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And we take the Kariba Ferry

Aug 10 – 13th, 2022

On our way into Matusadona National Park we pulled off the road for a break. As we lunched, we were also lunched upon by tsetse flies, a reminder that we were back in the tsetse belt. This is an unpleasant but invigorating experience that leads to short lunches! 

We retreated to the safety of the vehicle and began the descent road into Matusadona. The road is well known to be rough going, but the beginning is a typical single lane dirt track, full of bumps, ruts and rocks, but nothing too formidable.

Matusadona National Park is just shy of 1500 sq. km., gazetted in 1975 and once formed a stronghold for black rhinos and other wildlife. Over time the park declined and rhino were poached out. In 2019 the NGO African Parks signed a 20 year agreement with Zimbabwe Parks And Wildlife Management Authority (aka “Zim Parks”) to manage the park. Early reports are that African Parks is hard at work; we were excited to check it out.

This park is another, like Chizarira, that is far less visited than Zimbabwe’s headliner parks, Hwange, Mana Pools and Gonarezhou. The rugged entrance road in particular is a well known deterrent. We bumped along at a leisurely pace. It was one of those roads that is not really a technical 4×4 track, but also cannot be rushed. The 75 kilometers ended up taking us 3.5 hrs. After crossing the rocky dry bed of the Ume River, we came to the relief of the flatlands at the bottom of the escarpment and zoomed (relatively) along freshly graded roads.

This brought us to Tashinga, where HQ for the park is, along with an airstrip and campsite, all spread apart on a broad peninsula. Headquarters was bustling with workers, bakkies, heavy equipment and workshops. African Parks was indeed hard at work.

Here we found the tourism manager, Chris Chiparaushe, who was checking in other guests. This guest was a fellow member of the 4x4community.za.co forum, “La Leona,” and her family. Having followed the blog, she recognized us, and we agreed to meet up later at camp. What a small world. 

Chris was incredibly welcoming. We had emailed him a week before, and he had responded promptly. He greeted us like old friends, shaking our hands warmly and thanking us for visiting. He insisted we wait just a minute so he could lead us down to our campsite himself.

Our experience thus far, over many national parks, has never been as welcoming as this. We’ve met many professional and cordial parks staff, and a few less so, but none seemed so appreciative of our visit. Chris hopped in his park vehicle and led us the two kilometers to Tashinga Campsite. 

The campsite is located at the end of the peninsula, dotted with big trees, with a dozen or so sites set wide apart. There is little foliage besides these old trees, the rest being grass trimmed by hippos and other grazers.  All the campers are within view of each other, but the disbursement of the sites makes this entirely pleasant. I appreciated the sense of “we’re all here together,” a little camping community.

There are two newish ablution blocks in good fettle. As seems to be the rule in Zimbabwe, there are braai stands but no fire pits. We like to cook on the fire when we can, but we also appreciate sitting around the fire before and after the cooking. These braai stands stymie this; their raised profile is suitable for cooking but not good for the pre/post-cooking hangout time. We usually just ask the park staff if it’s okay to make a fire on the sand and abide by their ruling. Some places are understandably trying to limit piles of ashes all over the place, whereas in others, it is easy to bury the ashes, or there is a place to dump them nearby. 

Tashinga somehow seemed to turn down the volume of life; we felt relaxed and at ease here. Some elephants were grazing some distance away, and occasionally we heard the wheeze-honk of a hippo, all was well.

A classic Matusadona sunset

Lake Kariba is fed by the Zambezi River, forming the largest man made lake in the world, at 223 km long and up to 40 km wide. The Kariba dam holds back the water at the eastern end of the lake, capable of producing 1626 megawatts of power, which is split between Zimbabwe and Zambia. 

The lake was calm all around us. The water’s glassy surface was punctuated by the silvery trunks and spiky branches of many dead trees that had drowned when the lake formed, now revealed by the reduced level of the lake.

While watching the sunset, we struck up a conversation with some South Africans with an interesting story, having abandoned corporate life to be safari guides. Now they work in the area between, consulting on the business end of the safari world.

The sunset came and our conversation lapsed into silence. The trees were silhouetted by the great orange ball of the sun as it sank below distant mountains. The elephants wandered into the bush and evening set in. Sublime.

An Elephant Incident

The next day we decided to savor a relaxed day in camp. Early in the day, we received a bit of foreshadowing. One of the park staff came by and asked us if an elephant had been through and visited our vehicle. We responded that we’d had no elephantine visitors. She explained that someone with a rooftop tent had recently camped with a box of vegetables strapped to their roof rack. This had been discovered and eaten by the elephant in question, and now that elephant associated vehicles with roof top tents as worthy of investigation. 

