So many times I talk about the South Eastern corner of Zimbabwe and I get a blank face in response. In that corner lies some of the most secret kept wildlife conservancies, that contribute much to Southern Africa’s wildlife reserves. Malilangwe Trust, bordering the legendary Gonarezhou National Park is the leading Private Game Reserve where I have been fortunate enough to spend three weeks at a time, every June for the last couple of years. Having worked there in the nineties and then seeing it in the last two years, I can safely conclude that the diversity of it’s wildlife and flora is by far the best in any Private Game Reserve I have ever worked in. The luxurious six-villa lodge Pamushana is a paradise of unequalled style and beauty in its architectural design, position and location.
Continued below...
In the three weeks I was there this year, the guests did a multiple of activities and spent the entire three weeks on the one private game reserve.
The property boasts a habitat that is incomparable in its diversity that it becomes a fascination to spend that long of a time in one place, and the guests were barely ready to go back home at the end of their three week visit. From The wildlife, to the people, the historical sites of the San bushman including ancient rock art, fishing and walking are only some of the exciting things one can do.
The endangered Painted Hunting Dogs, commonly known as wild dogs were dening not too far from the lodge and we had a number of sightings of them hunting, feeding each other and often resting near the road. The small to medium sized animals such as Impala and Bushbuck were plentiful for these efficient hunters. It is one of the few properties where you will see both black and white rhino with relative ease. We had a number of leopard sightings both during the day and night.
The best sighting of the majestic cat was watching a large male patiently stalking a herd of nyala. We were not around to see him through as the herd moved off out of our site. We had a number of lion sightings on the property mainly the well-known Banyin pride, which consists of a beautiful black mane lion and four lionesses.
One morning we had a pack of eight hyenas walk a few yards past our vehicle, on route to their day’s retirement site. Later that morning, we sat at a waterhole where we found seven white rhino resting in a mud pool. We watched them a while before they got up and slowly disappeared in the thick mopane woodland in search shade to escape the intense heat of the day. The intensity of wildlife almost seems unbelievable; it is a photographer’s dream come true.
In the three weeks I spent at Malilangwe, I had the most unique experience with a herd of elephants, something very unusual and daring that remains fresh in my mind. We were out on a game drive at sunset when we came across a breeding herd of about forty animals as far as I could see. We watched the herd meandering, feeding their way towards us. They were very unconcerned about us. I did notice that the herd was very vocal amongst themselves, that was the way we had found them in the first place; lots of trumpeting, growling and series of stomach rumblings. We started to drive off when we saw two cows and two young bulls in their teens standing in the middle of the road. I stopped and gave them time to cross the road, but at this stage they stood still with very little movement. After a minute or so, they continued to feed whilst walking on the road. All of a sudden the biggest cow started to walk towards us with her head held high, but showing a great sense of curiosity rather than aggression. She walked right up to the front of my vehicle and sniffed the bumper with the end of her trunk.
At this stage all I could see was a huge black shadow over us. In the mean time I looked back at my guests and only to see two heads out of four people. The other two had buried themselves under the seats of the vehicle, they were motionless, I could not even hear them breathe, they were terrified but seemed to relic on the experience, at the thought of what might happen next.
She turned and started to walk away satisfied with her curiosity, so I thought…
She had only walked fifteen yards away when she decided to come back for another look. By this time, we only had the moonlight to see, because I had turned our headlights off so as not to upset her or blind her. This time she stuck her head over the front of the vehicle and stared into the vehicle as though she expected us to whisper something in her ear… we did not make an attempt. She then proceeded to put her right front leg on the bull-bar, and started to rock our four by four vehicle. All the while I had been observing her, she did not for once trumpet, panic or display any sign of irritation. I guessed she was being more playful than anything else. It was only when she tried to walk along the side of our vehicle that I moved and made a noise to alarm her and chase her away. Not long after that she walked off confidently and disappeared into the darkness, she had finished her interaction with us or rather we ended it for her. She had given us an experience we could not stop re-telling when we got back to the lodge and the whole camp was entertained at dinner that night by endless recounts of just how close she really came, we never saw her again.
