After my long journey across Zimbabwe from west to east, with a brief stopover at Matobo National Park and a couple of nights at a lodge in the town of Chiredzi for R&R, I made it to my ultimate destination of Gonarezhou National Park in the southeast corner of the state bordering Mozambique and (almost) South Africa:
Before going any further, I want to warn you that this is an exceptionally long post, mainly due to all the photos, but mostly because it was 12 nights long in an amazing Park. SO, this post read in its entirety is probably only for the most dedicated and interested followers. Also, after a brief introduction to the Park, I decided to organize this post chronologically with a brief description and several photos of each day/night in the Park. This way, you can travel along and see the Park as I did. Lastly, it’s worth noting that the three most distinctive and memorable aspects of this Park were: 1) the almost complete solitude (I probably only saw 12 other parties in 12 days); 2) the striking landscape features, foremost being the Chilojo Cliffs and the mighty rivers; and 3) the incredible campsites. The wildlife sightings were hard earned; still great, but nothing compared to some of the other visited Parks.
Gonarezhou (a.k.a. “The Place of Elephants” in the local Shona tongue) is Zimbabwe’s second-largest National Park and one of its most famed wilderness areas. Based on my visit, the Park certainly lives up to its reputation, as I saw lots of elephants and almost no people, giving it a true wilderness feeling. Stretching over some 1.25 million acres, the Park is home to the iconic Chilojo Cliffs (see photos below), which are comprised of sandstone and rise up to 180 meters high and run 20 km along the south bank of the Runde River, where I camped for several nights (see below). Other key features include two large natural pans in the north of the Park, including one that I camped next to, a large Plateau in the central and southern areas of the Park, where I camped for a few nights at platforms overlooking waterholes, densely wooded hill slopes rising above sand beds in the Mwenezi River valley, where I camped for one night, and the Samalema Gorge where the Mwenezi River carves through solid igneous rock-forming a braided river gorge, where I also camped (see below).
The Park has a somewhat storied history regarding wildlife conservation, especially pertaining to black rhinos. The Park was originally declared a Game Reserve in 1934, in part to protect the rapidly dwindling Black Rhino population, which soon went locally extinct by 1940. Rhinos were reintroduced in 1969, and then the Reserve was declared a National Park in 1975, only to see the rhinos go locally extinct once again by 1994 due to unchecked poaching. Finally, the Park teamed up with the Frankfort Zoological Society in 2007 and formed a formal Trust in 2017 to impose new and improved management. In 2021, the Trust reintroduced Black Rhinos once again, this time with much greater support for their conservation. With any hope, they will succeed. I was on the lookout for these rare and incredible creatures in the rhino conservation area of the Park (huge area enclosed by electric fence), but without success (other seeing their latreens). Besides the abundant elephants, it was clear that the Park’s megafauna is still in the early stages of recovery after being decimated by the war in nearby Mozambique and the decades of unchecked poaching. However, the habitat is there and with the proper management by the Trust, this Park has potential to support lots and lots of wildife and become one of the top Parks in southern Africa for a wildlife safari.
The Park is also part of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park, consisting of Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, and Kruger National Park in South Africa. Wildlife are free to move across borders between all three of these large Parks. Parks without international borders are a great benefit to wide-ranging species that follow ecological rules and not human political ones.
Night 1: Chipinda Pools
I entered the Park at a place called Chipinda Pools, which are a series of pools on the mighty Runde River, which is the major river bisecting the Park and separating the northern section of the Park from the Central and Southern sections.
Night 2: Chivilila Falls
Downriver from Chipinda Pools the Runde River drops rapidly through the basalt bedrock at a place called Chivilila Falls. My exclusive campsite was located just below the Falls in the rocky riverbottom.
Night 3: Benji Weir Platform
Night 3 was spent at an exclusive campsite next to an elevated plaform perched high above a grassy valley leading into a small reservoir created by a dam (weir) in a drainage. This reservior was located in the central plateau area of the Park and surounded by miles of Mopane and mixed woodland. This was a spetacular platform setting for watching the elephants come and go, along with a few other species, and the platform had a thatched roof providing great shade during the midday sun.
Night 4: Fishans
After the awesome Benji Weir platform I headed back to the mighty Runde River valley to the exclusive Fishans campsite located just upriver from the spectacular Chilojo Cliffs. The campsite was nicely perched up on a bench in the floodplain overlooking the Runde River and covered with huge gallery trees for shade.
Nights 5-6: Bopomela
After standing atop the Chilojo Cliffs and enjoying the magnificant views of the Runde River valley, I went to another exclusive Runde Riverside campsite called Bopomela. Like the Fishans campsite, this one too was perched on the river bank high above the river on the major floodplain and with nice big shade trees.
Night 7: Machaniwa Pan
I continued downriver on the Runde to Machaniwa Pan, a large flooded pan in the floodplain of the Runde River, half choked with emergent vegetation (hyacinths?) and hippos, elephants, waterbuck, …. and waterbirds of all kinds. My campsite was delightfully located right on the edge of the pan giving me a front row seat to all the wildlife action in the pan.
Night 8: Chinguli
After the wonderful Machaniwa Pan I headed back up river, but on the opposite side of the River after a deepwater crossing (of video of this river crossing is embedded in the composite video at the end of this post), to another campsite on the Runde River. Along the way, I had more stunning views of the Chilojo Cliffs.
Night 9: Malugwe Platform
After Chinguli, I left the Runde River for the last time and headed south to the central section of the Park and a couple of exclusive Platform campsites at water-filled pans. My first stop, after traveling some distance through extensive Mopane Woodland and another form of mixed woodland called Gibortia, was at Malugwe Platform. This was another delightful setting in the middle of nowhere, with my only company being a lone saddle-billed stork, a couple of hammerkops, and several elephant herds after sunset.
Night 10: Gorwe Platform
For my last exclusive Platform campsite I moved farther south in the Park, again, in the middle of nowhere, to another Pan called Gorwe. This too was a delightful site and supported more animals than Malugwe, but only close to sunset and after dark.
Night 11: Nyavasikana
My next stop was at the souhern end of the Park on the Mwenezi River at another riverside exclusive campsite called Nyavasikana. The Mwenezi River is another large river like the Runde but situated more in a steep-sided valley with heavily wooded slopes. I didn’t see much wildlife in this section of the Park but the campsites were in awesome scenic settings.
Night 12: Rossi Pools
My last night in the Park was at a splendid location on the Mwenezi River called Rossi Pools. My campsite was perched high up on a rocky cliff overlooking the river and included a luxury rock structure for viewing. Unfortunately, there was not much wildlife to see here and the weather was actually cloudy and atypically a little rainy, so couldn’t enjoy the setting as much as it deserved.
Gonarezhou Video Composite:
The following video is 38 minutes long! That’s right, 38 minutes of late-night entertainment. It includes a hodge-podge of footage from my 12 day journey through the Park, including some of the interesting landscape features such as the Chilojo Cliffs, the Green Dragon doing a low-water crossing of the Runde River, and a bunch of wildlife sightings, including lots of elephants and other critters from my campsites and even a short snippet of wild dogs. Again, as with the rest of this post, I merged the video snippets in chronological order as I filmed them:
Epilogue: OK, if somehow you are still reading this, my next stop was a brief two-night stay in Mozambique at a camp on the mighty Limpopo River and then on to Kruger National Park in South Africa. However, to get to the camp and on to Kruger I had to get across the mighty Limpopo River. This year, because of all the precipitation and subsequent flooding, the river was too high for a low-water crossing, so I had to find a ferry for the crossing. This is what my ferry crossing looked like and my ultimate campsite destination.
See you on the other side!