The idea that one would keep vegetables on the roof was absurd; who would do such a thing? We assured the park staffer that we had received no visitors and had no vegetables on the roof. 

Sometime later Jenny headed off to the shower, and I lazed under our awning reading a book. And lo, an elephant was slowly working his way across the camp in my direction. He picked his way across the grass, grazing here and there, continuing toward me and looking like he might come quite close. I closed the canopy, not wanting him to investigate the food in the back.

Why hello friend (Tashinga campsite)

Elephants have walked past our car fairly close many times and it didn’t occur to me that this one would be any different. After closing up, I moved back, giving him plenty of distance.

All was well until he decided to inspect our vehicle. To my horror, he became interested in the rubbish in an old charcoal sack we had strapped to the roof rack. 

We had been diligently sorting our waste, abiding by the ‘pack in/pack out’ rules in these parks. Our waste management is multi-part. After provisioning we try to dispose of any excess packaging before leaving town. For example, unpacking meat and repacking in reusable Ziplocks, disposing of the plastic wrap and styrofoam in town. Cardboard we burn in camp, and we try to burn any excess food waste. We separate our trash into food, burnables, plastic and other non-biodegradable waste.

Some food waste does not burn well; the next morning I’ll pull out anything that did not fully combust. These nonburnables are combined with any plastic or cans we have, which we cart around until we find a place to dispose of it properly. Sometimes we keep it in the canopy, but we were pretty full up, not knowing what provisioning options lay ahead, so to save space we strapped this to the roof rack. This did not seem unusual to us, many people keep their trash in a canvas bag that hangs off the spare wheel.

Our curious elephant was using his trunk to dexterously extract the rubbish sack from the ratchet strap that was securing it to the roof. The whole cruiser was rocking as he leaned against the vehicle working on this problem. 

Shit!

By this point in time I had retreated near the ablution block, some 50 or 60 meters away and wasn’t sure what to do. In all likelihood, I could go over there and wave my arms and shout and the elephant would back off, annoyed. On the other hand, people are killed by elephants with reasonable frequency and I had no interest in being one of the statistics.  

A small crowd of other campers had gathered and Jenny had come out of the shower, surprised by the scene before her. We all pondered the situation indecisively. Then the elephant thought maybe he’d move to the other side of the cruiser, to better approach getting the trash bag. In moving around the back of the vehicle he brushed against the awning, which collapsed with a tearing noise and the sound of twisting metal. A collective groan from the crowd.

Now he was rocking the Cruiser pretty aggressively, pulling at the straps. A camper offered to approach the elephant slowly in his vehicle. This seemed like a good idea. He got in his vehicle crept toward the elephant, and it worked. Our elephant did not appreciate the proximity of the other vehicle and he finally moved off, leaving us to inspect the damage.

I suppose we are lucky, it could have been much worse. The awning was badly damaged, with several large tears in the canvas and one of the metal arms twisted and bent. One of the jerry cans on the roof was dented but not punctured, but otherwise all was intact. 

Our adrenaline was pumping as we rehashed the event with fellow campers and dissected what we could have done differently. I unpacked our trash to see if we had left anything in there that might have triggered the interest of our elephant. In our trash I found we had overlooked two stems of cilantro and an empty jelly jar, admittedly unwashed. Did our elephant friend smell these? Or had his previous experience driven him to dissect the bag regardless? 

I’m going to have to talk to Alu-cab about there elephant warranty

Straightening awning arms

After calming down from this adventure, we spent the afternoon socializing with other campers, and having a particularly good time talking with forum member La Leona and her husband. With similar interests, we discussed various topics, from destinations and camps to the merits of various models of Land Cruiser engines; it was very enjoyable. We also spent time with our South African guide friends and a couple from Harare, Shumba and Brenda.

Later in the afternoon, Chris, the tourism manager, showed up, having heard about our elephant incident. He was incredibly apologetic, as if he were somehow responsible for the behavior of a wild elephant. He generously offered to have us come by the workshop the next day to see if they could fix the awning. We politely declined, wanting to spend the next day game driving. Instead Colin convinced Chris to join our group for a beverage, and we had a wonderful time hearing Colin and Chris swap stories from various adventures as safari guides.

Later the senior park official came down and also wanted to apologize for our elephant experience. This was gracious but also ridiculous. We were the ones who had stupidly left something interesting on the roof, and I sincerely hope that our actions don’t contribute to action against that particular elephant. Chris said that they were going to keep watching that one.

