbabwe and Khame. It was a walk and then a climb over granite rocks to reach the site, which has recently been sensitively restored, with some reconstruction of the walls, showing all the main types of pattern.

It was well worth the visit, although unfortunately there was no visibility, the weather was closing in. The climb up had been good, but by the time we climbed down we were unsure of the route over the rocks. We spotted the reverse sides of the poster boards and got back to the car safely. We decided that in this weather it was pointless going on to any of the other archaeological sites so we went back to the Camp. It was really cold with permanent drizzle, occasionally becoming periods of heavier rain. Richard and Win were concerned about us and sent Admire to tell us that a fire had been lit in the guest dining room for us and we were very welcome to use it. They had even laid out a tray with flasks of hot water and tea and coffee. So now we are sitting by a lovely log fire with books and maps and I am catching up with my journal. It is hard to believe that we are in the Tropics in the middle of their summer. The rain eased a little while ago so John decided to braai. We were going to eat under the lapa but Richard insisted that we brought our food into the dining room and ate it at a table by the fire.

They have gone to their own house, leaving Rosemary, who seems to be head housekeeper, to do some cooking and clearing up. They insisted that we stay in front of the fire for as long as we wanted and if conditions got too bad we could take our sleeping bags into one of the dorms. Zesa has come back and John has been looking at various weather forecast web sites using their satellite WiFi connection. The closest he can get to Jabulani is Bulawayo, and the forecast for tomorrow looks better. We have decided that if there is an improvement in the weather by the morning we will stay on an extra day. Jabulani is such a lovely place we really want to see more of it and learn more about their projects and activities. The kindness of Richard and Win is outstanding, and everyone we have met working here has such a commitment to make it a comfortable place to be.

Wednesday 19 November - Lake Kyle, Great Zimbabwe, Norma Jeans

So much for a change in the weather in the Gweru area, we woke up yesterday morning to steady and persistent rain. We laid still for a short while but knew that there was no option, we had to strike the tent in the rain and move on. We did it in very good time, making the most of some overhanging thatch on the adjacent dorm building to provide some shelter. I managed to get our sleeping mats and bedding inside the back of the truck cab without getting them too wet, but the tent was sopping wet and filthy as we rolled it up and put it in the space in the back of the truck John had cleared. Richard came to see if there was anything he could do to help, but we were quite organised. He said there would be a hot cup of coffee ready for us in reception when we were packed up and before we left. It was very welcome as we hadn't stopped to make any ourselves. The only problem we encountered was the pig!! Richard and Win had warned us that a tame bush pig wandered the grounds. I can't exactly remember the story, but I think it had been rescued by another family and had become a pet. Then they moved and couldn't take it with them, so it lives at Jabulani now. They try to keep it out of the house, and if they have guests who object to it they can put it in a boma. Evidently it became obsessed with one visitor and followed him everywhere, even trying to get in the shower with him. It's not exactly a pig as we know a pig in the U.K., more a boar, with lots of bristly hair and a long snout. As we were packing the tent up, on the ground, in the rain, very wet, it came to investigate, snuffled around and ripped a sizeable, triangular shaped hole in the flysheet. We didn't mention it to Richard who would have been devastated.

If we consider that our stay at Jabulani in such terrible weather conditions was amazing, then with more favourable weather it could only have been even better. The kindness and generosity of Richard and Win and the help given to us by all their staff made our visit a truly memorable one.

So here we are once more at Norma Jeans. We are so glad we are back here. We had thought about staying at another campsite around Lake Kyle, Hippo Creek Lodge, closer to the road which we would be travelling on, but there was no answer to several attempts at phoning them and emails were returned as undeliverable. We know that quite a lot of the information in our Bradt Travel Guide is either inaccurate or out of date, so that may be the case. Norma Jeans is exactly as it was last year, clean and tidy, with wonderful ablution facilities, kind and helpful staff. As we were travelling here we wondered whether we would need to take one of their cabins as our tent would be far too wet to use, then we realised that we had 2 perfectly good tents on top of the truck, as yet unused.

It was still overcast and very cold when we arrived here yesterday, but not raining. Everyone is commenting on how unseasonably cold it is, and it seems it is over the entire country. We stopped to get supplies at a very nice PnP in Gweru, and everyone from the young woman at check-out to the security guard on the door asked how we were coping with the cold weather, was it like England. We were able to tell them that it is colder here than it is in England at the moment, and it is winter there. When we checked in here we were remembered from our visit last year, particularly in the context that we arrived in the middle of a torrential storm when the entire site was flooded. We pitched in more or less the same place we chose last year. As last year, we are the only people here but an overland group is expected on Thursday. They see to be doing quite well with overland groups, one of the managers here told me that they have had 2 staying at the same time, they had 70 people camping. They could probably cope quite well as there are 2 'bomas' and 2 new toilets have been added.

We knew we wouldn't be able to sleep in our tent, we unpacked it as soon as we got here and it was wet and filthy, as well as torn, so we got the top tent erected, the first time we have done so seriously. We slept in it last night and will do so again tonight. Yesterday and last night here was still so cold, better than at Jabulani as there wasn't any rain, but so cold. I have to say that the top tent was very cosy. I shut down all the ventilation panels, just leaving one open for fresh air and last night was really snug. The ladder is a bit of a hazard for someone like me who always needs to wee in the night at least once and sometimes twice, but I coped OK. As soon as the top tent was up and we were sure of somewhere dry to sleep, we put the bedroom unit up beneath the bottom boma. Even though it was cold, it was bright and there was a fair breeze, good for drying. The fly was a different matter, sopping wet as well as ripped. We hung it over the drying lines until we went to bed last night and then bundled it into the boma. John lit the braai and we had a nice supper, but I was so cold that by 19.00 I was curled up in the womb-like top tent with my book. (Maybe more about that later, I am enjoying 'Mukiwa', the story of a white boy growing up in colonial Rhodesia in the 60s, by Peter Godwin.)

We woke this morning to clear skies and the hint of sunshine, which steadily increased as the sun came up. We decided last night to stay here for another night and it has been a very good decision. We have dried out completely both the bedroom unit and the fly. We have also done a repair job on the fly, using parcel tape and the puncture repair kits which came with our self-inflating sleeping mats, fortunately when we packed up the camping gear at the end of last summer one of the kids mat repair kits got put into one of our bags, which gave us three rather than two repair kits to work with. Do I hear you ask, "What are they doing, a camping safari trip to Zimbabwe, with parcel tape?" Well I must tell you, as much seasoned travellers and campers there are some things you never leave home without; parcel tape, dental floss, strong elastic bands, to mention just a few. The parcel tape isn't water-proof, duct tape would have been better, but we will see. I got everything out of the truck, which had been packed up in the rain yesterday morning, and laid it out in the sun to dry. The truck is now repacked, everything dry and ready to move on, it's been such a good day.

This enforced 'rest day', half way through our trip and sitting in the warm sunshine, drying and airing all our possessions , has enabled me to reflect back on the trip so far. We have to some extent been in familiar territory in the west and northern parts of the country, but we have been able to access more remote destinations, which could only be done with a vehicle such as the Hi-Lux, probably as much because of the high clearance as the 4 X wheel drive. As last year we have encountered few independent tourists. We have, by chance, had more opportunities to talk to Zimbabweans, both black and white. The overall impression is of a remarkable people, many unsure of their future, not happy with the current situation, but stoical about their plight, determined to carry on as long as they can.

So many times we have heard, from blacks and whites, that the situation of feudalism could not have continued. I can't recall the actual statistics at the moment but it was something like 10% of the population, all white, owning 80% of the land. We understand that under those conditions Zimbabwe was considered to be the 'bread basket' of Africa, exporting agricultural produce, with a high literacy rate and a healthy population. We have only heard of benevolent land owners, providing schools and health care, not just for their employees, but for the entire families of the employees. Maybe there were others, maybe the workers were exploited with bad conditions and low wages, we don't know.

As always the people who seem to have suffered the most are the poor, and in this case they are the poor, black, uneducated Zimbabweans. Zimbabweans, both black and white who are not happy with the political situation and able to do so have left the country. These tend to be educated, politically and culturally aware. They are mostly young or middle-aged and the diaspora sending money back to support family still here. As non-residents they are denied the vote so cannot affect political outcomes. A whole generation of intellectually and materially productive citizens have been lost. The majority of black Zimbabweans in employment are civil servants, anyone who vigorously supports ZANU-PF, their policies and practices is rewarded with a job for the government. The elections are corrupt, even though they were supposed to be monitored independently. The worst violations were the threats and violence inflicted on many people, especially in isolated rural locations. Under surveillance more subtle methods have been used. We have heard stories from black Zimbabweans about how when they turned up to vote at their usual location, if there was any suspicion that they would not be voting ZANU-PF, their voting papers 'weren't there' and they were re-directed to another location which it was impossible for them to get to. Sometimes their thumbs would be marked with the indelible ink required to make a mark before this error was discovered, thus ensuring that they would not be able to vote anywhere else anyway. The implication is that the 'missing' voting slip would be completed by someone else, and for ZANU-PF.

Black Zimbabweans we have spoken to have told us that Land Reclamation was in theory a good idea, but in the methods employed has been a disaster. We have seen vast stretches of what must have been prime grazing land, now invaded by the bush. We have seen small pockets of land worked on, mostly by women with hand tools, but sometimes with a cow-drawn rudimentary plough. We have also seen more organised cultivation taking place, large fields which have been mechanically ploughed and planted up. This is the season for preparation and planting, the rains should come soon and the corn is usually planted in anticipation and readiness for this. We were told that these fields were usually managed by a white ex-land owner farmer. It does seem a bit bizarre that the ex-land owner is now a tenant farmer renting the land which he could well have once owned. If this is the case it is a good example of the tenacity of many white ex-farmers we met, wanting to stay in Zimbabwe, the country they love, and farm, the work they love, against all odds. Often the owner of the land has never spent any time there and has no interest in farming at all, he/she is likely to be a member of Mugabe's close circle, probably a member of the government.