We had the big five and many other animals on this safari including the not so common nyala and lichtenstein hartebeest antelopes. The majestic black eagles could be seen everyday soaring above the hills of Malilangwe on the look out for their prey; the rock hyrax, which they predominantly prey on. A number of other raptors such as the marshall eagle, black breasted snake eagle, brown snake eagle, thrive in this habitat due to the abundance of birdlife and small rodents.
The only hard thing in the three weeks was preparing to leave at the end of the safari, after sharing an incredible time with people that are as passionate and respectful of this beautiful land, it’s wildlife and the people. The only thing that can be consoling at the end of a great safari like this one, is knowing that someday soon I will return to this paradise in the southern corner.
Written by Professional Guide, Beks Ndlovu – July 2003
There are a number of excursions that can put you in touch with the very core of nature and arouse your bush senses beyond the norm, but being able to walk in a true wilderness area, canoe a river as mighty as the Zambezi river and staying in a tented camp brings me to the very essence of the bush that draws anyone who is passionate and crazy about being out there.
We set off in a light aircraft to Matusadona and landed at Kiplings bush airstrip where we were picked up and transferred to the Maronga River mouth in the Ume River basin. It was here where our crew had set up camp on the shoreline of Lake Kariba. That afternoon we had all been travelling the whole day and so decided to enjoy the fresh air of the Lake on our boat cruising the hippo trodden shorelines of the lake. I distinctly remember falling asleep to the far cry of a hyena’s whooping, a familiar call of the wild that pierces above most night sounds.
The next morning we were walking through a fossilized forest as the sun came over the Matusadona Mountain range, that forms part of the Zambezi Escarpment. We used the clear elephant trails that had been so carefully chosen by the gentle giants and well worn from many visits to the lakeshore, and undoubtedly used by various other animals. One of the users of the trail was a black rhino. Seeing fresh tracks of rhino always sends my pulse racing, merely from the prospects of walking into one. We soon arrived on the river bed of the Maronga about three miles from it’s mouth and followed the flow of the water upstream. We felt like explorers walking in untamed wilderness as this was far off the beaten track of any visitor or tourists. You have to be prepared to hike through some dry and rugged countryside to get to this point. On the narrow stream where the water flowed, we came across so many interesting little things, beautiful ferns and other wild flowers such as the beautiful flame lily, tracks of a big male leopard, lion and even the rare cape clawless otter. The otter had scats all over the rocks;
we stopped to examine the tiny fish bones that had been through its stomach. We could see the fish swimming in the beautiful crystal clear water which was about knee deep. The sight of huge trees overhanging the river with trumpeter hornbills and brown-hooded kingfishers looking on and chirping madly, made us feel as though we had discovered an oasis. We walked upstream in anticipation of finding the spring. Halfway up the stream, we came across the most fascinating rock formations of conglomerate and limestone rocks. The limestone rocks were the larger of the rocks, which when you examined closely, you could see fossilised bark and leaves with the details of the vein structures and cerated edges. The other being the intricate bone structure of small fish that had fossilised into the rock. Talk about pre-historic times, this river was full of it, and if every rock could speak, you would need a whole lifetime to sit and listen to the stories. We forged on until we got to a beautiful waterfall that stood about 7 feet, flowing down the steep face of the limestone rock and creating small stalagmites and some of the roots from the nearby trees where coated with limestone which has hardened causing the roots to look like concrete pillars. We climbed up to the source of the spring; it was seeping out gently out of the side of the mountain. We drank the spring water and filled up our water bottles and spent some time admiring in awe of this natural phenomenon. After freshening up we continued to walk back to our camp. On that walk, we came across kudu, impala, klipspringer, baboon, elephant and some huge crocodiles that were basking on the shores of the rivers. We again ended off the day with a cruise on the lake after some tiger fishing in one of the deep lagoons. Our price was seeing a black rhino come down to the water’s edge and drink right in front of our boat. It was a picture that remained with me for the rest of the safari. Usually one has to walk and sweat for hours tracking them and sometimes when you find them you only see them for a brief moment before they flee from you. This time the prehistoric beast stood there, watching us for a little longer than just a while.
