21 – 28 August – The Zambezi Valley

I have been unable to update my blog now for nearly a week as we have been in some very remote areas, away from internet access, but I have now got an internet connection at the Parks HQ in Tashinga today (28 August).

21 – 22 August – Travelling down the Zambezi Valley  

Sunday 21^st August saw Tony Howgrave Graham leave the expedition for his long journey by air back to the UK.  He had been great company over the last four weeks and three thousand miles through some very arduous terrain in both Namibia and Zimbabwe and his photography was simply excellent.  We look forward to seeing all his pictures on a proper screen when I finally get back to the UK in November.  We shall miss his dry sense of humour and wry comments.  Ian, a veteran now with three previous expeditions under his belt and with me for the whole of this current expedition, had taken Tony under his wing from the outset and had patiently taught him the skills of camping in the African bush. We now smile fondly at the thought of Tony back safely at home, perhaps waking up at night in a sweat having dreamt that he was still in a tent by the Hoanib River with a sandstorm blowing around him and about to get another rocket from Ian for not meeting the high standards of tidiness and punctuality Ian demanded of him!  They got on very well together.

After dropping Tony at Victoria Falls Airport, we set off for the day long drive to Sijarira Forestry Lodge, situated some 25 miles east of Binga, where we were to stay for one night.  What a place!  The lodges consist of a row of luxuriously built thatched huts on stilts situated right on Kariba Lake shoreline. It used to be a rest camp for the Forestry people but is now under private concession for use by hunters and fishermen who mainly arrive by air to pursue their hobbies.  We drove in by road down a difficult track, the last 12 miles taking us an hour and a quarter over rocky ground and steep stream beds.  The lodges are managed by a South African couple who gave us a tremendous welcome and we had the luxury of sleeping on our own for a change, in three separate huts.

After a comfortable night at Sijarira we left at dawn on 22 August for the ten hour drive into the remote Matusadona National Park whose boundaries are Kariba Lake shore to the north and the Zambezi Escarpment to the south.  Our charity, Conservation Zambezi, has concentrated its funding efforts on this Park for the last 18 years and we planned to meet Lynne Taylor at Tashinga, the Park Headquarters.  Lynne is the founding director of a highly active and well known trust called The Tashinga Initiative and it is to her that we pass all charitable donations to fund important projects in the area.

23 – 27 August –Matusadona National Park  

It was a hard drive into Matusadona National Park yesterday.  The roads are now in a very poor condition and the Landrover’s low ratio gearing had to be used on several occasions to allow us to negotiate the steep banks on each side of the river beds and other areas where erosion had washed the road away: it is one of Lynne’s primary objectives to raise sufficient funds to re-grade these roads and rebuild the broken culverts so tourists can get back into the Park and revenue can start to flow back in again.  Instead of camping, we were delighted to find that Lynne had arranged for all of us to be accommodated with her and Andriss who is working with her, in a disused lodge by the lake shore.  The hot water system had packed up long ago but at least cold water still flowed from a header tank which I think Lynne had installed some time ago.  We therefore washed under a simple shower system in the open air by our accommodation - showering had to be done in the dark unless you wanted to be watched by the others! 

The toilet no longer flushed but Ian quickly set to work and soon had this repaired.  There is no longer any electricity so we used our camping lights to see by night and a torch to find the soap as we washed.  Cooking was done over an open fire using old saucepans we found in the kitchen area.  A chronic lack of funds for investment in these Parks has meant that these wonderfully sited lodges now do not meet the aspirations of modern tourists and so it seems are rarely used any more – a pity as they offer a good roof over one’s heads and security by night when sleeping.

The next day, Tuesday 23 August, saw us up early to accompany Lynne to the first of her project sites. We learnt that, after much hard work, she had managed to raise sufficient funds from the European Union to install much needed solar energy panels at the remote outstations to charge radio batteries.  The panels also provide power to operate a water pump at each station which sucks water from the lake shore to a holding tank near the sparse living accommodation in which the National Park Rangers live.  Our charity had supplied the vital pipes some time ago to bring the water ashore and Andriss was in the process of fitting the pumps .  These outposts are used to provide a network of radio stations for communication purposes back to the headquarters in Tashinga camp on the lake shore and to accommodate armed patrols which are deployed to combat the never ending problem of poaching.  Matusadona National Park is one of the few Intensive Protection Zones (IPZ) dedicated to the protection of the few black rhino left in wild in Zimbabwe. 

Over the next three days we drove with Lynne to all three of her current project sites, some of the drives taking up to eight hours to cover barely 50 miles over nearly non existent tracks.  The going was hard but the Landrovers coped magnificently with the punishing terrain.  I guess after a few months in this unforgiving environment there would be much wear on the vehicle suspension.  Lynne’s Landrover is 14 years old (a little younger than mine) but it has covered nearly half a million kilometres in that time with several suspension changes to combat the wear.

On the way back from the second patrol base we saw a two metre python crossing the track and stopped to admire it.  The dense bush on each side of the road however meant we saw other little game, apart from small groups of elephant moving down to drink on the lake shore and the occasional herd of impala, often grazing in the open where they have a better chance of surviving predator attack.  Sometimes we saw kudu and bushbuck too.