The people with the small patches of land where they are desperately trying to produce enough food for themselves and their families do not have any farming skills and there is no education programme to support them. They may have been employees on a large farm which has been reclaimed and reallocated in small plots. They saw how the farmer produced an abundance of produce and assumed that they could do the same. Without access to the machinery, tools, the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides which were used, the techniques and irrigation required, they have a permanent struggle to barely produce a subsistence crop. Sometimes they are trying to cultivate what was once grazing land, rocky and dry and fit only for cattle. It would be easy to become exasperated with the resignation of these people to the circumstances they find themselves in, annoyed at their lack of initiative and reluctance to challenge and attempt to change the system, but we were told that it is not in their nature to do so, they are a peace-loving and gentle people. Cynically I might suspect the religious influence here, 'If God wills', is a much used phrase. I commented to one black Zimbabwean about how happy everyone seemed to be, even though their circumstances were difficult, and was told it was because they 'had found God'. Religious fervour does not seem to be restricted to the black population, most of the white Zimbabweans we have met also seem to have a strong religious affiliation. It is reminiscent of the UK fifty years ago, indeed other aspects of life in Zimbabwe feel like a time warp. This is a totally unrelated observation, but all the middle-aged and older men wear such short shorts! They are the sort of shorts I haven't seen on European men since the 70s, I wonder wear they buy them today, or have they just worn well for the past fifty years.

Something else which both black and white Zimbabweans we have met here have in common is their tolerance of the Mugabe regime. We haven't met anyone who expressed an opinion that the way that the country has been run over the past ten years has been beneficial to the majority of it's citizens. A unanimous opinion is that corruption rules every aspect of living and existing here, yet Mugabe is spoken about in terms which I would associate using for a naughty toddler, he's very bad and we don't like his behaviour, but he is one of ours. Even white people who have lost all their property and possessions and are now surviving on a day-to-day basis are prepared to stay here, which does of course go back to a previous observation about how much they love their country. This challenges some media suggestions that the whites stayed here after independence purely because they enjoyed their ex-colonial lifestyle, supremacy, servants, and sundowners. Their situation today could not be farther from this myth. I recall that I have written that I didn't understand why Mugabe was promoting Grace, his second and much younger wife, as a successor when there was a son from his first marriage. Since we have been here I have learnt that the son died 'in suspicious circumstances', he drowned in his own swimming pool. He has sons with Grace but they are still quite young and I have heard a suggestion that his idea about putting Grace in power now will make it easier for one of their sons to follow her as soon as he becomes old enough. The 'suspicious death' incident bears some similarities to the death of the husband of Joice Mujuru, the Vice President, in 2011. Solomon Mujuru was a prominent war hero and well thought of, a few months prior to his death in a fire at his rural farmhouse he had challenged Mugabe. At an inquest the State conclusions were that he had been illegally hoarding fuel in the building and this caused the fire. The evidence of a South African pathologists employed by the Mujuru family that he had been shot and had broken limbs was dismissed. There is quite a catalogue of unexplained and suspicious deaths amongst people involved in politics here so it is hardly surprising that honest politicians are a rare and threatened species.

As today progressed the weather has steadily improved, it's much warmer, and after the braai we are sitting round the fire pit with a bottle of wine and a game of crib. Norma Jeans is a very nice place to stay, but tomorrow we move on to Gonarezhou National Park, and, I suspect a greater challenge.

Comfortable camping at Norma Jean's

Friday 21 November - Chipinda Pools, Gonarezhou National Park

This is indeed 'wild' camping, there are no fences, elephant dung everywhere, hippos and crocs in the river just below us, no-one else in sight.

We had a nice journey here yesterday, following the road from Norma Jeans along the southern shores of Lake Kyle. We remembered from last year the tidy villages, the friendly children and the organised agriculture. We had made an early start so we passed large groups of children on their way to school, who all shouted and waved a greeting as we went past. After the first serious rain of the wet season everyone is out in the fields sowing seeds. In many cases the fields have been prepared before the rain came, for the very fortunate a tractor had been used, or a team of oxen or even cows dragging a plough, for the less fortunate the women are working with hand-hoes. We stopped and asked a woman working what she was planting, because the method seemed to be to create a row consisting of a line of small humps, and John remembered that Casava was grown like that in Nigeria. She told us she was planting maize, which would be used to make sadza, the staple food here, ugi in Nigeria, ugali in Tanzania and pap in South Africa.

Once on the main road we soon covered the kilometres south into the sugar cane growing area around Triangle. We stopped at the Lake Kyle Dam as we had heard that the gates had been opened to provide water for irrigation at the sugar plantations. The Lake has more water than last year, but is not up to maximum capacity and it was hurtling through the gates. There were several police road blocks, more than we have encountered this year in other parts of the country, but there were no problems, after a greeting we were waved through. Before reaching the Gonarezhou Park gate we drove through a stretch of land administered by the Malilangwe Trust, a 400 sq. km. estate with a remit to foster rural development and restore and protect the areas habitats and wildlife. Amongst the projects developed by the Trust they have conservation education programmes and also provide food support for many pre-school children. We were greeted at the gates by very smart and pleasant workers. We saw quite a lot of game whilst driving through the Trust land, but absolutely the high-spot was the cheetah who ambled across in front of our truck. I saw an animal as we approached and from the profile I thought it was a young lioness. As we drew closer it became obvious that it was a cheetah, in no hurry to go anywhere. It wandered off into the bush, metres from our truck, as we crawled past, quite the closest encounter we have ever had with one of these beautiful and shy animals.

Once inside the National Park the roads deteriorated. Those in the land covered by the Malilangwe Trust were wide and well graded, but once we had crossed over into the Park these were replaced by the rutted and pot-holed dirt roads we are now familiar with from other National Parks. We encountered rather an odd situation when we checked in at the entry gate. We had already decided that we would camp here at the Chipinda Pools site, our Guide Book says that there are nine pitches here, and also that as the most remote and unvisited of all the National Parks it was rarely full. However when the young woman at reception heard that we hadn't made a booking with the Harare Central Office she was unsure as to whether there would be a vacancy for us and went off to check by radio link, no mobile phone coverage. She told us that it had been fully booked the previous night, we still have no idea who she checked with as we have been here over 24 hours and haven't seen anyone else. John remembered passing a couple of Hi-Lux safari vehicles like ours on the road from Masvingo, going in the opposite direction, the only tourist vehicles we had seen. It is possible that they were coming from here, in fact on that road there aren't many other places they could have been coming from. We finally determined that there are nine pitches, but she is only allowed to book two of them to casual visitors. The other seven have to be booked through, but as there is no telephone coverage here it is difficult to see how the Harare Office could inform her that visitors would be arriving at any particular time to occupy those pitches. If the two non-bookable pitches were taken an option might be to hang around at reception until the entry gate closed at 18.30 and then assume no-one else was coming in. However the system seems so rigid I doubt that the very nice young woman would feel authorised to make that decision.

She returned to say that she had confirmed that there was a vacant pitch and we paid our entry fee/conservation fee/camping fee, mounting up to $45 a night, and proceeded to the campsite which was deserted. The nine designated pitches are all very separate from each other, and some way apart, areas of bush between them, each one is adjacent to the river and has a thatched rondavel, a standpipe and a braai.

There are ablution blocks consisting of one male and one female toilet and shower between every three pitches. As none of the other pitches are visible it really does feel as if you are all alone in the bush. We drove round all the nine deserted pitches, decided that our allocated one was as nice as any and quite close to the ablutions, so have pitched up here. At this time of the year we are high up on the river bank, looking down and across the Runde river, we can see from the lack of foliage that in the rainy season the river will be full.

When we checked in we asked about the other campsites further into the Park and we were told that it was no longer possible to camp on those as the beginning of the rainy system is imminent and they would be flooded. This is the same as the information in our Guide Book which says that much of the Park is inaccessible between November and April. We have a couple of overhanging trees slightly obscuring our view of the river, but they serve to frame the scene.

Once we had chosen the pitch the next task was to decide exactly where to camp. We were a little, no more than a little, perturbed by the large mounds of fresh elephant dung almost everywhere. This wasn't because we objected to the dung as such, it dries off into a powdery dust very quickly, maybe because the vegetation at this time of the year is so dry and sparse, more because it indicated that this was an area frequently inhabited by elephants. Our Guide Book states that the elephants here are very suspicious and not at all friendly, and we have heard this from other sources as well. They have been extensively hunted for their ivory, even by rich overseas game-hunters using helicopters and by poachers from nearby Mozambique. Hunting has decimated the numbers of game in Gonarezhou and most of the visitors to the Park today are birders. Partially due to its isolation and lack of development and visitors it provides an environment for the greatest variety of birds in Zimbabwe, over 400 species. However because the remaining animals are classified as 'unfriendly' and 'potentially dangerous' the birders are only allowed to wander in the Park on foot with an experienced and armed Guide. So we have decided it would be foolish to pitch our ground tent and we are sleeping in the top tent.

The ablutions are 'interesting'. They are both very run down, with broken mirrors, crumbling walls, chipped basins and toilets, but more importantly the toilets don't flush. I would much rather have a decent long drop than a flush with dodgy plumbing and am far happier with a 'squat' than dirty seats. We started off with buckets of water but then John managed to get one to work, sort of. There is an impressive array of solar panels, but no hot water, in fact no water at all in the showers at first. That doesn't both us too much either, bucket baths are something we are all too familiar with. Even before our previous African experiences we had bucket baths in our early days in Greece and later when we had water cuts, and before that back in the 70s in our early days of camping in the U.K. However once again John to the rescue and he has managed to do something mysterious and get water into one of the showers, sort of. It's very hot here, hotter than anywhere else we have been so far, so some sort of a swill is appreciated. When we tried the water from the standpipe it was thick and brown, and had rather an odd smell. We have brought with us all the drinking water we will need and we have sufficient in the trucks tank to rinse off any standpipe water we use for washing-up.

