Matusadona National park
is situated on the southern shores of Lake Kariba. It is bounded in the
west by the Umi River and in the east by the dramatic Sanyati Gorge.
It’s one of Zimbabwe’s best kept secrets and very few
international travellers visit here. They should, though, as it’s
now considered to have the greatest natural population density of
lions in Africa after Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater.
It combines the beauty of a lake-setting with numerous islands, rich
and fertile flood plains, and a rising wall of mountains serving as
a majestic backdrop. Often elephants can be seen swimming between
the shore and islands, a sight perhaps unique to Lake Kariba.
It's a superb game viewing park with 1 407 sq km of pristine wilderness
offering game drives and walking safaris. It can also be explored
by houseboat or canoe from the lake, making it an excellent all-round
safari location. Game viewing by boat near the shore is a wonderful
experience where you may see large herds of elephant, buffalo and
plenty of hippos, crocodile and waterbuck. Sleeping beneath the stars
on the deck of a houseboat moored next to the shore is an exciting
experience.
The nights bring a chorus of sounds of hippo, elephant, hyena, nightjars
and owls, and you may even hear a lion padding around. You can also
take a smaller tender boat up one of the estuaries and combine game
viewing with a spot of tiger and bream fishing.
Further into the park are roan and sable antelope, kudu, impala, lion,
leopard and black rhino, and tracking these on foot accompanied by
an armed guard is one of Africa’s most exhilarating experiences.
Its relatively poor accessibility by road and extremely harsh internal
network of roads keep the crowds and traffic out.
The Matusadona National Park is most easily accessible by boat from
the town of Kariba, some 20km north. It is also possible to enter
the Matusadona from the gravel Karoi-Kamativi road south of the escarpment
but you’ll need a 4x4. Lake Kariba and Matusadona can be visited
at any time of year.
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