ROUND ZIMBABWE BIKE TOUR (aka The Meerkat Tour) 9 th – 17 th August 2014 Since February, a bunch of us dual purpose bike people started talking about and planning a ride around Zimbabwe. It started off with quite a few interested parties, but eventually we only had six of us, which turned out to be a perfect number for this first off trip!! Shane Thomas – BMW 650 Dakar, Blaize Thomas – BMW 1100, Anthony Bass – BMW 1200 Adventure, Gail Taute – BMW 650GS, Wayne Cravetti – BMW 650GS, and myself, Shelley Verwey – BMW 650GS. We travelled over 2,500km, 8 nights away, but enjoying each place we stopped! We all met at DV8 Restaurant for a hearty breakfast on the 9 th , and had some well wishers join us, which was great. Our destination for the first day was Nyanga/Honde Valley, about 5km away from Far & Wide. This trip took us the best part of 7 hours, as we headed off on tar roads to Halfway House (Headlands), before we turned off onto roads. After a lot of kilometres of some good and some not so good dirt roads, tracks, and a few oopsies, we finally made it to tarmac road again, just outside Juliasdale. We stopped to stock up on drinks for the night, before heading off to find our Cottage. We finally arrived there at about 5pm. Wonderful little cottage in the middle of nowhere with awesome views! After breakfast at DV8 Part of the road to Nyanga Stunning river Pamushana Cottage, Honde Valley The next morning we set off to Chipinge, through Mutare, and via the Chimanimani road. We stopped in Mutare at the Legion and a great lunch at the Portuguese Club, which did delay us a good while. We arrived in Chipinge at about 5pm, and spent the night on a family friend’s dairy farm. From Chipinge the next day, we headed off to Lion & Elephant Motel, on the Bubye River. We travelled through Chisumbanje, stopping with friends for coffee there, and then lunch at Triangle Country Club.
Transcript
ROUND ZIMBABWE BIKE TOUR (aka The Meerkat Tour) 9th – 17th August 2014
Since February, a bunch of us dual purpose bike people started talking about and planning a ride around Zimbabwe. It started off with quite a few interested parties, but eventually we only had six of us, which turned out to be a perfect number for this first off trip!! Shane Thomas – BMW 650 Dakar, Blaize Thomas – BMW 1100, Anthony Bass – BMW 1200 Adventure, Gail Taute – BMW 650GS, Wayne Cravetti – BMW 650GS, and myself, Shelley Verwey – BMW 650GS. We travelled over 2,500km, 8 nights away, but enjoying each place we stopped! We all met at DV8 Restaurant for a hearty breakfast on the 9th, and had some well wishers join us, which was great. Our destination for the first day was Nyanga/Honde Valley, about 5km away from Far & Wide. This trip took us the best part of 7 hours, as we headed off on tar roads to Halfway House (Headlands), before we turned off onto roads. After a lot of kilometres of some good and some not so good dirt roads, tracks, and a few oopsies, we finally made it to tarmac road again, just outside Juliasdale. We stopped to stock up on drinks for the night, before heading off to find our Cottage. We finally arrived there at about 5pm. Wonderful little cottage in the middle of nowhere with awesome views!
After breakfast at DV8 Part of the road to Nyanga
Stunning river Pamushana Cottage, Honde Valley The next morning we set off to Chipinge, through Mutare, and via the Chimanimani road. We stopped in Mutare at the Legion and a great lunch at the Portuguese Club, which did delay us a good while. We arrived in Chipinge at about 5pm, and spent the night on a family friend’s dairy farm. From Chipinge the next day, we headed off to Lion & Elephant Motel, on the Bubye River. We travelled through Chisumbanje, stopping with friends for coffee there, and then lunch at Triangle Country Club.
The farm in Chipinge Chisumbanje fuel stop
Rest stop just before Lion & Elephant Arrival at Lion & Elephant Motel The 12th of August, saw us getting to Bulawayo, where we were awesomely accommodated, fed and watered by a fellow biker friend. The route to Bulawayo was also part dirt, so we went back about 20km from Lion & Elephant, and this road was pretty good, with a few oopsie parts, and about an hour and a half travel through a Big 5 Game Conservancy (which was not indicated on the maps!). Finally after over 100km on dirt we hit the tar road 40km south of West Nicholson. We stopped here for “lunch” and ventured on through Gwanda to Bulawayo.
Decent dirt road before the conservancy Stunning dam just outside the conservancy
Lunch stop Bulawayo bike check After a great night in Bulawayo, we headed off for Victoria Falls. This was a pretty straight forward day, thank goodness!! One tip – make sure you don’t need to stop for food along the way, as there is nowhere to do so! We landed up buying spaghetti bolognese and some had pies from the Supermarket in Hwange – what a sight for the locals with us eating outside in the street!! We got to Vic Falls in good time, and had a bit of a ride around the town, and to the top of the falls, before returning to Victoria Falls Backpackers for a braai dinner and bed!
Lunch at Hwange Vic Falls ride around
At the top of the Falls
The next day we travelled back about 150km to the turn off to Binga and Mlibizi. Great country side to ride through, but watch out for potholes, sharp curves and animals!! We arrived at Mlibizi in time for lunch, and stopped where we thought we were staying, but turned out we were one place early! Anyway, we had a fantastic lunch at Mlibizi Hotel, a few drinks, a wonder around and then headed off 500m down the road to Mlibizi Zambezi Resort where we stayed that night before catching the Ferry the next day.
Stop at Mlibizi Turnoff
Mlibizi Hotel Mlibizi Zambezi Resort
View All strapped up on the Ferry The Ferry trip was a welcome break, and fantastically catered for us. We had to take our own tie downs to strap the bikes securely, but the meals and crew were fantastic. The trip took 24 hours, which was rather
long, but we saw some awesome sights of the North end of Kariba. We travelled through the night and arrived in Kariba Andora Harbour at 8am. We disembarked and went to find where we were staying at Lomagundi Lakeside, unpacked, showered and then took another ride into town where we had lunch at Harbour View Cafe, which was great. We even got a visit from the resident zebras! The afternoon was a lazy one, we rested, walked around the complex and then headed to Warthogs Bush Camp to meet up with friends and have dinner. Early night, as the next day was sadly our last leg of the trip, back to Harare where we finished off at the Skull & Skud, the Bikers Bar in Mount Pleasant. A fantastic trip, with fantastic people!!