It was a good decision to sleep in the top tent. Last night we took the strong torch up with us in case we needed to get out to the toilet in the night. We weren't expecting buffalo, but hyenas can be a problem and evidently there are several prides of lion lurking in the nearby hills. I couldn't identify most of the noises I heard in the night, was that a lion coughing or just a baboon grunting. I did hear the elephants breaking branches off the trees very close by, and the fresh dung around us this morning confirmed their presence. The hippos grazing by the river below us were very noisy, maybe the grass gets stuck up their nostrils and they have to keep snorting and sneezing to get it out. I felt very safe and secure in the top box, and amidst all the unexplained noises I had a good nights sleep.

Sunset over the Runde River

Early to bed, we were tucked up by 19.30 last night, early to rise. We were up by 04.30 this morning and I sat with my first mug of coffee looking out over the river. I startled some impala who scampered away. I couldn't see the hippos, who had been visible in the river yesterday, but I could hear them snorting very close by, they must have been grazing on the banks below us and in the river bed. There is an island in the river, probably temporary in the dry season as it is very low lying, and elephants were grazing there. The kingfishers were swooping down from the trees next to me, taking small fish. The noise of the birds all around was vibrant, I wished so much that I knew more about them and could identify the individual sounds. Then I spotted a fish eagle, he was sitting high up on a dry and dead looking branch of a tree. I sipped my coffee and watched as he dived down into the water and took a good sized fish, maybe his first meal of the day. Unfortunately he took it over to the far bank and I had to use binoculars to watch him tearing it apart. The sun came up from over the mountains behind us, streaking across the water. It was magic.

We set out to explore some of the Park today and took a track following the Runde River as far as Chilojo Cliffs. The scenery here is spectacular, varied and quite different to anything we have seen before, it is Zimbabwe's second largest National Park. The translation from Shona of Gonarezhou is 'The Place of Elephants', and although they have been extensively hunted, judging from the amount of dung we saw, there are plenty around, great efforts having been made to re-stock the population. I'm not sure how this fits in with the enormous amount of devastation we saw which we thought could only be caused by elephant damage. Large swathes of land were littered with uprooted trees and broken branches. The track is reasonable in most places, although as the terrain is undulating it is easy to see that after the rains many of the tracks would be completely washed away. We travelled quite slowly as the tracks have frequent large bumps in them. At first we couldn't understand why so many speed bumps were needed as the road conditions prohibited travelling very fast anyway, then we realised that they led to conduits either side of the tracks, obviously in an attempt to drain off some of the flood waters when it rained. The frequency and size of these is an indication of how when it rains here it really does rain, and why much of the Park is closed during the rainy season.

We made several detours off the main track down to some of the other remote and undeveloped campsites. They all had a long drop and some had a standpipe. They were all amazingly situated, with fantastic views over the river, and so far away from anywhere.

Although we didn't see anyone else all day, some of the campsites had evidence of recent occupation, thankfully no rubbish, but recent fires, and in the long drop at Chinguli there was even a toilet roll! It was quite heavily forested as we approached Chilojo and we encountered some very aggressive elephants who approached the truck with their ears up. John drove very slowly and steadily and we were pleased to get past unscathed. At Chilojo campsite the ashes in the fire were still warm, so someone had stayed there last night. We checked out the ford which can be used in the dry season and tyre tacks suggested that a vehicle had crossed over from the southern part of the Park. The Chilojo Cliffs could be seen across the river, an amazing sight, majestic and towering over the sandbanks beside the low river. We retraced our route and from another direction the scenery was just as unpredictable and varied. We didn't see much game, some antelope, zebra, giraffe, but the birds are everywhere.

An enormous 'sausage' tree. You can just about seem me standing beneath it.

A curious giraffe

Back at the campsite we realised that somebody else is staying here, in one of the pitched booked through Harare. There were towels hung up to dry and a water barrel. They must have arrived last night after us. We have managed a shower. The toilet here is very interesting. There is a permanent family of toads as well as so many geckoes. I first noticed the toads when I had that uncanny feeling that something/someone was watching me. I glanced over my shoulder to see this pair of large bulbous eyes fixed on me. That was yesterday, today he/she has been joined by a friend/partner and they are sitting next to each other where the toilet roll would go if there was one. We will have another lovely braai with beautiful tomatoes and then early to bed again, as we will move on tomorrow morning. Gonarezhou Park is an exceptional place, we have only seen a tiny, tiny piece of it. It would be possible to spend weeks here, but it would need to be in the dry season after the rains. We consider it to be one of the best places we have stopped at, but at the moment it is dry and arid, the rains are late this year and should start soon. After the rainy reason it must become a totally different place, with lush vegetation, much more game and most of all a violent and life giving river.

Saturday 22 November – Chimanimani, Frog and Fern

We were up just before 05.00 this morning, after a good night's sleep. It was initially very hot in the top tent but a breeze got up, in fact it was quite windy, and it soon cooled down. We saw lots of fresh elephant dung close by this morning, but I didn't hear them. Something, most probably the baboons we saw passing through last night, ripped our vegetable peelings bag we thought we had safely secured in the rafters of the rondavel. We weren't in a hurry to leave and I drank my coffee looking out over the river again. I didn't see the fish eagle but other birds left their night roosting places and started their daily activity of seeking food. Ibis and egret made their way noisily across the river. Kingfishers perched in the low branches and then swooped into the water. Tiny sunbirds flitted through the trees. Once again I tried so hard to listen only to the sounds of the birds and it was like 'the tower of babel' must have been, so many voices, all so different, intermingling into a cacophony of sound.

After leaving Gonarezhou we drove back through the Malilangwe Trust land watching out carefully for 'our' cheetah, but no sign of him, although we did see lots of other game, including some more magnificent giraffes. Once back on the main road we drove past lots and lots of roadside communities, many of which had quite substantial looking brick buildings amongst the thatched huts. The road was bad, wide and surfaced but with treacherous potholes. We encountered many laden lorries carrying sugar-cane. Where the potholes were worst scores of baboons hovered at the roadsides rushing in to collect pieces of cane as it bounced off the lorries, making driving even more hazardous. For a long time the road seemed to follow the 300 metre contour, on our left the low veld and the sugar plantations, to our right the towering heights of the Eastern Highlands and beyond them Mozambique. At Tanganda we turned off the highway, taking the road to Chimanimani. There were many banana plantations bordering the road, the bananas wrapped in their familiar blue bags which indicate commercial cultivation as an export crop.

We climbed steadily up, and up and even further up into the Highlands, at one point reaching 1,700 metres. We drove through forestry plantations of Wattle Trees, White Pine and some Eucalyptus. We stopped at a junction with the road leading back to Chiredzi and bought some fruit and vegetables. Everything was being sold by a bucket, which looked about 10 litre capacity, far more than we needed. A bucket piled high with avocados was $3 for example, one of sweet potatoes was $2. I asked for a plastic bag and took our sweet potatoes, four avocados, a papaya and a bunch of bananas and asked if the women would be happy with $5. They were very happy, so the deal was made.

As we got closer to Chimanimani we went deeper into commercial foresting plantations and logging. The logging plantations got bigger until they took up most of the landscape. We passed a sawmill and a wattle factory. There was evidence that there had been quite a serious fire not too long ago, many trees, either side of the road were completely burnt. It seemed a long way before we reached Chimanimani and then we climbed even higher, out of the village to The Frog and Fern. It is a delightful place, I charged my Archos while we put the tent up and had some lunch so I am now sitting here in the gardens, Paradise Flycatchers flitting past me, the big German Shepherd sniffing at my feet, tapping in these few thoughts. Jane is delightful, she showed us where we could camp and where the facilities are. As the camping site is small she only takes one party at a time, so we have the place to ourselves. We have pitched the tent between some trees and it will be nice to sleep on the ground again tonight. No wild animals here, although Jane has warned us to be careful about the scorpions who after a recent light rain are lurking in the firewood and under rocks. There is a cabin for the use of campers, with electricity points, table and chairs, and a firepit with a braai, very luxurious after Gonarezhou.

Monday 24 November – Chimanimani, Frog and Fern

We have had an amazing 3 days here, where to start. Chimanimani was on my list of must-dos as I have been reading Mukiwa by Peter Godwin. I have really enjoyed it, it is well written, he is a journalist, and his story of growing up in colonial Rhodesia is an enjoyable read as well as very informative. His early years are spent in Chimanimani, which in those days, the 60s, was called Melsetter. As we drove here last Saturday the book started to come alive when we passed places whose names were familiar to me, Skyline Junction and the Wattle factory where his father worked. His younger sister, Georgina, is mentioned in the book and we learnt from Jane that she had a wedding in Chimanimani last year, the ceremony was held at Bridal Veils and lots of people stayed here at Frog and Fern.

We settled in on Saturday afternoon, enjoyed a nice rump steak braai, our beef is holding up really well, it's over two weeks since we had it cut. We saved some fatty bits for Karnie, the German Shepherd and the result is that he comes to the camp site when he hears our truck coming up the track. He also hangs out round our tent every night, a true guard dog, but he does pace round it a couple of times in the night which can be a bit disturbing, but no more so than elephants and hippos doing the same thing, in fact a lot less disturbing. We had a bit of a lie in yesterday morning, 05.45, and after a leisurely breakfast set out to see some of the local attractions. First we went to Bridal Veil Falls, a beautiful spot where in fact we could have camped. It was a lovely site by a river, spotlessly clean with rondavels, braais, and toilets. The waterfall was beautiful, I don't know if there is more water coming down after the rains, but if so I think that would spoil the effect of the streams of water trickling over the rocks, really resembling a veil. It must be a magical setting for a wedding.

We bought an entry ticket to get into the Bridal Veil Falls and this also gave us admission to Pork Pie Hill and the Eland Sanctuary. We didn't manage to get to the top of Pork Pie Hill, whose attraction really seems to be a view. As in so many areas of Zimbabwe, there were no sign posts, no indication of which track to take and the information in our Guide Book is sparse. Pork Pie Hill is quite distinct as it now has a communication tower on top, and we drove up and up but couldn't see a way of actually reaching the top, or even somewhere where we could leave the truck and continue on foot. We reached a height of 1,800 metres and the scenery and vegetation changed. We were surrounded by the mountains of the Eastern Highlands and we could see Mozambique in the distance. The vegetation was reminiscent of an English country meadow, with familiar grasses and wild flowers. We think we caught sight of two Eland grazing in the distance, this used to be an Eland Sanctuary but all the fences have long since been broken down or removed and used for other purposes, and the Eland have fled or been killed and eaten.