Another highlight in Matusadona was walking into three big elephant tuskers. We were following some rhino trails when we heard the breaking of big branches. It was a number of elephant bulls but three in particular stood out. We snuck up-close to them until we could hear them breath as they shredded the surrounding bushes. I could feel the breeze on my face all along and I knew we were downwind of them and with their poor eyesight; we were well within safety zone. Later that morning after our walk we found them again mud bathing by the lakeside. This allowed us again to get closer and take more photographs of the elegant creatures, but this time it was only the majestic three.
From Matusadona, we flew across the lake to Kariba town where we started our three days and two nights of canoeing the Zambezi River. Our first day was through the Gorge. It was the most peaceful part of this trip, serene landscapes of three hundred to four hundred feet of steep gorge with predominantly granite rock. The gorge has a number of little streams and rivers that flow into the river, some creating the most scenic waterfalls during the summer months. For both nights we camped on Islands in a very simple style camping. Again we felt we couldn’t get any closer than that to being in the wild. The night sky was amazing without any light pollution from civilization; we were truly in the thick of the bush. We canoed the river up to Chirundu and rode in a safari vehicle to Mana Pools for our last segment of our safari. This is what I had been looking forward to mostly, the game rich flood plains of Mana Pools combined with the ambience of the Zambezi.
The first afternoon we were out walking and came across a herd of buffalo, a couple of big lone elephant bulls, warthogs, a herd of eland, waterbuck, zebra and loads of impala. We thought it was not bad for our first afternoon. As we walked through Mana all the way to the eastern border of the park in the three days we were there, we saw countless number of herds of eland, elephant breeding herds and various other kinds of wildlife including hippo in and out of the water. The highlight being lost in the cloud of dust of a herd of about two hundred buffalo that we had tracked and found. Our last evening we managed to catch a number of fresh-water bream fish as the sun turned the horizon to a golden orb. That night we had bream.
Written by Professional Guide, Beks Ndlovu – August 2003
We parked our Land Cruiser at the Mana West airstrip in the sizzling heat of the day, waiting for the aircraft with our guests on board. It would have made an interesting work of art had a painter been watching the herd of zebra at the bottom end of the airstrip. It was a dazzle of stripes through the mirage, alongside that were a family of warthogs on bended knee plucking out the few remaining succulents on what seemed to us as bare ground.
As soon as the guests arrived we were off to the shores of the mighty Zambezi where we cracked open some cold refreshments and enjoyed a picnic lunch next to the tranquil flow of the river, with the grunt of the hippos as background music. It did not take long and we were on the river, beginning what would be a 4-day canoe safari. Our first afternoon was marked by canoeing alongside a herd of elephants feeding at the shoreline. They always seem that much bigger when one looks ten feet up from the lower level of your eighteen-foot Canadian fibreglass canoe.