Wanting to explore the park thoroughly, we dedicated the next day to an all-day game drive. We had read a few reports of poor game viewing in this park. I submit that perhaps people were not in the best portions of the park for wildlife. As was recommended, the game viewing in the NE part of the park, along the lakeside tracks on the way to Spurwing and Fothergill Island was very good. We found large numbers of antelope, elephant, zebra, buffalo and hippo. We didn’t see any predators, but they are around. 

These lakeside tracks were generally just below the tree line, with a broad grass expanse between the trees and the lake. I don’t know what a normal lake level looks like, but we read that the fluctuating lake level dramatically affects how much grazing is available to the animals. Because of these wild fluctuations in fodder their populations can be out of sync with the food available. 

This touches on what we found to be the crux of Matusadona, that you can not escape the fingerprint of humans in this park. Of course, no park is “natural.” The very act of preservation is an action that affects nature, but this enormous lake, created in the 50s, is a massive change for the local environment that cannot be forgotten. At every turn there is a huge swath of empty land, and even though impala might be happily grazing upon it, we couldn’t help but think that the whole scene seemed abnormal.

You can’t forget that this is a man made lake

The whole day was spent wandering various tracks. We explored some more unmapped roads (now on the recent update to T4A), all the way out to Senyati West, which is a ranger station and nearby some old bandas that have fallen into neglect. I don’t know if they would let you book this as a wilderness camp now, I suspect African Parks will wait until they get a chance to tidy it up before allowing visitors here. 

This is a fairly long drive that was interesting, but we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife after we left the lakeshore. The roads were all in excellent shape, the African Parks road crew has been busy! 

Before we’d left Tashinga we’d organized an elaborate plan for our last night in the park. Chris had let us know one of the wilderness camps was available, so we planned a night there and then to depart Matusadona by ferry to Kariba. This wasn’t our original plan, as the ferry is quite expensive, but Chris told us that the ferry was already scheduled to drop off some other visitors, and if the ferry is already making a stop at the park you can take the return trip at a reduced rate. 

Chris was worried we wouldn’t be able to find the ferry landing, as it was a new site not on any map. He insisted that a couple of his team escort us. He organized them to meet us at our wilderness campsite and take us to the ferry landing.

Mhukadzapela wilderness campsite

With this plan in place, we settled into our wilderness campsite, Mhukadzapela (details in the Nitty Gritty). Wanting to savor this undeveloped bush site, we arrived early. This spot was fantastic, in the shade of a few big leafy trees on the sandy bank of a dry riverbed. 

After setting up camp we noticed an elephant grazing on the leafy foliage behind camp. He was taking his time, and we checked on him occasionally to make sure he wasn’t too close. As night fell we started a fire, occasionally hearing noises in the bushes. This kept us on alert, but we never established if this was elephants or perhaps buffalo. Later on, a hyena came to inspect us but kept their distance.

The moon was up and it was a fantastic night, we slept well with the sounds of the bush all around us. After an early game drive we rendezvoused with our escorts at the campsite.

The Ferry to Kariba

I felt a little silly getting an escort, I didn’t want to trouble the staff who no doubt had things to do other than hold the hands of tourists, but they insisted. They arrived at the appointed time and we set off.

They took us on the main track and then turned off the lakeshore track towards Fothergill Island. On some maps Fothergill and Spurwing are shown as islands, but with the lake level down, there are established tracks to drive out to both.

At the end of the drive I saw the wisdom of insisting we had escorts, for there was no track for the last few hundred meters. We were led off-road to the new ferry landing site, just a piece of sandy shore. 

We chatted to our guides for quite a while as we waited for the ferry. One was a university student on an internship at Matusadona, and one of his assignments was to go and confirm all the GPS coordinates of the wilderness campsites. What a great job! The other was a veteran African Parks ranger, we had a really nice time talking with them.

The ferry was late and eventually they left for more important duties, instructing us not to go down to the shoreline because of the hippos and crocodiles. We waited in the hot sun, and in due course the ferry appeared on the horizon. They made their way to our exact spot, nosing the ferry onto the shoreline. 

One of the travelers hopped off the ferry with a camera in introduced himself. He explained they were on a grand tour of Zimbabwe, dubbed “Expedition Zimbabwe,” to promote Zimbabwean tourism. The ferry crew set up the steel ramps to offload their three vehicles with practiced efficiency. After unloading it was our turn, and the crew told us we needed to back the Cruiser up the ramps, so that when we offloaded we could easily drive off. 

Backing onto the Kariba ferry

This is easier said than done, as the ramps are steep and slightly wider than the land cruiser, leaving little room for error. A mistake would allow a tire to slip off a ramp, a possible disaster. Jenny drove, putting the car in low range for maximum control, while the captain directed her. 