Our next stop was at Tessa's or Mermaid Pool, we had to drive back through the village for this as it was in an opposite direction. It is on land leased to the Outward Bound Movement and we left the truck and followed a well-signed path. The Pool is beautiful, the waterfall is smaller and not as spectacular as the Bridal Veil Fall, but the Pool is in a hidden glen, surrounded by rocks and trailing ferns, whereas the Pool at Bridal Veils is much more open and exposed. We turned a corner in the footpath and fell upon it, there was no-one else, and with little sunlight piercing the trees and rocks it had a mysterious stillness and beauty. We stayed a while, enjoying the peace and tranquillity before returning to the truck.

As we climbed back up the path the silence was broken by the sounds of chattering, and we saw a group of young people clambering down a side track towards the Pool. We thought how lucky we had been to have the place to ourselves. The young people were accompanied by an older man and he stopped to speak to us as the youngsters carried on down the path. Their shrieks soon told us that at least some of them had plunged into the icy waters. The man introduced himself as the Outward Bound Warden and he invited us to take the path up to the house where he lives with his wife for a cold drink. We learnt that he used to own a large farm close to Mutare, which had been taken from him as part of The Land Reclamation Reforms. He and his wife had been turned off, fearing for their lives, and had not been able to take anything with them. He was offered the job here as Warden at the Outward Bound Centre which provides them with accommodation and an income. Although he was bitter about the role played by various British governments and the way that Independence had been handled, the same story that we have heard from so many other people here, he was stoical about his new job. He said how much better it was than farming, no more worrying about when the rains would come and how the crops were growing, never mind the administrative issues and latterly the constant fear about what the future might hold. Their biggest regret is that all three of their children have left the country, as following the loss of the family farm there was no work and no security for them, so they have little contact with grandchildren. Another familiar story, echoing the fact that Zimbabwe has lost a generation of young people, white and black.

On the way to Tessa's Pool we had seen the remains of what must once have been a very fine stone farmhouse. It was completely burnt out and creepers were encroaching into the remaining walls. We learnt that it was the house of Roy Bennett, the white farmer who had been a member of the MDC opposition party. Quite a lot has been written about his story and his bravery in standing up for the people abused by Zanu-PF. This is not the story of a white farmer supporting other land-owners, he was so popular amongst the local black population that he was elected as a member of Parliament. As a challenge to Mugabe's supremacy he has been jailed and tortured, members of his family have been abused and threatened, he is currently in self-imposed exile but still fighting on behalf of the many people in Zimbabwe whose lives have been shattered by this regime.

We made sure that we were back at The Frog and Fern by 16.00. When we arrived on Saturday we took a look at a folder in the Campers Cabin where Jane had included a couple of sheets about her involvement with the Matsetso Stars Youth Club. We spoke to her about it in the evening. She was a P.E. Teacher, trained at Bedford College so not too far from East Anglia. She must have Scottish ancestry as she has played hockey for Scotland. We passed the township of Matsetso on our way here last Saturday, a jumble of houses, some quite nice ones and some little more than a basic shack, just before we reached Chimanimani. Matsetso has been devastated by HIV/AIDS, many households are headed by a child and many children who have lost both parents are living with other relatives. Hardly any of the young men and boys still living in the township have any work, I assume that previously they would have been employed on one of the large coffee or tobacco farms, such as that of Roy Bennett, and now there is no longer any work for them. As a result they have no purpose to their lives, no self-esteem, trapped in a cycle of poverty and despondency. Jane has helped to set up the Youth Club, a vital part of which is the football team. They meet three times a week, including a Sunday afternoon, for training sessions and she invited us to go along.

We were rather surprised to hear that the venue for the training is No 2 Fairway. It turned out that Chimanimani still has a 12 hole Golf Course maintained in playable condition by a handfull of white people still living here. Horses and sheep are used to graze it, Roy Bennett gave them a tractor before he lost his farm. When we arrived there we found a lot of black people in the Clubhouse playing pool and backgammon, John noticed that the squash course was stacked with empty crates. There were a lot of black people around, all very friendly. It seems as if a once white-only preserve is now occupied by a range of people, some living in the buildings and others playing golf. We found No.2 Fairway and there were over 100 young black people congregated there, and just Jane, in baseball cap and with whistle. She now has a number of helpers, co-ordinating the various teams and helping with training. When we arrived she had her first team seated on the ground receiving a pep talk, she was stressing the importance of punctuality, and pride in their strip and turn-out. Her attitude is amazing, she could for all the world have been addressing a group of students at any High School or P.E. College. In other other parts of the Fairway kick-abouts were taking place and another one of her teams was playing a fixture with a church group. Some of the youngsters had family members supporting them and cheering them on, I saw at least two young girls, not much more than 12 themselves, with babies strapped to their backs.

We tried to make ourselves useful, we played ball with some very small children, at first shy and then more accepting of us. I sat down on the grass and starting reading one of the books Jane had laid out, I was soon joined by a group of young people, mostly girls. I suggested we took it in turns to read, and three girls particularly were eager to do so. Their phonetic reading was very good but I am not sure about their comprehension of many of the ideas and concepts. Jane's other passion is conservation so many of the books laid out were National Geographic, rather difficult and not stimulating enough at this stage of their experience. The book I fell upon was The Hungry Caterpillar, which I have read to grandchildren, but I'm not sure if the idea of a caterpillar over-eating has much place in the comprehension of children who probably don't get enough to eat themselves. It's a difficult one, at the moment I can't get my head round a compromise for reading material, I'm going to have a lot of research to do when I get home.

We are both very humbled by the experience at No.2 Fairway. We are in awe of the energy Jane has and the amount of time she is giving to these young people. Together with her partner, they have a business to run, an income to maintain letting their cottages, and yet she still makes time for this. She is constantly seeking sponsorship, one of the Scottish Football Clubs,presumably one Jane has connections with from her Scottish heritage, has donated football equipment. She has set up a Facebook Page for them, chronically their activities and achievements. I'm sure that there are many other individuals in Zimbabwe and other developing countries doing similar things, but our personal experience of Jane and The Matsetso Stars makes them unique for us.

John with some of the future Stars of the Matsetso Football Team

This morning we drove back south to visit the Chirinda Forest Reserve, where on one time we had thought we might try to camp, but decided to make our base for this area at Chimanimani. It is the southernmost rainforest area. We had a rather eerie walk into the Reserve, reaching the giant Red Mahogany, reputed to be up to 1,000 years old. The Forest Reserve itself was a bit disappointing for us as we have on previous trips been to much more spectacular rainforest areas, John spent six months living in the Nigerian rainforest and I remember villages in the foothills of Mount Meru surrounded by rainforest.

The giant Red Mahogany - the tree, not me!

The journey was excellent though, some of it repeating the route we had taken from Gonarezhou, past the banana plantations and wattle forests, stopping once more at the crossroads to buy buckets of avocados, tomatoes and bananas.

Now back at The Frog and Fern we enjoyed a fireside chat with Jane, bombarding her with so many questions, which she answered with incredible honesty. She is different to the other white Zimbabweans we have met. We have admired their tolerance and stoicism, the way in which they are hanging on in, making the best of their circumstances. I feel for the white people we have met, tracing their roots back hundreds of years. I can't imagine how I might feel if I was told by my government that as I cannot trace my heritage back to, let's say Anglo-Saxon roots, there is no place for me in the U.K., that other people have more right to my property and possessions than I have. Then I find that I am discriminated against because of my ethnic background and I can't get employment, and have no opportunities open to me. I really don't know how I would react to this, I suspect not as well as the many Zimbabweans we have met. However, unless I have read the situation wrongly, those white Zimbabweans could leave the country if they wanted to, quite a few of them seem to have other passports, from parents or even grandparents. It is a different story with Jane, and not forgetting the support she must get from Dee, she isn't just hanging on, she is trying to make a change, and to the people who have suffered most. The black Zimbabweans, the victims of this terrible regime have no place to go, are completely powerless, they are usually uneducated with no decision making experience or skills. These are the people Jane is trying to help. In all honesty it is an impossible task but we saw for ourselves their enthusiasm, their pride in their football team, and their determination to work at it.

We could stay here for much, much longer, but this is a holiday trip and tomorrow we must move on.

Wednesday 26 November – Bvumba, HiVu Cottages

We had an amazing journey here yesterday. Our Guide Book describes the 'scenic' route from Chimanimani to Cashel and then on to Mutare as passable with a high-clearance vehicle. It was, but it was very slow going. Just as 'Bushman's Nek' has become our bottom line for terrible weather conditions for camping, so Matusadona has become our bottom line for driving conditions. It wasn't as bad as Matusadona and was more than compensated for by the scenery. We climbed up out of Chimanimani, over 2,000 metres, and for much of the way hugged the Mozambican border. The track twisted and turned, we felt as if we were on top of the world, alone. The mountains stretched away to the east, undulating and unfolding, the colours changing as the sun climbed higher and the shadows moved.

Looking across the mountains to Mozambique

Over to the west we glanced down into old river valleys, now with lush green pasture even at the end of this dry season. We suspect that at this height the wet and dry seasons might not be so clearly marked and there is more rainfall here. Climbing up to 2,000 metres the sides of the track were lined with Proteus bushes and trees, some in flower, their exotic petals opening to the warm sunshine at this early hour of the morning. We were amazed to come across groups of children making their way to school. It was obvious from their enthusiasm in greeting us that they didn't encounter many strangers on this road. Occasionally we stopped and spoke to people, most of whom had a reasonable grasp of English. Several of the men were moving ploughs from one place to another, drawn by cows, whereas the women carried hand tools. It took us about five hours to get from Chimanimani to Cashel, but we made many stops on the way, enjoying the scenery and meeting the people.

