Masambura

This last weekend's sunday walk was in the masambura area, which is 65km from harare out on the domboshava road and then take a left at the sign to chinamora junior school. The leader of the walk was Rolf. We left sam levi's village on a chilly sunday morning at 7:15, with 12 of us. The drive out there was a good 1:45. The road was not bad, but it was nice to have 4x4. We did come across an 'only in africa' bus stop. This bus stop was just a sign hanging down from the over hanging tree, priceless!

Bush bus stop

The first Gomo we climbed

We arrived at our destination around 8:30 and starting walking at 8:45. We set out and passed through some locals ploughing the fields and getting them ready for the spring to arrive. They had a quite ingenious system setup for watering the fields. They would have these polly pipes which they would put into the nearest stream, and then channel the water to the field using natural gavity.

Now the first gomo (local slang for mountain or hill) we climbed did not have a name on the map, but the hill across from it was called Chamatura. We had to do some bush wacking before we got on the first gomo, but then again that is nothing new in the mountain club of Zimbabwe, we make our own paths whether there is one there or not. After about 1/2 hour we were climbing up the side of the gomo. The rock was quite interesting in that it looked like gravel which had been cemented together, but the rock is granite. Another interesting thing was that walking on this expanse of rock was like walking in a desert, but made of rock, as the surface area which the rock covered was expansive.

Just to give you an idea of the desert of rock.

At 10:00 am we had a welcome rest stop on the top of this gomo with stunning 360 degree views.

One of many views to come

Chamatura to the left

After our rest stop, we continued on the top of this gomo and then made our way down it and towards chamatura. we then proceeded along the base of chamatura to find a route up. Rolf wanted to try an different way up but we just ended up on a rocky area which was rather hard to get up. Luckily to our rescue came a kid that showed us the way up, and thanks to Richard who can speak some shona as the kid did not speak English.After a rather hard climb up the side of chamatura and everyone gasping for air, we had a small stop, then it was onward and upwards again to the top of chamatura where we would have lunch.

After lunch Rolf told us that on the way back down there is a cave with bushman paintings in it. Unfortunatley children are begining to damage these old art forms, as you can see from the photo below.

Rock paintings. Sadly being lost slowly.

Some aloes were still in flower

after a 30 min walk down the rest of the gomo, we reached the cars exhausted, tired and ready for a good cup of tea. We thanked our locals and in payment that kindly agreed to look after our cars, then went to an old cattle dip not far from where we parked to sit under the gum trees and enjoy the last of the sunday.

Stay tuned for this coming Saturday, as Barbara Maasdorp will be leading us on a walk in the Christon Bank area.