Matusadona Madness!

01/06/09

Matuzviadonha madness

By Christopher Scott

The sandgrouse came sweeping in to begin their customary evening pirouette over the glassy waterhole, unaware of the five figures frozen in fascination in the midst of the various menial campfire tasks. The whistle of wind through extended wings is the only sound that pervades the tranquil scene until, with their landing gear fully extended, a few of the more perceptive sandgrouse notice the five grinning observers and explode in a flurry of feathers and irritated cackling into the dusky indigo distance!

The five observers slowly unfreeze, some were so captivated they watched with their spoon full of gooey pasta halfway to their mouths!, and exchange smiles at the magnificent natural spectacle they just been drawn into.

The scene of this feathered frenzy took place, honestly, in the middle of the epically wild and rugged Matusadona National Park. One of Zimbabwe’s undeservedly underrated parks it offers a substantial variety of terrain, ecosystems, flora and fauna that would please any outdoor expert or novice. The flat Lake Kariba hugging shoreline offers the best game viewing and sundowning experiences while the imposing Matuzviadonha Mountains that extend dauntingly into a misty blue horizon inspire and evoke any hardened travellers sense of adventure.

Within its bountiful and varied beauty an observant game watcher can spot most of Zimbabwe’s mammalian species, however, the park has a more notable history as a bastion to endangered and threatened species. The park has offered sanctuary to a number of crucial species throughout its history, it held the largest natural population (and highest density) of lions in Africa for many years until other areas’ populations increased significantly, more recently with the dedicated effort of the Zambezi society a now burgeoning population of Cheetah were successfully reintroduced onto the parks floodplains in the early 1990’s.

However, the cherry on the top of this successful ecological cake has been the role the park has played in saving the threatened Black Rhino (Diceros bicornis) species in southern Africa. The park, again with the help of the Zambezi society, has been a bastion for the species since the early eighties and has proven, not without its tribulations, to be a successful haven for the wrinkly beasts!

It was because of this successful and well-sustained project that 5 hikers and 2 National Parks rangers found themselves in the middle of a blue Matusadona nowhere on one of the toughest hikes imaginable! In 2007 as part of their Black Rhino Monitoring project the Zambezi society initiated what was to become an annual Black Rhino count in the park.

The aim of this count is to identify and maintain a count of the parks’ rhino’s and where they were habituating and where they were moving to, specifically concentrating on the often inaccessible Matuzviadonha mountain range. Voluntary counters were asked to monitor various specific water points for any sign of the magnificent beasts. Several parties opted to walk to and from various water points in the rugged highlands; cue the five idiots!!

The inspiration for the adventure came in the planning session at the Zamsoc offices, when perusing the large scale map of the area and wondering aloud where we could walk, a voice in the background mentioned that no-one had ever walked up the second crossroads. This is where the Mwenze River cuts down from the Matuzviadonha Mountains, leaving steep, deep and curvy mayhem in its path, to meet the Sanyati River that forms the Eastern boundary of the park. The madness developed from there, “what do we do once we have reached the end of the Mwenze” I wondered? Keep walking was the obvious answer, with nervous and apprehensive nods from my fellow hikers and in no time the notion of keeping going ended up with us tentatively agreeing to walk up the Mwenze, across the Matuzviadonha plateau and down the equally testing Gubu river which would lead us to the Ume River which constitutes the parks’ Western boundary!

The trek, which would have put the fright into most level headed people, would see us walking through some of the most remote and challenging parts of the Matusadona National park, and probably the region, maybe even the country! The fact that no-one had ever attempted or achieved this feat, for obvious reasons didn’t really occur at the time!, made the endeavour ever more appealing to my insatiable adventurous side.

However, despite the promise of imminent adventure and exploration we were there for a more important reason, to search for signs of black rhino and anything else noteworthy, including sites of permanent water that could sustain wildlife in the dry season as well as nourish future National Park patrols.

And so we found ourselves a few months later bobbing and weaving in a speedboat up the short navigable stretch of the Mwenze Rivers’ junction with the Sanyati, staring up at the formidable edifice looming ever larger above us, suddenly wondering if we were the exploring type! This sudden trepidation was brought about by the worried look on the hardened National Parks rangers’ faces and the hefty 20kg weight of each of our backpacks!

Despite the trepidation we debussed accordingly and waved goodbye to our last link to the civilised world for four days. Keeping a beady eye on the incline ahead of us we shouldered our packs, exchanged a variety of meaningful glances and began.

Climbing uphill is never an easy task, especially carrying a loa, it is an even more difficult task when you have to carefully place each step around football, small car and house sized granite boulders that have been washed through the millennia down the Mwenze river. The slow and careful manner in which we had to navigate this boulder minefield, as any sudden or exuberant movement resulted in you pack gathering momentum and swinging you unceremoniously off your feet (dubbed pack sway!), meant that our progress was excruciatingly slow.

As the day drew to an end and an ideal campsite of sand and boulders nestled in a fold of the river’s steep meander presented itself to us we rather willingly gave in for the day. After the numbing presence of the packs had dissipated we gathered our maps and GPS and to our horror discovered we had only covered 4 kilometres in five hours walking! Doubts began to set in as to whether we could achieve our goal in the given time but were assured by the National Parks scouts that once on the plateau our progress would improve rapidly.