After leaving Cashel we headed back to the main A9 towards Mutare and then turned off into the Bvumba Mountains. According to our Guide Book the only place to camp in Bvumba is in The Botanical Gardens, which used to be quite nice with lots of birds but is now very run down. Jane told us that we could camp at Hivu Cottages. The cottages are run by Sally, with a selection of accommodation and is largely geared up for horse riding or bird watching types. The camping facilities aren't official as there isn't any designated ablutions, campers have to use the toilet and showers in the cottage block. We had trouble finding the cottages as the map in our Guide Book puts them in the wrong place. After driving up and down the road we finally went into another set of cottages and asked for directions. We had to overcome another obstacle when we finally found Hivu Cottages as Sally wasn't there and the woman in charge directed us to camp in a very pleasant place on a top lawn. However we found a much nicer pitch on a lower terrace, with a lovely view over the mountains into Mozambique and with a braai, and said we would prefer to pitch there. There was nobody else camping and none of the cottages appeared to be occupied, but the woman in charge was very concerned that we were not camping where she had told us. It would seem that if we took the most direct route from the place where we wanted to camp to get to the toilet and shower we would pass through a garden which was for the exclusive use of people staying in the cottages. We promised to take the long route, up and across the lawn, but I had to write a note in the office book to confirm that we had been told to pitch on the lawn but had disobeyed the instructions, thus exonerating the woman in charge.

Another reason for wanting a different pitch was that when we arrived we were aware of a very noisy generator behind the cottage block, by moving down a terrace the noise wasn't quite so intrusive. At first we had assumed that the generator was being used for a short period of time because of a Zesa outage, common throughout Zimbabwe. However when we learnt that the generator was in permanent use during daylight hours because of a problem with a transformer at the exchange, we really wanted to get a bit further away from it.

Later in the afternoon Sally arrived to sort out some arrangements for her horses and riding trips for people staying at nearby hotels, and she confirmed that we were OK where we had pitched for a couple of nights as there were not any bookings for the cottages before Friday. It seemed that in the past occupants of the cottages had not been happy about campers traipsing through their garden area in order to get to the toilet. As the camp site is unofficial anyway it would probably make sense not to allow camping when there are residents in the cottages, but this would cause a problem with bookings as if someone had booked a tent pitch for a certain night Sally wouldn't then want to turn down bookings for four cottages for the same night at an obviously much higher income. It would be simpler to just put a small toilet and shower block in on the camping area, out of view of the cottages, then the two are entirely separate.

Once the generator had been turned off it was beautifully quiet and peaceful here. I think everyone lives somewhere else. We lit the fire and cooked yet another rump steak, and enjoyed a good night's sleep, after taking a short cut to the toilets! We woke this morning to find that we were in cloud forest. It hadn't really occurred to us that in this forested area at about 2,000 metres we would be in low cloud. We took the circular route around the Bvumba, rising and falling, in and out of cloud. The first part of the trip, to the north and east, we were in forest and really couldn't see much at all, but when we were close to the Mozambique border and turned south the landscape was much more open and we were able to see down into the valleys. We drove through coffee and banana plantations, the area looked organised and affluent, quite unlike other parts of rural Zimbabwe. We wondered before about other commercial banana plantations we have seen in the Eastern Highlands. The blue bags round the young bananas usually indicates that their cultivation is heavily controlled and they are a commercial crop for export, and this suggests a large company, maybe foreign ownership. We heard that many of the commercial banana plantations were owned by an Austrian developer, that he was in close contact with members of the German Embassy. We also heard that the Germans are paying a large part, if not all, of the bill for the salaries of the Zimbabwean Civil Servants. It is a substantiated fact that the largest employer in Zimbabwe is the Civil Service, and jobs are given as rewards to Zanu-PF party members, hence the fact that all people in authority support the government and at a lower level, with unemployment at something like 80%, the only way to get any job is to be a Zanu-PF supporter.

The story continues with a number of Zanu-PF 'war-vets', the term itself a contradiction in terms as many of the so-called 'war-vets' were just children at the time of the war, occupying some of the banana plantations. It seems to be a term used to describe a group of lawless thugs who perpetrate crimes with the protection of the government. They are responsible for inflicting terror upon the uneducated black population who do not support the government and their reward is being allowed to occupy and 'reclaim' any land currently in white ownership. When a group of these 'war-vets' occupied one of the banana plantations the Austrian owner phoned the German Embassy for help. The German Embassy contacted a person in authority in the Zimbabwean Government and suggested that if anyone wanted to get their salary paid at the end of the month the 'war-vets' needed to leave the plantation immediately. It seems, so we were told that like magic, they packed up and left.

This leads us on quite nicely to what we did next today. As we completed the circular route of Bvumba we could see that the cloud was slowly lifting, and we felt the strength of the sun. One of the reasons we decided to make a stop in Bvumba is its proximity to Mutare and the area around it. This part of the country has been severely affected by the events of the last ten or so years. It has always been a fertile agricultural area, the altitude giving it a better climate for year round farming and grazing, so there were a lot of large farms and these were historically white-owned. 'War-vet' activity here, as part of the Land Reclamation Programme has been at it's most intense. A few months ago I picked up a book in a local library called 'The Last Resort', by Douglas Rogers. Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean born journalist who has spent some time in the U.K. and now lives in the U.S. His parents Lyn and Ros bought 729 acres of land on the outskirts of Mutare and built up a holiday resort, with chalets, a back-packer lodge, restaurant and bar and set up a game reserve with giraffe and antelope. When Douglas, then living in the U.K., paid a return visit to see them in 2002, he was appalled to see the conditions they were living under, following several invasions of their property. 'The Last Resort' documents their struggle to remain on their property and is a warm, funny and interesting book. I enjoyed it immensely and passed it on to John, who also enjoyed it and followed up a web link to give feedback to Douglas Rogers, and saying that we would be making a return trip to Zimbabwe in November. He was surprised when he received an immediate response from Douglas who copied his father, Lyn, into the mail, thus putting us in contact with him directly. Lyn and Ros invited us to go and see them and have a cup of tea when we are in Zimbabwe.

So we passed through Mutare and made our way to Drifters. We missed the main gate into the property and entered by a track further down the road, so we had to drive through deserted camp pitches and derelict chalets. We were lost and stopped the truck to try and get our bearing. We were soon approached by 'John', who features strongly in the book, a stalwart man who used to run the property and bar for Lyn and Ros, a friend of Douglas, and has remained through all the troubles and still lives on the property with his family. We made space for him in the truck and he quided us up and up to the house where Lyn and Ros live. They are an amazing couple. We were slightly embarrassed about arriving for a cup of tea, and apologised for treating them as a tourist attraction. My apologies were soon brushed aside and we were seated in their delightful lounge, looking out over a well tended garden, where we drank tea out of fine china cups. We stayed for about an hour and were soon discussing politics, Lyn is even more of a political animal than I think I am. We disagreed on many points and I think he enjoyed the interchange. We picked up a lot of useful and interesting information. We learnt that the Malilangwe Trust area we drove through to access the central part of Gonarezhou is managed by a foundation set up by Paul Dow of 'Dow-Jones'. I had heard of 'Dow-Jones', but didn't know that there was a person belonging to the 'Dow', or that he is a philanthropist, involved in many conservation projects in various parts of Africa, including a Rhino Trust. This explains why the roads through the Malilangwe Trust were so well graded and that the men we met at the gates seemed more articulate and knowledgeable than those working for ZimParks. We also talked about the 20% tax which is being imposed on all imported goods. I raised this when I asked how, when most of the staple diet of maize was imported, the poorer people would be able to feed themselves. It seems that this is not an important issue for the Mugabe government because overseas NGO's and organisations such as The World Food Programme will continue to import and distribute maize whatever the cost. The 20% tax has been imposed because many of the members of Mugabe's cohort who took over reclaimed land have given up trying to farm it, it is not as easy as they expected. I am sure I am repeating this and have mentioned it before, as we have been told this many times. They had no appreciation of the fact that crops did not grow themselves and grazing animals needed care and attention, that the white farmers didn't in fact spend all their time playing golf and bridge and sipping sundowners on their verandahs. Even if they participated in these activities and didn't perform the actual labour themselves it was their knowledge and expertise which allowed the farms to function successfully and productively. So some have decided that chicken farming seems like a more manageable option, however due once again to their lack of knowledge and expertise they haven't changed the methods they would use to keep a few family hens in order to mass produce chickens. These methods are so inefficient that imported chickens from China are much cheaper, hence the 20% import tax is needed to make chicken farming a financial option. We have met many Zimbabweans this trip but Lyn and Ros will stand out as exceptional, we could have stayed for longer but did not want to outstay our welcome.

We stopped to shop in Mutare as we drove back through. Mutare is the third largest city and although we found a Spar and managed to get everything we wanted, it is a long way behind Harare and Bulawayo. At the moment it is chaotic due to road works, there was a long diversion out of Mutare towards Drifters, and the town centre also has many roads closed off. Despite this Mutare has a good easy going feel to it, we stopped at a street market as I want to buy some 'kitenge' to take home, I like the geometrical designs I have seen on the Zimbabwean fabric. The market was just all second hand clothes but I spoke to some women sitting on a wall and they told me my best bet is to go to the Indian shop in downtown. Back at the campsite, which was deserted, nobody there at all, we dragged the tent out from underneath the trees into an open clearing. We are leaving in the morning and if tomorrow is as damp as this morning we want to avoid the drips.

We had a very interesting conversation with a woman working at the campsite. She told us how much better things are in Zimbabwe now, for her and her family. The conversation sort of grew out of us saying how much we admired the women we see with enormous loads on their heads, loads so heavy that someone like me wouldn't even be able to lift them. She told us how, around 2008, when the Zimbabwean currency was worthless due to the extra-ordinary rate of inflation, and there was no food or other produce in the shops, she, with a group of other women walked to Mozambique. They left their village at 02.00 in the morning with as much of the maize they had grown and could carry in bundles on their heads, often carrying their children on their backs, and walked across the border to Mozambique, arriving at a local market at about 08.00. They either sold or bartered their maize and when they had Mozambican money they purchased the things they needed. They started their return journey at about 14.00 in the afternoon and walked back carrying their purchases in bundles on their heads, getting back to their village at about 20.00.

