April Newsletter

The Mountain Club of Zimbabwe

(Mountains Only Peak Beneath our Feet)

April 2011

Pontifications from the Chair

Greetings one and all!!

It has been a grand year so far, this issue gives you some insight into our activities since last December and I must say that members have moved into top gear as Zimbabwe recovers from the Lost Decade.

The Great Gairezi River Expedition finished successfully with more or less 8 explorers navigating the un-navigable. I eat humble pie, it was meticulously planned and executed, although the equipment, or some of it, was as worn and torn as some of us by the end! We learnt a bitter lesson about personal hygiene, water from a crystal clear Gairezi in September may be totally palatable, but in December when the river is raging brown with cattle and human detritus from the Nyamaropa Valley, it is anything but potable. Some are not over their woes yet! Laurie Watermeyer gave a brilliant, but one-sided, story of how the expedition went and he has been asked to present the same to a wider audience at 5 pm on 18 May at St Georges for the Pre-History Society, and anyone else who would like to attend.

This Easter weekend a very few of us go to climb Malawi’s Great Massif, Mulanje. A big thank you to Michael Laban for organizing this and to the Malawi Mountain Club for taking us under their wing for a few days. We look forward to reciprocating in due course.

In May the Club will do a full frontal assault on the magnificent Gurunguwe Mountain, which dominates the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border a few kilometres north of Mutare, the gateway to paradise. At over 1 800 metres it is as tall as Gorongosa, but the summit of Gurunguwe is squeezed in to a two kilometre block and does not stretch for ten. We look forward to a report on the conquest of this last wild frontier in the region.

What else is new, Lynda has new knees, Alan has married his sweetheart and Laurie Watermeyers’ dogs have been untangled from the hind legs of sundry stock in the Nyanga North area. All good news in a heartwarming sort of way.

Oh and if you are really adventurous you can join the Hackers an acronym for people who regularly tempt death on our rivers as they rage uncontrollably seawards. They usually do this in canoes and kayaks, but there is a lot of time spent bobbing! They are always wet behind the ears!

Rob Jarvis

Some Thoughts On Meandering

By Mafungi

Murehwa

There have been some great walks this year already with perhaps the best a return to Murehwa where a multi-ridged granite conglomerate was scaled in February. Led by Rob Fisher and Rob Jarvis the beauty of the four-pronged summit was somewhat palled by the headlong descent down a river course from the top. One marriage I know of, was very rocky by the end of the day.

The lack of any cattle spoor should have been a giveaway, if cows cannot get into the valley it is usually for good reason, it is impassable! However we have to go back, the only peak we didn’t go to has the ancient ruins according to the locals and many of our members are interested in this sort of thing.

Momwe

Last weekend Phillippa Marrett led a walk in the Momwe area, which is about 15kms due north of Ngomakurira. The rocks here are spectacular with the granite being a very orange colour and weathered in strange rifts and valleys with some outcrops having multiple handholds etched into them. Right near the summit there is a large rock pool nearly a metre deep and the size of a home swimming pool. It was brimming with water, a little green, but otherwise water.

We saw a lone elephant shrew skipping across the rocks and many skinks and rock lizards. The last time the Club visited this mountain there were klipspringer but on this occasion only ravens croaked their way across the sky. One nightjar flew up from our very feet and an Augur Buzzard abandoned the summit for us. Some buff-coloured shrikes objected us taking lunch in their mountain acacia woodland on the way down, but the incessant chatter of the socialites amongst us soon shut them up and they gave up the fight for flight.

The beacon at the top shows signs of having been blasted by lightning and chunks of concrete have been blown away from the base. Steer clear of the top if you are ever caught in a storm.

Marge has cleverly recruited a youngish Irish girl, Kate, to join recently and this means that all jokes are heartily laughed at! No matter how weak they are, which is very morale boosting to the older crowd who know no new jokes and take unkindly to being the butt of one.

Ngomakurira

A favourite with Iain Bell, the walk around the mountain was enjoyed by more than twenty people and some braved the descent down into the large cave on the rock face where San depictions of elephant and other large game point to a very different ecosystem around Harare than we see today. The Museums and Monuments Authority has pushed up prices and it now costs $4 each to visit these shrines.