This small Park has a very large lion population at present (some estimates put it at over 150 beasts) and the dwindling herds of buffalo and antelope are thought to be the result of frequent lion kills, as well as poaching.  The occasional whiff of rotting flesh in the bush during our various drives reminded us of the presence of lion.  Andriss told us that a month before we arrived, a pride of 36 lions were seen on a kill close to our lodge.  A few months before that we hear that a white tourist was attacked and severely injured whilst sleeping in the campsite nearby.  The lioness and her 2 three quarter grown cubs who were responsible for this attack still remain in the area so we kept a sharp eye open for them at night on our thirty metre walk from the campfire back to the lodge.  Lynne was camping alone here recently, cooking her food outside in the evening, when a sixth sense made her go into the lodge.  A colleague of hers arrived shortly afterwards by vehicle and saw the lioness and her cubs in the bushes on the edge of her camp.  Lynne is quite relaxed about this kind of situation but we are inexperienced and have little of the massive knowledge she has built up from a lifetime in the bush so remain more cautious.  So far though we have heard no roaring at night and only seen lion spoor in the dry river beds we cross on our drives to our project areas, so we hope the lion are hunting elsewhere during our stay.  There are two more nights to go until we drive back into town and, as Lynne has returned to Harare to prepare for her son’s wedding in a week’s time, we will remain vigilant!

In the last few days I have been twice, in my capacity as a trustee of Conservation Zambezi, to see the Senior Warden of the Park and on the second occasion was taken on a tour of their facilities.  I found that one of the six old ex British Army landrovers our charity drove down from Kenya to Zimbabwe in the mid nineteen nineties to donate to National Parks is still working, its passenger door ripped open by the tusk of an attacking elephant, but the engine runs sweetly and it is still used for rhino protection patrols.

 Sadly, most of the other vehicles lie unused – we hear from Sergeant Moyo that the problem primarily is due to a lack of money to buy tyres.  I also looked at the two diesel generators we donated in the mid nineteen nineties.  Only one is now running but it appears the other could be repaired and got going again.  These generators provide the electricity supply at night for the Parks Headquarters.  I will talk to Lynne and see whether the money we have raised so far from generous donors supporting my trip can be used to help sort out some of these problems.  Another frustration is a shortage of fuel to run the vehicles.  Lynne warned me of this before the trip began and I gave her at that time sufficient funds to buy one and a half drums of diesel.

It has been so useful over these last few days to see at first hand the problems the Park currently faces as it gives us in Conservation Zambezi a much better idea of what is required.  When I last visited the Park some eleven years ago the roads were rough but manageable and the accommodation was spartan but serviceable.  Since then, due to an ongoing lack of funds, the Park is now in desperate need of major refurbishment if it is to fulfil its anti poaching obligations and attract more revenue from tourists.  Despite this glum assessment though I was impressed during my visit by the morale of the staff I met and particularly by the total dedication Lynne gives to the raising of funds for not only this Park but for projects in all the Zimbabwean National Parks in the Zambezi Valley.

Yesterday we took some time off to visit Steve Edwards, an old friend of Mike’s and mine who runs a luxurious bush camp called Musango some six kilometres away across the river Umi. He kindly picked us up in his speedboat for the 10 minute trip by water across the river – had we gone by road it would have taken us some five hours of driving to reach him!  I last saw Steve some 20 years ago when he was still serving in National Parks.  Steve and his wife Wendy treated us to a first class lunch in their beautiful thatched dining room overlooking the water with fresh vegetables and fruit and ice cold beers to wash it all down – what a luxury after weeks of tinned food! 

After lunch Steve took us on a short game viewing trip by boat before returning us to our lodge across the river in the Park.  That evening, to celebrate the day I found a bottle of brandy that I had hidden in our food boxes.  Ian and I had a couple of tots each but Mike said he was not a brandy man so opted to drink tea instead – we were impressed by his strength of will but I guess, had I produced a bottle of Irish whisky, it might have been a different story!

As I write this blog the long shadows of another African evening are beginning to appear.  A hippo is basking in the evening sun just off the shoreline and the evening bird chorus is about to begin.  Three elephant were eating down by the water a short while ago but now have gone.  Mike Moody has taken the Landrover off for a game viewing session on his own and Ian is resting in the shade after carrying out essential repairs to the Landrover before Mike left, in temperatures of 40 degrees centigrade. Ian has found nothing of serious concern but has cleaned the radiator which was covered in grass seed after driving along disused tracks over the last few days and found that a branch had damaged the tap connection of our 40 litre reserve water tank, emptying the tank in the process.  We have patched this up but will have to get it repaired in Harare before our adventures begin in Zambia and Malawi next month.

On Monday 29 August we leave Matusadona National Park for the capital, Harare, where we must have the Landrover serviced and get running repairs done to our camping equipment which has now suffered seven arduous weeks of use.  We will also attend the wedding of Lynne and Russell’s son, Winston, a week today. This will be held in the bush an hour out of Harare and we are told we must all to turn up in bush gear wearing our favourite hats and are to sleep in our tents on site once the celebrations are over. 

I will write my next blog from Harare in a few days time.