HI All

Bulawayo was my hometown whilst I was at university in the early 1970s, so being so close to the Matopos (now Matobo Hills), it didn’t take long for me to develop a passion for spending time out there amongst the spiritual quiet of their huge balancing rocks.

Round about the same time I decided to splash out spending R35 (Rand) one day to buy a brand-new Spanish guitar. Over the next few years, I would spend many hours copying the words and chords for all the latest folk songs – Beatles, Bob Dylan, Simon, and Garfunkel etc – which I filed in a large box file. During our long varsity vacs, I would drive out to Maleme Dam with my Basketball team mates along with partners, hangers-on, guitar, and box-file full of fun songs. We would spend the day braaiing and fishing before settling down to drink a few beers. It didn’t take long for me start strumming on my guitar and for my mates to start singing hale heartily into the early night. Click here to listen to “San Francisco “  or   “If I were a carpenter?”.  Driving home one early evening, we had to stop to allow for my first ever sighting of an Aardvark waddling across the narrow tar.

I was down in Bulawayo over the Easter weekend and had a couple of days to spare, so I took the opportunity to set up my tent in that same camping ground alongside a very full Maleme Dam. I was pleasantly surprised with the top condition of the camping sites with the long grass having been neatly cut and very clean camping sites with clean, tidy ablution blocks nearby.

I did, of course, take my mountain bike down including a long ride along bush trails to the nearby Mtshelele Dam followed by an easy sunset cycle around the tarred circular drive (25km) at sunset a few nights later. 

I then returned to Bulawayo to play a few very competitive games of Bowls in the Zimbabwe Nationals tournament – no invitations to the winners circle this year!!  I decided to splash out and stay in the magnificent Mbila lodge for my last night in Matabeleland. Mbila has been completely revamped inside and is in immaculate condition – highly recommended for a night or two. One of the fun things about Mbila is the way you can stand on the external granite kopje (Dombo) separate from high granite outcrops on the other side of the valley. Then you shout out a few words before being bombarded by a loud echo a few seconds later – “Echooooo!” or “Matoooopos!” I did have a few sightings of a pair of Black Eagles and woke up to that very recognisable call of a Fish Eagle.

Maleme National Parks have 2 other similar lodges – Fish Eagle and Black Eagle that have also recently been redone. Two of the 23 smaller lodges have been revamped – all 23 are very habitable costing just $130 per night per 2-bedroom lodge Well worth taking your school kids down there for a few days during their school holidays. Ciao Mike Garden