Although we had decided to wake up early in order make for an early start into the park, our bed was too comfortable and warm and so we chose to stay in a little later than planned before braving the morning cold.
We drove about 12km from our camp site to Hwange National Park. Ivory Lodge has proved the perfect place to stay – we could have stayed in the park and shared the camp site with 2 school tours and a laager of my ‘favourite caravaners’. The park bungalows and camp site looked like they had recently been redvamped, the camping costs were the same as Ivory Lodge but then we would still have had to pay park fees. The park entry fees were US$70 for the 4 of us – certainly a lot cheaper than the Tanzanian and Zambian parks.
We did a 120km loop that took us around 5 ½ hours. There is a great variety in vegetation in different areas of the park. Having no natural water in the area, it is very dry and relies on water holes for the animals. At the Kennedy Waterhole, which the ellies had recently visited, Robs and Gray had a huge ellie dung flinging competition. Not sure who the winner was but both landed up full of regurgitated grass.
Despite there being areas where we saw very little game, overall, we had an amazing days viewing. We saw a puff adder crossing the road and numerous birds. Spanning over 3 waterholes we saw a herd of between 500 and 600 buffalo, we were able to drive into the middle of the herd and to listen to and smell them. In the space of a ½ an hour we saw gemsbok, sable and roan antelope – this is certainly a first time for us all. This was in addition to the ellie, zebra, giraffe, impala, warthogs and other general game.
On returning to Ivory Lodge, we drove into a herd of ellie on their way to the watering hole. We headed down on foot and sat in the hide watching them; they then wandered up to the hide area and at times they were as close as 2m from us.
During sun downers, Cedric – one of the owners of the lodge arrived. He is a fascinating guy, one of the old farmers who was driven off his farm and subsequently arrested and jailed for refusing to leave his land. He told us about life in Zimbabwe and how he, like so many thousands of Zimbabweans had lost everything. It turned out his daughter and son-in-law are responsible for revamping the Bulawayo Club, after it had gone down badly during the war years. They now lease the land on which Ivory Lodge is built, as well as a lodge in the Matopos. It’s amazing the spirit of some people and how they have bounced back in this wonderful country.
Just as we were packing up for the night, one of the camp workers, Kumalani, arrived and started chatting about his life in Zimbabwe, he turned out to be a bit of a history boff and we heard about Zim from way back, dates and all. He also likes to reminisce about the good old days, it is amazing that all the people we have chatted to in Zim, Black and White, are all so anti the present regime. One man said to us – “you in South Africa live in fear of your ex-president, Nelson Mandela dying and we in Zimbabwe can’t wait for our president, Robert Mugabe to die”.
Elephant eye
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