After our first night at Vundu, we went deeper into Mana Pools where we stopped for a two-hour walk. We looked at the intricately designed structure of the sophisticated termite mound, a number of animal’s tracks and signs, trees, birds to get an appreciation and education of our surroundings. Then we walked into a few buffalo bulls that were resting peacefully under the shade of the Natal Mahogany. They seemed oblivious to our presence, but yet they knew fully well of what and where we were. We snuck up to an Elephant bull and closely watched him, studying his body for his old scars, tattered ears and warn our feet as he walked from tree to tree in search of better foliage. There is no better way to know and experience the presence of such a gracious animal, other than to closely follow a big bull elephant on foot. Watching everything he does, listening to him breath, when he sounds his rumbling stomach, communicates with his own kind, watching him sleep on his feet, hearing the flapping of his ears against the thick skin of his body as he cools himself off. In the heat of the day, the vast expanse of the Mana shoreline stretches out as far as the eye can see, shaded by the perfectly groomed Mahoganies, which are a result of browsing pressure from animals. There are seemingly endless herds of Eland, Zebra, Waterbuck, Buffalo and Impala browsing and grazing in which ever direction one looks. We saw a number of crocodiles and hippos in and out of the water. Just as the animals did, we also took a siesta until temperatures were perfect to continue our days canoeing to Chessa where our team of staff had our camp up and running and ready to welcome us with drinks for sundowners. From there it was gin and tonics and sharing of bush stories and experiences around the campfire, sitting under the glittering veil of the stars. From the time we met our group, there was always joking and laughing, and now that we were in the camps at night with my colleague James, the laughter never seemed to stop. By the last day of our canoeing safari we had explored a good part of the shoreline of Mana Pools and walked some interesting areas seeing almost everything that the park had to offer. We even stopped at the top end of Chikwenya Island for a fishing excursion where we caught a number of fresh bream and Chessa. Our catch was enough to feed the entire camp that night.
To end off our Zambezi river experience we stopped over at the elegant Chikwenya camp where I had spent some years guiding. It always felt like home to me and it’s friendly staff were always warm and friendly ensuring that all our guests too, felt they were at home. We had been looking forward to Chikwenya because of the unbeatable, well renown Tiger fishing. At the end of each day, my lungs and chest were only too happy to rest because the days were filled with great laughter and excitement. Everybody caught the Legendary Tiger Fish at least once, including those that were not at all fishermen/women.
The excitement of hearing your line whistling as the fish takes your bait is so exhilarating that it would not matter whether you enjoyed fishing or not, as a matter of fact it gets addictive because we ended up doing more Tiger fishing than going out on game activities. From our fishing pontoon we still saw plenty of wildlife and even heard lions calling. At this time of year, there is always a herd of elephants to be seen bathing and drinking by the waters edge. As our last night’s treat, we had a bush dinner set up by the biggest Baobab tree I have ever seen. It was all candle lit, and under the stars, and if anyone has ever seen the unpolluted night sky, they will describe it to you as breathtaking. At Chikwenya we did as much as we could fit into our day, the mornings we walked, mid days we sat at platform hides and watched the wildlife come to the water, in the afternoons we fished and ended our days with night drives, there was never a dull moment.
After a two-hour flight on a light aircraft we arrived at Makalolo where upon landing, we were welcomed by over a hundred elephants and at least as many buffalo, drinking at the water hole in front of our camp. It was a great start to our three-day visit.
The whole night we could hear lions calling not to far from camp, and the next morning we set out tracking them on foot through the Kalahari Sandvelt.
The tracks were as fresh as can be and we were no less than a mile away from our subjects. There was a big herd of Zebra ahead of us that split up and ran in different directions and you could hear the lions chase them through the bush. We stopped to hear the loud alarm calls of the stressed animals with the lions in their pursuit. By the time had crept close enough to the lions, they had smelt and seen us approaching and disappeared into the teak forests, always staying well ahead of us. We gave up the chase and walked back to the vehicle after some serious marching through the bush. Even not seeing the hunters but having experienced what it is like to be in hot pursuit of the big cats in the game of fare chase was exhilarating for all.
We had a wood pile for a hide near the camp, that we sat in midday and watched hundreds of Elephants, Giraffe and Zebra come down to the water and drink only a few yards away from us. You could not get any closer to an animal than to sit and observe wildlife in an unobtrusive way behind the safety of a woodpile.
