Christon Bank

Hi all,

This weekend we were off to Christon Bank which is about a 20 min drive outside of Harare on the Mazowe road and then take a left. Our leader for this walk was Babara Maasdorp. There was a total of 18 participants. We met at Marge Dewdeny's house at 1pm for a 1:15 start, we were a little late leaving as some people arrived late, but none the less we managed to round everyone up and into cars and off we went.

Once in Christon Bank we parked at someone’s house (sorry not good with names) and then collected and did a quick head count, then we were off. The lady at which we were allowed to park our cars joined us on the walk.

a small glimpse of winter colours

About 30 minutes into our walk, we were accompanied by 3 dogs that had managed to get out from someone's house and decided to come for a walk with us. They  were a jack russel, an german shepard and a Labrador. They were very excited to see us. I must warn you that the german sherpard must have rolled in something delicious, as he smelled from some wonderful perfume, so we had the pleasure of this perfume now and again as he pushed his way past us. At the peak of the mountain, we made a small rest stop to enjoy the view down the valley is the Mazowe dam. On the other side of the valley is the estate of Bredan kamp who is a wealthy person who is well connected to the Zimbabwe government.

View from the top of the Gomo overlooking Bredan Kamp's estate.

Private runway and all.

The view of the Mazowe Dam

After our rest stop, we descended down the gomo and into the valley below. We had to do quite a bit Bundu Bashing (making our own track through the bush) as there was some quite thick bush and no paths to follow. By the time we got to the bottom of the gomo we were coated with silver leaf seeds, which we managed to spread further as we took them off while continueing on our walk.

Now the plan was to go up the mountain, down into the valley and round and into another small valley and that would take us back, but we ended up going up the gomo, then down the gomo, and then getting a bit lost at the base of the gomo and ended up climbing back up the same gomo we just spent 25 minutes climbing our way down, but with a slightly different route back up.

Next weekend's walk will be led by Loraine and Alice at Silvera House out in the Arcturus Area.