Thursday 27 November - Nyanga National Park, Pungwe Falls Campsite

We woke this morning to really appreciate Bvumba's rain forest environment. I got up to go to the toilet while it was still dark and the fog was so dense my torch was no good and I had to edge my way round the hedge to find the cottage block. When we got up it was still very thick and we couldn't see beyond the edge of our terrace. We were very pleased we had moved the tent out from under the trees. Although everything above us was dripping with moisture, it was unusual because the air was actually quite dry. In a fog as dense as that in the U.K. it would have felt wet on your face and body, as it had been in the low cloud and drizzle when we were at Jubulani. We walked about in the fog, packing up ready to move on, but my clothes and hair were not wet.. We managed to get the bedroom unit packed up and in the truck without too much wet, but the fly was absolutely sopping wet. With only two of us in the truck, as at Jabulani, we were able to rearrange the packing and storage to allow us to clear a space in the back and roll the fly up in there on one of the plastic sheets I had brought.

Note: as well as packing parcel tape and dental floss etc., another essential is plastic table-clothes from £1Land. They are thin and fine, take up no space and weigh nothing, but have a multitude of roles when packing and storing things in wet conditions.

So we headed north, stopping briefly in downtown Mutare to buy some potatoes and I managed to get a couple of pieces of cloth from the Indian Emporium. Sure enough they had exactly what I wanted at $2 a metre. I have bought 2 lengths to add to my collection. Driving around Mutare I saw lots of signs encouraging men to have a circumcision. There were posters depicting a happy family, man, woman and 2 children, and the caption read, "I did it for my wife and family, you can do it too". There were also signs saying, 'Circumcision available now at Mutare Hospital'.

After that it was a straight run up to Juliasdale and the Far and Wide Office, where we needed to get permits to camp in Nyanga National Park. It was temporarily closed but a notice in the window gave a contact number for inquiries. The person who answered directed us to the Far and Wide Activity Centre close to the entrance to the Park, by a scenic route. It was an excellent drive, winding our way through conifer forestry plantations, up to 1,800 metres. It was quite a lengthy stay at the Activity centre while arrangements were made for us to camp. A young man from the centre got in the truck with us and directed us to the camp site, which is delightful. It is a clump of shelters, similar to the rondavels we had had at Gonarezhou but square with tin roofs so not as attractive, and braais and flat areas for camping. The toilet facilities are very good, the actual building a bit shabby, but scrupulously clean. He has lit the fire under the donkey boiler for us. We soon had the tent up and in the hot sun it has dried completely. We are surrounded by forest and mountain ridges. There is no sound apart from the birds. Idyllic. We haven't met the person we spoke to on the telephone from Juliasdale, but his accent sounded quite white South African. When we were waiting at the Activity Centre a white man came on a motorbike to speak to some other people, so it could have been him. It seems a school trip is expected on Saturday so we have just booked for two nights.

Friday 29 November - Nyanga National Park, Mare Caravan Park

'Caravan Park' is a bit of a misnomer for this campsite in the northern part of the Nyanga National Park, as it is vast but there are lots of trees and probably only about 10 pitches you could possibly get to with a caravan. We are the only people here.

We had a hasty exit yesterday afternoon from the Far and Wide campsite at Mutazari Falls. We made an early start yesterday after a quiet and peaceful night's sleep, exploring the southern half of the Park. The dirt roads were quite difficult in places as a Hydro-Electric Station is being built at Pungwe Falls and overhead electricity cables are being erected throughout the park. Yesterday evening we met some members of the work gang who had been staying on the campsite, when they returned to pick up their gear and move on. We spoke to a man who appeared to be in charge, he was extremely articulate and knowledgeable and had the demeanour of someone used to giving orders. We chatted about the project but when I asked where the funding was from I couldn't get an answer, just that they had very good sponsors.

After a while we got fed up with driving on such bad road without really seeing very much so we decided to go back to the tarred road in order to drive north to Troutbeck, on the way dropping in on the ZimParks site where we are now. Our Bradt Guide is very dismissive of it, 'there are braai areas and little else to commend it'. We found a large, OK, very large, flat area with spotless toilets and showers, clean, tidy and well cared for, very friendly and helpful staff, an ideal campsite as a base for most of the Park.

We continued on the main road to Troutbeck, which turned out to be quite a small place. We took a turning off the main road heading up to World View which took us to the other side of The Troutbeck Village Inn, which is now called the Troutbeck Resort. It looked splendid, very, very posh and I am sure, very, very expensive. At one time we had thought about treating ourselves to a night there, but I doubt we would have been allowed over the threshold. We are both beginning to look a bit shabby and travel-worn, fine with us but probably not up to their standards. The hotel and lodges over look a large lake, with pristine golf courses stretching either side of the dirt track we were on. We climbed up and up and up, the track twisting and winding, higher and higher, until the altimeter read 2,200 metres. A small tower sits in some well tended gardens and we climbed up it to an outstanding and breath-taking view. The Guide Book gives the height as 2,258 metres. Unfortunately visibility isn't very good anywhere at the moment, with the clouds of the hot, wet season combining with the pollution caused by so much burning grass and stubble. At this time of the year, in anticipation of the wet season, the old dry grass is burnt in order to encourage new growth when the rains come, providing fresh and nutritious pasture. However it was still amazing, it really felt as if you could see for ever.

World View

When we climbed the tower there was already a small group of other people there, we soon introduced each other and we discovered that they were all from the Czech Republic. One family was working at the Czech Embassy, and the other couple had emigrated to the U.S.A and were employed at the American Embassy. They had come from Harare for the weekend and were staying in a rented cottage nearby. We discussed the political and socio-economic situation in Zimbabwe and we learnt that it was mainly the Chinese who have been given concessions to mine for diamonds in return for investing in the infra-structure, and that it is the Russians who have the gold concessions. However now that the Chinese have taken all the easily acquired diamonds they are drawing out and reducing their involvement, not prepared to sink deeper mines. We also learnt that as from the 1st December Europe was withdrawing all sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. I'm not exactly sure what that means, how that could affect the U.K.'s relationship with Zimbabwe. It's something I will be really interested to follow up when we get home. We took a look at the Connemara Lakes and then decided it was time we headed back to the campsite if we wanted to get the braai going.

When we got back to the Mutazari Campsite around 15.00 we found a young man waiting for us, with instructions to tell us we must move our tent to the far perimeter of the campsite as a large bus would be coming with school children on a trip and they would need the majority of the site. A large pile of tents and camping equipment had already been deposited at the the adjoining shelter to ours. In a camp-site walkabout we had already seen the site he wanted us to move to, it was dirty and untended and there was suspicious evidence of human excreta in the shelter. When I made the phone call from Juliasdale yesterday to see if we could camp the man who answered the phone initially told me that it would be OK for one night, but they were expecting a school group on the Friday. He then corrected that and said that we would be OK for two nights as the school group wasn't coming until Saturday. When we arrived at the Far and Wide Activity Centre we double-checked with the staff who showed us to the campsite, specifically asking the question concerning the arrival of the school group. We were assured that we were fine for two nights, the school group was coming on Saturday. It was rather an odd check-in, at every other campsite we have been asked to complete paper work, car number, sometimes passport details. Here there was nothing, we just handed over the cost of two nights camping for two people.

Obviously we were not very happy with the situation. We explained to the young (black) man that we were not angry with him but with the administration who had misinformed us. We decided that we would strike our tent and move elsewhere, really the only option being to this site, which would mean a quick exit if we wanted to get here in reasonable time to re-pitch before dark. Just as we were putting the last few things in the car a (white) man arrived on a motor bike. He didn't come over to us but held a conversation with the younger man who had met us. We went over to speak to him, telling him that we were leaving. He asked why, as we were only being asked to move our tent. I replied that we had been given misleading information, to which he answered that we had known there would be a school trip camping there. I said that was not true, and confirmed that he was the man we had spoken to when we phoned from Juliasdale. He became very aggressive and offensive when I said that not only had he told us that the school trip wasn't arriving until Saturday, but that we had asked for and been given confirmation of that when we checked in. He was just so rude, not only did he not get off his motorbike, he kept his helmet on and shouted at me through the visor. I wanted to ask him if there was some way the situation could be resolved, maybe there was somewhere else on their land where we could camp for the night. However, as I was still speaking to him, he shouted, 'get a refund from Far and Wide', revved up his engine and drove off. We had to pass by the Activity Centre on our way out, but there was nobody there. As when we had arrived, there was no Reception, no sign of an Office, so we had no idea where to go. We really couldn't afford to spend more time trying to find someone if we wanted to move to the north of the Park and pitch our tent before dark. Our Guide Book tells us that Bernie Cragg is in charge of Far and Wide, but I can't believe that he was the man we encountered. I will certainly send an email to Far and Wide when we are back home, hopefully for the attention of Bernie and see what his response is.

* See note at end.

So now we are at Mare Caravan Park. When we arrived here the greeting could not have been more different. A charming man in the Main Office welcomed us, filled in the paperwork and said he would be sending someone over to light the donkey boiler for us. This might not be the most picturesque camping place in Zimbabwe, but with such friendly and helpful staff it's a very comfortable place to stay.

Monday 01 December - Lake Chivero, Kiumba Shiri

Here we are back where we began. I am so glad we decided to come back at the end of the trip. Gary, Elcine and Josh are such a nice family, we feel very comfortable, the campsite and the facilities are familiar. Lake Chivero, however, is noticeably lower than it was a month ago, great swathes of bare bank exposed. It provides the water supply for Harare, which seems amazing when I consider how we protect our drinking water sources in the U.K. Every type of sewage goes into it every day, not to mention chemicals from agricultural run off and domestic washing. I can't remember exactly how many cubic metres of water are pumped out each day, it just sounded like an unimaginably large number. As a result of the worsening economic situation in Zimbabwe and the increase in rural poverty, more and more people have moved into the urban centres, particularly Harare, and the result is that the demand for water there has increased dramatically.

We spent yesterday exploring the north of Nyanga Park. Our first stop was to take a look at a reconstructed village and the pit structures which the early inhabitants would have used to corral and protect their livestock. Access was through an underground tunnel which could be closed off once the animal were inside to keep out predators. As well as the reconstructions there was an excellent one which had not been restored and having seen the restored ones it was easy to see how effective it would have been. These were surrounded by examples of the raised huts the villagers would have used for living quarters and for storing their grains and other produce. We were impressed with how nicely it was kept and how much information was available.

