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Published: June 17th 2017
01 Dry River
Looking up at the dry river.Geo: -20.5573, 28.5126
I had such a great night's sleep. It was so good to sleep in a bed and have plenty of hot running water. Unfortunately we could not enjoy a sleep-in as we had organised a day trip today. We left the B&B just after 8am. The drive to Matopos National Park took us about half an hour. It was about a twenty minute drive to the reception of the camp ground.
Along the way we drove past beautiful scenery, mostly because of the interesting rock formations. Especially picturesque was the view of the lake where the water was ever so still. We were running late, so didn't have as much time as we would have liked to enjoy the view. The guide wasn't at the reception yet, so we had some time to bargain with reception for a chalet for the evening. She wasn't promising anything, but I had a feeling we could get the chalet for the price we wanted. She agreed to meet us at the end of the day with her decision – we hoped no one else turned up wanting that chalet.
We met our guide and set off for the day. He drove us
02 Lake
The lake with its water perfectly still. in his game viewer. We drove past the lake again and stopped to admire the many interesting rock formations. We saw many Rock Fig Trees growing on huge rocks with their roots hugging the rocks.
He then parked the car at the Nswatugi Cave. It was a short walk up the hill to the cave. We spent about half an hour admiring the amazing cave paintings. There was another guide here that we were meeting with - Ian Wright. Ian has spent time living with the San bushmen and was very passionate about their culture. The paintings were very impressive and depicted animals. It was also a nice view of the national park from up here.
Back at the car park I read some of the display boards and learnt that the San people no longer live in this area. This is due to farmland and now there is land set aside for them in the Kalahari to continue their unique way of life. The San are hunter-gatherers.
Back on the road we stopped to listen to our guide explain as to why there were ladies in the national park cutting grass. There were neat piles of cut long grass. The ladies
03 Admiring
Francois and John also stopped to admire the view. were granted permission to be here and collect grass to sell for roof thatching. It is to help the local people receive an income.
At about 1pm we arrived at a little village just outside of the national park. We stopped at a family's place. We were not aware that this was part of our day trip - as we had booked this trip because we were supposed to be walking with rhinos. Here there were about seven small round thatched huts. We met up with another small tour group and we led into one of the huts. All the tourists sat around the edge as we watched and listened to the chief. He was about 80 years old and wore a leopard skin – from a leopard he killed when he was younger. Around his neck he wore a necklace made from porcupine quills.
The chief then lead us outside where his grandchildren and great grandchildren sang, played instruments and danced for us. They were really good, especially the little kids and I enjoyed watching their performance. Annoyingly they then tried to sell us curio items, we were not interested and ready for lunch. We then walked back to
04 Scenic
The scenic views of the park. the car and a picnic lunch had been set up for us. We quickly had lunch as we wanted to see these rhinos!
We were driven into an area where there are supposed to be more animals than the larger area of the park. Here we saw a great rock formation called Mother and Child. There was no sign of rhinos. The guide decided to drive us back into the larger area of the park. We then spotted a large herd of sable antelopes. We got out of the game viewer and our guide walked us close to them. By determining which way the wind was blowing, he was able to get us close to the herd. Although once we did get quite close, they ran. It was now after 4pm and we still had not seen any sign of rhinos.
We all had our eyes peeled looking for any sign of animals. A couple of zebras ran across the road in front of us and then about fifteen minutes later we caught a glimpse of the rhinos. The game viewer was stopped and we were dead quiet not wanting to scare them off. They were standing in very long grass.
05 Scenic
The scenic views of the park with its many rock formations. We quietly got out and followed our guide through the long grass.
The four rhinos were now just 10 metres away from us. It was rather exciting but also a bit scary to be so close to these animals. The rhinos either smelt or saw us and ran about 50 metres away from us. Our guide led us to them again. We observed the rhinos for about 5 minutes as they ate grass. It was now slowly getting dark and we had to get back to the reception to confirm our accommodation for the night.
Luckily no one else had turned up willing to pay full price for the chalet, so we were able to stay for the discounted price. It was a huge chalet, with a large living room and dining room. Such a nice change from camping! We managed to make a meal with the food we had left from our trip. I looked forward to seeing the view of the lake in the morning. It was an early night as we had to get plenty of rest for our drive back to Madikwe Game Reserve tomorrow morning.
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