My heart was in my throat for a moment when one of the tires was only half on the ramp, the other half hanging in the air, but the captain and Jenny recovered and all was well. In short order the ferry backed off the bank, and we were off, steaming across the smooth surface of the lake. It was fantastic. 

This discounted ferry ride was still not cheap, at $200 USD. It is not a scheduled affair, really you are chartering the whole boat. Initially, we had been quoted $350, but since this was part of an already scheduled trip, we got the lower price. We had penciled out that the drive would have cost about $100 USD in fuel and justified the rest by convincing ourselves it’d be another $100 USD in wear and tear, both psychological and to the cruiser.

A wonderful ferry ride

The boat ride was a lovely two and a half hours, then we were deposited on the shore outside the town of Kariba about an hour before sunset. We made the short drive to Warthogs, a simple lodge looking out over the lake offering cheap camping.

Warthogs have safari tents and chalets to rent, but if you ask to camp they’ll also find a spot for you. When we arrived there was a herd of elephants wandering through camp, but by the time we’d checked in and paid for camping the elephants had moved to a nearby clearing. 

Given that we had just spent six days in the bush and had a week in Mana Pools planned next, we treated ourselves to dinner at Warthog’s restaurant. I got the grilled bream with chips, which was excellent. 

Tomorrow would be a big day, heading into the big Kahuna of Zimbabwe’s parks, Mana Pools. 

The Nitty Gritty

On the northern parks of Matusadona and Chizarira – We enjoyed our visits to both, but I don’t think they are in the same class as the more famous parks. That said, they are definitely worth visiting if you have the time, particularly if you are traveling between Mana Pools and one of the popular western destinations of Hwange, Victoria Falls or Kasane/Chobe. 

There are few choices of places to stay if traveling east/west between Mana Pools and Victoria Falls, so stopping at Matusadona and Chizarira works very well, if you have the time. I would not suggest these parks for one night stops.

If you decide not to stop at Matusadona or Chizarira the Binga-Karoi road is not fast and you can’t make the east-west transit between Victoria Falls and Karoi/Kariba in one day, you’ll have to stop somewhere. I read an old report of Musumu Lodge near Binga being very good, but I don’t know if they are still operating. Alternatively, you could travel from Kariba (Warthogs or similar) to Victoria Falls via Zambia. However, unless you were fortunate with a swift border crossing you’ll almost certainly have to break the trip somewhere in Zambia.

Matusadona Notes

You can book ahead by contacting tourism manager Chris Chiparaushe at chrispenc@africanparks.org or +263773541138| Skype: chris.chiparaushe1 – but mobile signal is intermittent there, I would go with email. 

Chris said that the park was the busiest it had ever been, again because of the holiday, but in this case, busy is very much a relative term. You can safely arrive without bookings and pay cash USD on arrival. 

Fees: 

Public campsite (Tashinga), $15 pppn

Wilderness campsite, $25 pppn

Entry is $8 pppd if you are staying in the park, $15 pppd for day visitors (common for visitors from the various Kariba houseboat tours)

Vehicle: $10 (one time?) + $10 for a trailer

Rate sheet:

Wilderness campsites:

Moronga, we heard was very good, but it was booked. Location: S16° 57.762′ E28° 27.882’

Makuzapela, where we camped: S16° 47.110′ E28° 30.968’ Highly recommended

Kanjedza, S16° 46.000′ E28° 38.799’ 

There may be others. Changa, for example, is booked for the season by a tour operator. Other sites need to be cleared. My impression from talking to the staff was that more wilderness sites were planned.

Other useful Matusadona Files:

Kariba Ferry

“Ferry” might imply regular service, but this is not the case. You are, in effect, chartering the vessel. It is owned by Sonya and Dave McMaster; you can organize the ferry by contacting them directly at +263 77 873 3784 (WhatsApp) or sonya@zol.co.zw

Since Expedition Zimbabwe had organized the ferry to Matusadona we did not have to pay the full price and were instead charged $200. Full details of the ferry here:

We were happy with our ferry experience, but I am still curious about the road through the Charara Safari Area to Kariba. No permit is needed for this road, and it might have been an interesting drive. By all reports, it is no faster than the longer route to the A1 and down the tarred road to Kariba.

For a tour of the northern circuit of parks you more or less have to stay somewhere between Mana Pools and Matusadona, it isn’t practical to make this trip all in one day. Particularly when you factor in that you’ll need to refuel and provision. 

Camping options between these two parks are limited, though there are several lodges in hotels in Kariba town and surrounds catering to people staying before and after the popular Kariba overnight houseboat tours. Warthogs, Gache Gache and Lomagundi Lakeside are the only camping options I’m aware of.