Of course some of the group just had to get lost, some before we started, although they caught up and some after the visit to the cave. No deaths, so it ended up pretty much as planned. Alice regaled Rob with stories about her mis-spent youth (long gone!) at the back. Rob had been relegated to the back for misbehaviour on the previous trip.

 

Jingo School or Thereabouts

 

Lorraine’s walk to the mountain close to Jingo school had all the hallmarks of a comedy. Thirty-eight people in thirty-six cars turned up, the line wound around the mountain several times going up and even more coming down. However the view from the top was worth seeing and a juvenile Black Eagle was pestered repeatedly by smaller birds of prey as he caught an updraught and shot high into the sky above us. Below the sun squirrels gave vent to a terrified chatter. They make very good snacks for eagles. Juvenile black eagles are a beautiful golden-brown colour and only after about a year off the nest do they develop the distinctive black colouration with a white V on their backs. Black Eagles lay two eggs and when the second hatches the first born eaglet will peck his sibling to death, an instinctive reaction because there usually is not enough food for two.

For this trip we were joined by a Herald reporter, which was a little unusual and he was non-plussed when told that the reason the Chairman was lifting up all the flat stones en-route was “He is looking for rock-spiders and snakes in the grass”.

Great Zimbabwe and Glenlivet

The weekend was organised by Annedore Smith,a new and enthusiastic member of our Club, and our host for the weekend was Mir Selem who had all 11 of us comfortably accommodated in his home.

All went well with initial plans to meet at 1.15pm and to load up Val's vehicle and mine for departure at 1.30pm. By the time we cleared the Chitungwiza roundabout it was 2.30pm and time to begin to relax and destress from the chaotic drive up to this point. The road to Masvingo was in fair repair with not too many heavy vehicles to pass. We arrived in Masvingo +/- 5.30pm.

Upon arrival at Mir Selem's home, a braai fire had already been started and we were welcomed by some residents of Masvingo who were also joining in the braai. After settling in and booking our places for the night, we settled down to a very enjoyable evening around the braai and lots of exchange of conversations took place.

On Saturday morning it was planned that we would visit Great Zimbabwe, leaving the house at 9.00am. Upon arriving at Great Zimbabwe we had a very informative talk from the guide at the Museum and then proceeded to climb the Ruins. The Ruins are still most definitely worth a visit.

Aimless Mountain Club members trying to figure out the origins of Great Zimbabwe!

After climbing to the top we proceeded down to the "enclosure" and also to the grain bin symbol where we were met by another guide who also was very informative. After a well spent morning at the Ruins we all proceeded to Lake Mtirikwe where we entered the camping ground and had a picnic lunch.

We then drove to the Dam Wall - magnificent sight and took numerous photos. There were many colourful lizards who became very inquisitive and obviously are fed by tourists at this photographic spot. We decided at this point that we would take the scenic route round the lake and make our way to Glenlivet Hotel where we would stop over and have dinner. The scenic route took us approximately an hour with reasonable road conditions. The only "complaint" being that on some parts of the road the "lantana" had protruded into the road (waiting to scratch my car) - but by taking care this was not a serious issue.

We arrived at Glenlivet Hotel at 3.00pm. As we had the whole afternoon ahead of us we all agreed to do a climb on one of the beautiful mountains which overlooked the hotel and also the Lake. This climb took us the whole afternoon and we arrived back at the hotel at 5.00 to order our well deserved refreshments. It must be pointed out that we were all amazed at the dense vegetation in all the areas we walked and climbed. Can only say "beautiful" to see.

We all settled down to dinner at 7.30pm. After dinner, now being 9.00pm we headed back to Masvingo. Upon arrival at the house we sat out in Mir Selem's garden with some of us having a glass of wine or Amarula.

On Sunday morning we briefly packed up before heading for another exploratory walk to a disused gold mine. This took us up until 11.00am when we returned to the house where a lovely cold meal was awaiting us before our departure to Harare.

The trip back was pleasant apart from Val having a puncture - unfortunately an irreparable tyre at that. Michael and Christian assisted heroically in removing the lock (with great effort) on the spare tyre and getting Val back on the road.

We arrived home at 7.00pm.

Our thanks must go to Annedore and Mir Selem for a most memorable weekend.

Lorraine Regadas