As the golden hues descended down the sides of the gorge walls we fell silent with the nestling birds and with only our thoughts echoing through the steep gorge watched in silent tribute as the beauty of another African day came subtly to an end. The silent tribute to the beauty of our situation hung in the air as we unhurriedly but eagerly disposed of our humble pasta dinner and, shoulder to shoulder for warmth and protection laid our sleeping bags on the cool river sand under a flawless blanket of velvet and sparkly evening sky.

The exertion of the day and our general state of unfitness ensured we slept well despite the usual raucous sounds of the African night. The second day of our trek would prove to be even more challenging then the first with the topography becoming more difficult and the pressure to cover the distance mounting.

Despite the challenging nature of the terrain a sense of peace and tranquillity descended upon us during the hike, likely brought about by the knowledge that we where in a wild and remote area that few had ever seen, a privilege that is becoming less and less easy to achieve in our rapidly shrinking world. We became buoyant in our knowledge that only through the strength of our perseverance and determination would we overcome our obstacles, both imminent and forthcoming, in this rugged gorge or in our general lives. The sound of the whooshing trees and the skwawkingly musical Meyer’s Parrots in the overarchingly beautiful environment proved ample motivation when the sun was hot and the going was hard!

Despite the tough conditions of our chosen route we could not help admiring the raw beauty in the constantly changing environment around us as the gradation and steepness of the gorge changed, allowing us ever more glimpses into the realm beyond. It was such with great enthusiasm that we greeted the far off, treed horizon on our eventual emergence from the Mwenze river gorge on the eve of our second night. The day had been fruitful with us covering a much-improved 8km during the course of the day. The future prospect of being able to see further than a few tens of metres around us buoyed our spirits as we anticipated the spectacles that awaited us on tomorrows journey.

The plateau of the Matuzviadonha Mountains was a lush green blanket that lay crumpled under a haze free azure blue sky and as the sun tipped the horizon and bathed all in its warming glow we set off for the distant horizon with a newfound zest. The going was now comparably easier going and we made good stead for several hours until we reached a granite blockade, a tier of masterly sculpted granite obelisks reaching over 80 feet tall (we where approaching it from upstream) formed an impassable waterfall. As this proved a good spot for a tea break we broke out the tea bags and pondered our options. We could descend the polished rock face if we had ropes, which we didn’t, and so with a sight and a stretch we upturned our heads and attempted to walk around it.

This involved scrambling up slopes steeper than we had encountered before while clinging tenuously to worryingly thin trees and vines as we ascended the bluff that loomed over the waterfall. After an intense half an hour we reached the top, paused for a well-deserved view, and then began the even more tenuous journey down the other side.

We where awarded for our efforts and perseverance less than an hour later when we rounded a bend in one of the plateaus’ folds and where presented with a spectacle of beauty unsurpassed by anything we had seen so far. The wooded slopes we were traversing dipped suddenly and gracefully onto the valley floor below were they merged with the green and yellow shimmer of tree and grass that carpeted the floor of the Zambezi valley. In the distance, shimmering in all its blue magnificence was the vast stretch of water that beckoned us with its silent assurances, Lake Kariba, our end point.

Sitting on a rock in the shade with this spectacle in front us, a tribute to the beauty of Zimbabwe’s wild areas, it was hard not to ponder on the strife, exertion, and physical determination that was required to get us to this point. Through it all however was the constant and blissfully unavoidable beauty that manifested itself in every unavoidable boulder and calf muscle straining stretch of river sand, every leaf that provided quenching shade and every drop of slimy green water that provided sustenance along the route. In doing this we had submitted ourselves to nature on bended knee, humble in our insignificance, and had triumphed. Through this triumph we had affirmed our place in nature, as part and parcel of an ethos as old as the rocks we had scrambled over. An ethos that will sustain us in times of strife and stress until we return to wild and unexplored places, an ethos who’s message is simple; nature is everything.

During our four nights in the Matuzviadonha Mountains and the Valley floor we logged over 40 sights of permanent water that will prove to be invaluable to future National Parks patrols in the area. Unfortunately we also spotted numerous signs of fish poaching in the large pools we encountered and several obvious signs of well-used poachers camps. The National Parks Rangers suspected locals from the nearby communal area as the possible intruders as the scant footprints we could see where made my shoeless feet. Despite this the area remained wild and seemingly untouchable.

On the mammal front we failed to find any significant sign of Rhino presence throughout the distance covered but did see an abundance of small antelope such as duiker, reedbuck, waterbuck, kudu as well as larger animals such as elephant. Numerous signs of large herds of Buffalo were prominent on the plateau with the predictable signs, and sounds!, of lion in close pursuit. Some unusual sightings included watching a honey badger dig furiously in a large stretch of sand presumably for snails for at least ten minutes and a far too close encounter with a large spitting cobra that took umbrage to our sudden appearance and made it known with a long arching spray of venom!

There is no doubting that this, unique never before achieved epic journey will stay with all the hikers for a long time, or until it is surpassed by another, wilder, more unique adventure!