Reconstructed pit.

Pit which has not been reconstructed

We tried to get to the Nyangwe Fort, the largest in the area, but a fallen tree had blocked the path so we went on to the Chawomera Fort. Chawomera has to be just about the location, in an isolated place, atop a hill. The walls had fallen down to such an extent it was difficult to identify them beneath the invading bush and a large stone had fallen blocking the entrance. The views were great. We continued on the dirt road in a westerly direction, deeper into the Park until we reached Mount Nyangani, at 2,592 the highest peak in Zimbabwe. On the way we met two men with impressive looking guns over their shoulders and belts loaded with ammunition. We stopped to speak to them and they told us that they were rangers on the look out for poachers. We asked if the poachers came over the border from Mozambique, but they told us that in that area it was mostly local people. I wonder whether local people are killing the game because they are hungry. I remember the warning we had seen at Warthogs Campsite in Kariba, telling us to be careful with any valuable possessions and to get them locked up in the office safe. The notice was very careful worded, reminding visitors that Zimbabwe is a very poor country and the majority of people have no work, and saying that even the most honest man would steal if it was the only way he could feed his family.

We parked in a clearing just below the peak of Mount Nyangani at a height of 2,140 metres, it was a two to three hour climb to the top at a further 450 metres, and quite a difficult one. In that very remote place, we had driven for over an hour without seeing anyone except for the two wardens, we were amazed to see a hut and two men. They are employed by the Park Authority as wardens to guide people up the mountain and also to make sure that everyone returns safely. Our amazement increased even further when they told us where they were based and lived, in a village a long way back. They walked for two hours each morning to get to their post at the base of the mountain, worked a six hour day and then walked home again in the late afternoon. We took a circular route from Mount Nyangani rather than retrace our footsteps and saw a sign to Nyamuziwa Falls. These don't feature in our Guide Book at all, so we decided to follow the sign and take a look. It was well worth the detour, we came upon a level area where we could leave the car, and even though it was deserted it must be used frequently as a picnic site, judging by the amount of rubbish, empty food wrappings and Coke can. We followed a track down and came upon a picturesque setting, not a vast or dramatic waterfall, more cascading water between and round the rocks. Now, in the dry season, we were able to walk out onto some rocks and get a lovely view up the stream, it was quiet and peaceful. We could see that in the wet season the stream would become a raging river and where we were standing would be a torrent of water.

Nyamuziwa Falls

Completing our circuit we passed by the Park Office once more and went a little bit further up the track by the Camping Ground to the Nyangombe Swimming Pool, or as it is known locally, Brighton Beach. It is a part of the Nyangombe River just beneath a bridge, the river has opened out at a bend to provide a good sized pool which is safe for swimming as the water is fast flowing and bilharzia free. It has been nicely developed with braai areas, toilets and changing facilities. A family there had driven from Harare for a day out, but it wasn't hot enough for me to contemplate swimming.

Brighton Beach

We decided to finish the day off by taking the main road from the Campsite to the Nyangombe Falls. The access road was potholed and rocky, we took it carefully in the Hi-Lux but for much of the time we followed an ordinary saloon car doing the same journey. We left the car and went down a rather hazardous track, difficult to identify in some places, to the Falls themselves. The group who had been in the saloon car arrived and followed us. The driver was a young woman and with her was her mother and small child. As we picked our way carefully down the track we glanced back and saw the older of the two women coming down with the child strapped to her back. The Falls were impressive. Once again there are advantages with coming in the dry season as we were able to get much closer to the Falls themselves, and there is still plenty of water coming down. In the wet season when the volume increases the surrounding rocks become too wet and slippery making this dangerous, several people have fallen to their deaths trying to do this.

Nyangombe Falls

It was very windy when we got back to the Campsite so although John managed to braai we decided to eat in the shelter of the tent. We heard what sounded like a large vehicle close by and when we looked out we saw a big school bus disgorging lots of children. They were some way away from us but we watched with great interest as more and more children got out. Games were arranged, races ran and the children were all so happy. Adults lit braais and produced large cooking pots. When we had cleared up from our own meal we strolled over and introduced ourselves. We were received with great appreciation and enthusiasm. We spoke to groups of children, they were all keen to practice their English. They called me 'madam', but I said that they could call me 'mboya', I'm not sure of the spelling as I was taught the word verbally, which is Shona for grandmother. This seemed to go down OK so I assume that the custom of showing respect for an older woman is to refer to her as grandmother, as it was in Kiswahili in Tanzania.

We spoke to the adults, the teachers with the group, there were 66 children and just 5 adults. One particular woman seemed to be in charge of the catering, she was organising some of the children to make a tomato salad, while she put enormous black pots on the braai and cooked chicken in one and rice in the other. She said this was nothing, last February the school had taken two coaches, 120 children in total, to Victoria Falls and she had fed that number for a week. The children told me that the group was all of Grade 4 and that they were on a field trip. They were accompanied by a Tourist Officer from ZimParks Central Office in Harare and we both spoke to him at some length, about our trip in Zimbabwe last year as well as this. He said he would be interested in receiving our comments and when he heard that I kept this journal asked if I could send him a copy. He has given me his email address, but I think I will have to edit out any comments which could be perceived as political, and particularly anything negative about 'Uncle Bob'.

This campsite might not be the most picturesque, and being quite close to a main road it can be noisy, but in contrast to the Far and Wide site, the service and communications are excellent. Long after he had finished work and closed the office the very nice man we checked in with walked, quite a way in the dark, to our tent to find us and make sure that we were OK. He was concerned that we were disturbed by the children, when we checked in he didn't know that they would be using the campsite braais for a picnic before returning to their dormitories in the main complex to sleep. We assured him that we were fine and had had an enjoyable evening chatting with the children and their teachers and were pleased to have the opportunity to get to know 'ordinary' Zimbabweans in this way. He shook our hands and wished us good luck with the rest of our trip before disappearing into the night.

We had an interesting drive here yesterday, arriving about three hours later than we had anticipated. We woke up early, 04.30, in Nyanga NP, and when I went out of the tent to the toilet I could feel light rain on my face. The sky was overcast and leaden, and I called back to John that I thought the rain was on the way By the time I got back from the toilet he was out and dressed, agreeing with me. We emptied and struck the tent in quick time, but although the skies were still threatening the immediate danger appeared to have passed, so we stopped for coffee and breakfast. Once on the road it seemed it could have been a false alarm. As we dropped height the density of the clouds lessened and changed from grey to white, at times pierced by streaks of sunshine. Ahead of time, we decided to make a detour to the rock paintings known as Diana's Vow, no-one seems to know why, as they could be reached down a dirt road from Rusape, which we would pass through. We had no problems finding the site, down a once tarmac road but now a nasty journey of large potholes. We spent more time negotiating the dirt tracks extending either side of the road than on the road itself. A few kilometres before the signposted turning into the bush the road widened into a much better graded dirt road. The paintings were on the face of a large overhanging rock inside a fenced enclosure. The painting obviously covered a much larger area than it does today, fragments could be seen either side of the central painting, we understand that it has also decreased in clarity. The images are amazingly detailed and extremely intricate. It is sad that they have no protection from either people or the elements. We could easily have touched them and rain must wash over them quite regularly.

Rock paintings at Diana's Vow

When we left the narrow track leading to the site we returned to the dirt road, which continued to be wide and graded. The position of it didn't fit exactly with our road map, but it was such a good road we assumed that it would take us back to the Rusape-Marondera road, and then on to Harare. An hour and thirty kilometres later, the map told us that the road from Diana's Vow to the main road was about 20 kilometres, we suspected that we might not be on it. The realisation that we were travelling due north rather than west clinched this suspicion. We had driven through and past many villages and settlements, everyone very friendly, waving at us, we now suspect with amazement at what we were doing there. Finally we stopped and asked a woman if the road would take us to Marondera. She looked at us very calmly and said, "you are lost", and gestured back the way we had come. We negotiated turning in the road and retraced our footsteps. It seemed that the same people who had waved to us on the way out, waved even more enthusiastically on the way back. This is another example of inaccuracies with the map we are using, we would not have proceeded so far if we hadn't had mileage inaccuracies on previous occasions. On this occasion the site of Diana's Vow had been placed in the wrong location on the map.

The positive side of this is that we saw a great deal of rural Zimbabwe. There was evidence of abandoned ranches, derelict cattle grids and burnt out farm houses. As well as cattle-ranching we think it might have been tobacco growing country, we saw the remains of drying sheds. The people occupying the land now seem to be in parts making productive use of it. We saw one or two tractors as well as several ploughs, often harnessed to cows. Some land was newly ploughed and there was evidence of maize cultivation and probably tobacco, I'm not sure exactly what young tobacco plants look like. We saw lots of smaller drying sheds for tobacco. However we also saw large stretches which were untended and seemed to be returning to bush.

Today has been our last day with transport. We wanted to go into Harare and take a look round, but we forgot that the Zanu PF Congress started yesterday, so the will be lots of security and very busy. Instead we went to the Game Park of the Lake Chivero National Park this morning. It was all so dry, the rains are very late this year, something we have been pleased about, we did not expect to get through the trip without 'real' rain. In some way I am disappointed, African rain is amazing. There was a small amount of thunder and lightening yesterday evening and a few light drops of rain during the night. It has been overcast and heavy all day today, but nobody here seems to think that rain is likely soon. The people must be getting more and more anxious, we have seen ploughed fields, either with maize planted or prepared for planting, just waiting for the rain. In much of the Park controlled burning had taken place, the ground was black and charred, but without rain there was no sign of regeneration yet. What pasture remains is mostly yellow, course and dry. We saw a few Kudu, Impala, Wilderbeest and Zebra and one Giraffe and one Rhino. We stopped for some lunch at Bushman's Point despite the rather smelly conditions due to the low water levels. We were rewarded by the excellence of the rock paintings there. They were probably the most detailed we have seen, less complicated than those we saw yesterday at Diana's Vow, and the light was exactly right to take some good photographs. I hope they come out well.