Or last afternoon we were out on an afternoon game drive when we spotted an Elephant Bull with a wire around it’s neck. It would have picked this up in the surrounding communal lands or Developed area. Fortunately the wire snare had not dug deep into the animal, but there was a slight chance that it could with time present it with a problem. So I sent a radio message to a friend who is a guide in a nearby camp and in no time he arrived at the scene with his dart gun. We were now going to witness an elephant Bull being darted and put down for a while, help in the removal of the wire and then watch them bring it back up again. After the dart went into the elephant, it took about ten minutes before we located the animal lying down in a scrub of Terminalia bushes. We watched the entire operation and the fact that two of our guests were Vetenarians; they got so much value from it. We went and touched the big bull that had been at this time reduced to a heap. It was amazing to hear the deep breaths it took, the toughness of their skin and thick callused pads under their feet, it’s long elegant eye lashes, everything about this creature was fascinating to us. From the time it was injected to rouse it back to consciousness, it took a few minutes and slowly stood up and started walking away, confused at what had happened as no doubt it could smell the scent of humans having fiddled with it. The excitement of the afternoon did not mark the end of the day, as we drove back to the camp in the dark with our spot light, we followed some lion tracks that we found spread along one of the road junctions. We drove the vehicle with our hearts beating knowing that at any moment, there was a big chance that we would bump into them, the tracks being that fresh. About ten minutes from camp, spread out all over the road lay the pride of lions. There was about six lion cubs, two sub adults and the rest where big lionesses. We watched the cubs play with each other as they grouped together under the branches of a Combretum. The feeling of being surrounded by twelve super predators out at night was enough to give you chills down your spine, yet knowing that you were in the safety of your vehicle to which they seemed completely oblivious, except for the cubs that took more of a curious attitude. That night, we could hear their distinct roars, communicating with other lions far in the distance.
Our last three days of the safari were at Camp Amalinda in Matobo, which is known as a wilderness of granite. An area of breathtaking landscapes and sceneries of beautiful hills with ancient rocks with vivid traces of a world, a culture and a people that has almost come to pass. Our first full day we hiked to Inanke Cave, which is known as Africa’s most intense and most dramatic rock art site. Inanke is a full days hike off the beaten track, through some fascinating rock formations and small rivers that flow all year round. This hike takes you through the very best landscapes of the Matobo countryside and rewards you with rock art that is incomparable to non, not only at the actual cave but all along the way during the hike. There is so much untold and unknown of the images depicted in these ancient sites, most of it told today is the result of human speculation, which is often far from accurate. The art on these rocks remains a great wealth and heritage to those whose eyes see them, they are images never to be forgotten.
On our last activity in Matobo, we went into the Park for a game drive and topped up the safari with a white Rhino cow and her calf. We watched these two for at least an hour as they grazed through the open savannah. Other animals we saw where Giraffe, Zebra, Impala, warthog, bush buck, Rock Hyraxes, Ostrich and Wildebeest.
Bidding farewell to our visitors was not an easy thing, as we had shared some great experiences and moments out under the African sun. Most of our visitors arrive as guests and they all leave as friends.
Written by Professional Guide, Beks Ndlovu – September 2003
One morning we had a pack of eight hyenas walk a few yards past our vehicle, on route to their day’s retirement site. Later that morning, we sat at a waterhole where we found seven white rhino resting in a mud pool. We watched them a while before they got up and slowly disappeared in the thick mopane woodland in search shade to escape the intense heat of the day. The intensity of wildlife almost seems unbelievable; it is a photographer’s dream come true. 
At this stage all I could see was a huge black shadow over us. In the mean time I looked back at my guests and only to see two heads out of four people. The other two had buried themselves under the seats of the vehicle, they were motionless, I could not even hear them breathe, they were terrified but seemed to relic on the experience, at the thought of what might happen next.