Rock paintings in Chivero National Park

We came back and stripped out the Hi-Lux, our home for the past month, taking out all of our own stuff and trying to remember what went where and how it was all stored before we had personalised it to suit our own requirements. James flew in from Jo'burg this afternoon ready to drive it back to Jo'burg tomorrow, he will be leaving very early in the morning. Once the truck has gone we won't have any means of cooking or even of heating water. We have booked a chalet here at the Park for tomorrow, our last night, but it isn't self-catering. We have the keys to it tonight so I have 'borrowed' a couple of pillows and two chairs. We will, of course, have our own tent, sleeping mats and sleeping bags, which we have used throughout the trip preferring them to the ones provided. Luckily we brought the tiny electric travel kettle with us and there doesn't seem to be a problem with ZESA at the moment. We have our trusty billy-can and bought a couple of tin mugs, the melamine ones which come with the vehicle are horrible, impossible to clean, so that's coffee sorted for the morning. I packed two empty ice-cream tubs as 'might come in useful for something' equipment and they will work well as bowls, and we have a couple of plastic spoons so we will be able to have muesli for breakfast. Oh! Happy Campers that we are!

After walking over to the restaurant where James was enjoying a few beers with Gary and Josh, to say goodbye and to hand over the truck keys, we sat outside the tent in the dusk and then darkness, looking out over the lake, enjoying a bottle of wine. Handing the truck back a day early it sort of feels like the last night of our trip, but it does mean that we have a whole day tomorrow to pack up the tent, rationalise our packing distribution and get ready to leave on Wednesday. We remembered how, when we were here a month ago, we were coming up to a full moon and it was so light at night. It is getting close to the same part of it's cycle again again, so there is an eerie glow. We reminisced about the full moon at Mana Pools at our first stop after leaving here twenty-six days ago and how everywhere was bathed in white like. John said he could appreciate how much I had loved the Hi-Lux in Tanzania, and how I had been anxious to have the same vehicle again. He too, never having driven a true 4-wheel drive before, the CRV doesn't count as it is an automatic switch, had been happy with the vehicle, at how it had coped with everything we had asked of it. When we were discussing our trip with James we told him about how we had turned back at Matusadona NP, really as much to do with the length of time it was taking us as with the road conditions. He told us that that road is for die-hard off-roaders, usually in Land Rovers and often more than one vehicle in convoy.

Lake Chivero

Tuesday 02 December - Kiumba Shiri

All packed and ready to go tomorrow. We had already put a lot of our stuff in one of the chalets yesterday evening, just leaving enough for our basic needs in the tent. Elcine had said that we could sleep in the chalet last night and I think she couldn't really understand why we preferred to sleep in our tent. Sleeping in the tent is not just about a cheaper option, it is also about our preference. In fact I am not sure how good a night's sleep I will have tonight, the chalet is very hot as the sun has been streaming in this afternoon. We have drawn the curtains and will sleep with the windows open, with electricity we will be able to use our plug-in mosquito deterrent. We even toyed with the idea of putting our bedroom unit up on the grass at the front of the chalet and sleeping in that, but the weather is unpredictable which is the reason we booked the chalet in the first place.

We have had a quiet and peaceful day, we went round the Bird Park, much larger and more comprehensive than we had thought. There are not just native Southern African birds, but also many from South and Central America, presumably these are also rescue birds, maybe abandoned by previous owners where they had been kept as exotic aviary pets. It could be that as with the tame bush pig at Jabulani there previous owners had been forced to relinquish them when their circumstances changed. We read and watched the birds over the lake. Finally we have had our last meal, making a meal from some of our left-over food and enjoying our last bottle of wine.

Just a couple of the beautiful horses at Kiumba Shiri.

Thursday 04 December 06.41- Schipol Airport

We have a four-hour stopover here, so time to add a few concluding thoughts as long as my battery lasts, I haven't got a European plug for recharging. I am quite tired after the three hour flight from Harare to Nairobi and then the eight hour overnight to Amsterdam, so I am sure I will be revising it later anyway.

It's been a very good trip. On a practical note, we as campers have been exceptionally lucky with the weather. We had just the couple of cold, wet days at Jabulani, and although there were one or two heavy storms while we were in Zimbabwe we managed to escape them. We heard that there was very heavy rain in the west of the country soon after we had moved south-east. Good as this may have been for us, it is definitely not good for the people living there, especially farmers or anyone growing crops. We heard climate change mentioned several times. The seasons used to be predictable, almost to the calendar date, but over the last few years they have become increasingly erratic and unreliable. The timing of the rainy season is so important in the cycle of planting and harvesting, particularly for people growing a few subsistence crops for their family with no means of irrigation, sometimes walking considerable distances on a daily basis to collect their domestic water supplies.

Having the Hi-Lux has meant that we have spent most of the time away from the tourist areas, few that they are. We have had opportunities to sit down and talk to many people, about their lives, situations, thoughts about the future. The over-whelming impression is one of stoic optimism, even though many are living one day at a time convinced that things will get better. Obviously our most revealing conversations were with white Zimbabweans, from the time I spent in Tanzania I know that 'African' culture is based on a code of politeness and optimism. I was only there for one year and I know that even after that extent of time most people were still telling me things they thought I wanted to hear, trying to please me rather than challenge me. It was only with a very few people I got to know well and became close to that I felt I was getting 'truthful' feedback, and now in retrospect I have even come to doubt some of that. Without exception the white Zimbabweans we spoke to love their country, and are adapting to change, accepting that life for them will never return to how it was before the Zanu PF government implemented their radical changes for Land Reclamation. The younger white people we met have accepted their minority status, they no longer live in a white elite but have as many, if not more, black friends as white. The sad thing is that there are so few of them, it is becoming increasingly difficult for young white people to get work here, all those we met were involved in some form of tourism. We gathered that those who have left, either for neighbouring African countries, or if either of their parents still has a European passport, for one of those countries, have done so reluctantly and a whole generation has been lost. I got the impression that if only they had the means to support themselves and any family and children they may have, they were prepared to put up with the hurdles they had to get over, the barriers they had to overcome, the daily inconveniences and annoying obstructions, just to stay and live in the country they love and consider to be their home. At the moment it doesn't seem likely that they will ever be able to return.

I have said before how difficult it is for us to make informed conclusions, based on two visits to this country, to try and explain the state of Zimbabwe today. Bad governance and corruption may be the cause, and the transition from 'the bread-basket of Africa' to a country dependent on overseas aid, from a country exporting meat and grain around the world to a country unable to feed it's own population, is the effect. I think the well known adage, 'power corrupts', is too simplistic to explain the situation, there is so much history involved and the effects of colonialism and exploitation have to be considered as part of that history, as does the way in which a progression to independence was managed. Most white, land-owning Zimbabweans we have met acknowledge that an assessment and revision of the system was required, but there have been no winners in the way re-allocation of land ownership was introduced and an incredible number of casualties. This however is now itself historical and there needs to be more concentration on the way forward. Their government is for the people of Zimbabwe to determine, so any assistance the people are given has to be within those constraints. Once settled back in the U.K. I need to research the nature of the overseas aid Zimbabwe is receiving. I hope that NGO's and indeed overseas countries are not purely supplying food aid, but also carrying out more sustainable initiatives. The old status-quo will never return, the white land-owners will never retrieve their properties and in my opinion it is such a shame that the way that land reclamation was conducted must have alienated so many of them, and here our own government has much to answer for. They deserve some recompense, and could that be in the form of paying them for their knowledge and expertise. An example would be the non-profitable chicken farms, instead of imposing a 20% tax on imported chickens could somebody be employed to teach the skills required to make this a profitable industry. Similarly with maize production, instead of so much money being spent on importing maize as food-aid, could a co-operative of small farms be set up and a white Zimbabwean maize farmer be paid to oversee the project. This sort of project probably would not produce enough grain for export, but it would provide employment for more people on land which is currently lying unused and produce maize at a price which would be affordable. I am not an agriculturalist, neither am I Zimbabwean, so I have no idea of the feasibility of these or any other thoughts I may have.

Thursday 08 January 2015 - Norwich

* We did send an email to Far and Wide, FAO Bernie Cragg, relating our experiences . We received a reply from Bernie Cragg confirming that it was in fact him we had met rather than one of his employees. The tone of his email was very much the same as our face to face contact with him had been, accusing us of being aggressive and that John was 'spoiling for a fight', anyone who has met John will know that he rarely raises his voice. We haven't pursued this any further as it is a pointless dialogue, we have many more important things in our lives. In fairness to Bernie Cragg, he did offer us a refund. Also our impressions of the Activity Centre when we first arrived were excellent, the staff there seemed to be doing some very valuable work with a group of young, albeit very privileged young people. I hope some of the groups able to attend his facilities will come from less privileged backgrounds, similar to those we saw in the northern area of Nyanga Park. Perhaps we need to put our experience down to cultural differences, or maybe he was just having a bad day, we know that most white Zimbabweans are having all sorts of problems keeping their businesses viable.

I always anguish when I am writing my journal, about how much of it to make public. This time, as usual, this is it in it's entirety. All the thoughts and opinions expressed in it are obviously just my own, although John always reads it in case I have made any errors either in my recall or in the way that I have expressed myself. One or two alterations have been made! I am very aware that all my comments and observations are from a very limited knowledge base, and I have no doubt that lots of people may disagree with them, but I hope they don't find them offensive.

When we first went to Zimbabwe, in 2013 we were challenged about going as tourists and supporting such a corrupt regime. Now, looking back on our second visit we feel totally exonerated. We may have paid for a visa and entry fees to some National Parks, but the majority of the money we spent went to local people and businesses. Zimbabwe is a country we are privileged to have visited and we would encourage anyone else thinking about it to go. Zimbabweans need tourism, it is one of the few ways that people can still make money. It is safe and as an independent traveller you are guaranteed a unique experience. We have spent time in many African countries, but somehow Zimbabwe is different. We may go back.

2014 John and Carolyn in Zimbabwe

Thursday, 8 January 2015

Norwich 08 January 2015