She turned and started to walk away satisfied with her curiosity, so I thought…
we stopped to examine the tiny fish bones that had been through its stomach. We could see the fish swimming in the beautiful crystal clear water which was about knee deep. The sight of huge trees overhanging the river with trumpeter hornbills and brown-hooded kingfishers looking on and chirping madly, made us feel as though we had discovered an oasis. We walked upstream in anticipation of finding the spring. Halfway up the stream, we came across the most fascinating rock formations of conglomerate and limestone rocks. The limestone rocks were the larger of the rocks, which when you examined closely, you could see fossilised bark and leaves with the details of the vein structures and cerated edges. The other being the intricate bone structure of small fish that had fossilised into the rock. Talk about pre-historic times, this river was full of it, and if every rock could speak, you would need a whole lifetime to sit and listen to the stories. We forged on until we got to a beautiful waterfall that stood about 7 feet, flowing down the steep face of the limestone rock and creating small stalagmites and some of the roots from the nearby trees where coated with limestone which has hardened causing the roots to look like concrete pillars. We climbed up to the source of the spring; it was seeping out gently out of the side of the mountain. We drank the spring water and filled up our water bottles and spent some time admiring in awe of this natural phenomenon. After freshening up we continued to walk back to our camp. On that walk, we came across kudu, impala, klipspringer, baboon, elephant and some huge crocodiles that were basking on the shores of the rivers. We again ended off the day with a cruise on the lake after some tiger fishing in one of the deep lagoons. Our price was seeing a black rhino come down to the water’s edge and drink right in front of our boat. It was a picture that remained with me for the rest of the safari. Usually one has to walk and sweat for hours tracking them and sometimes when you find them you only see them for a brief moment before they flee from you. This time the prehistoric beast stood there, watching us for a little longer than just a while.
The first afternoon we were out walking and came across a herd of buffalo, a couple of big lone elephant bulls, warthogs, a herd of eland, waterbuck, zebra and loads of impala. We thought it was not bad for our first afternoon. As we walked through Mana all the way to the eastern border of the park in the three days we were there, we saw countless number of herds of eland, elephant breeding herds and various other kinds of wildlife including hippo in and out of the water. The highlight being lost in the cloud of dust of a herd of about two hundred buffalo that we had tracked and found. Our last evening we managed to catch a number of fresh-water bream fish as the sun turned the horizon to a golden orb. That night we had bream.
The excitement of hearing your line whistling as the fish takes your bait is so exhilarating that it would not matter whether you enjoyed fishing or not, as a matter of fact it gets addictive because we ended up doing more Tiger fishing than going out on game activities. From our fishing pontoon we still saw plenty of wildlife and even heard lions calling. At this time of year, there is always a herd of elephants to be seen bathing and drinking by the waters edge. As our last night’s treat, we had a bush dinner set up by the biggest Baobab tree I have ever seen. It was all candle lit, and under the stars, and if anyone has ever seen the unpolluted night sky, they will describe it to you as breathtaking. At Chikwenya we did as much as we could fit into our day, the mornings we walked, mid days we sat at platform hides and watched the wildlife come to the water, in the afternoons we fished and ended our days with night drives, there was never a dull moment.
The tracks were as fresh as can be and we were no less than a mile away from our subjects. There was a big herd of Zebra ahead of us that split up and ran in different directions and you could hear the lions chase them through the bush. We stopped to hear the loud alarm calls of the stressed animals with the lions in their pursuit. By the time had crept close enough to the lions, they had smelt and seen us approaching and disappeared into the teak forests, always staying well ahead of us. We gave up the chase and walked back to the vehicle after some serious marching through the bush. Even not seeing the hunters but having experienced what it is like to be in hot pursuit of the big cats in the game of fare chase was exhilarating for all.
On our last activity in Matobo, we went into the Park for a game drive and topped up the safari with a white Rhino cow and her calf. We watched these two for at least an hour as they grazed through the open savannah. Other animals we saw where Giraffe, Zebra, Impala, warthog, bush buck, Rock Hyraxes, Ostrich and Wildebeest.
