by Keith Hewitt

he people of Zimbabwe are among the nicest I have met in Africa. Harare, the capital, is clean, has good shopping and restaurants and makes an ideal base from where to play the many golf courses that surround it, as well as a focal point from which to travel to other parts of the country such as Victoria Falls, the Eastern Highlands or Bulawayo, bearing in mind that in most cases you have to fly from Harare Airport when you leave.

The flight from Harare to Victoria Falls took about three hours with stops. Internal flights are with Air Zimbabwe, their air hostesses get top marks for fashion and the service was good. The flight took us over Lake Kariba, a vast stretch of water two hundred kilometres long by forty wide, created when the Kariba Dam was built. Its source, the Zambezi River, could be seen snaking its way from the lake heading for the world's greatest waterfalls around which the town of Victoria Falls has developed.

I was staying at Elephant Hills, an hotel and resort that proved far more charming than its photographs gave it credit for. It is part of the Zimbabwe Sun Group of Hotels which has twenty-three properties throughout the country, from the luxury of Elephant Hills with its eighteen hole golf course to game lodges and camps. Checking in, friendliness and charm of the people washes over you with smiles and openness to not only visitors, but also amongst themselves.

For those who have more adrenalin than they know what to do with Victoria Falls is the perfect destination. I don't fall into that category. What people get up to for kicks makes me quite nauseous and I have to sit down. There is a bridge that spans the Zambezi at Victoria Falls from which people jump and fall a hundred and eleven metres before a rubber cord strapped around their ankles stops their descend and brings their body to a bouncing halt while letting everything else they don't want or can't hold onto continue downwards. It is the world's highest bungi jump and constantly in use. Crazy. If all the adrenalin has not dried up with that experience, there is white water rafting, a prolonged tight knuckle trip hurtling down the Zambezi more or less at its mercy. The number of adventurers who actually pay money for these terrifying experiences is amazingly high. As a born coward I took photographs and saw everything from the comfort of a helicopter that cruises back and forth all day long at a very reasonable price providing a low adrenalin pumping rate. But for those who think this type of thing is fun Shearwater at Soper's Arcade at Victoria Falls is the company where you can book and in the hands of whom you can safely put your life.

With my low pain threshold the real excitement for me was standing on the first tee at Elephant Hills wondering where the ball would go when I hit it. I soon found out, replaced it with another and started again.  The fourteenth and fifteenth are the prettiest holes on this challenging par seventy-two course originally designed by Gary Player. But I would rather talk about the incredible five iron I struck on the sixteenth being my third shot, so it needed to be good, on this par four stroke index one hole, whatever happened to the first two is a mystery. It was a cracker and left me only a four foot putt, which I am not telling you whether I made or not...... Apart from excellent golf, the food, amenities and overall pleasure at staying at Elephant Hills could not be faulted.

The nearby town of Victoria Falls to which the hotel runs a constant shuttle service is the place to sample the local cuisine and buy from a bewildering choice of handmade artifacts in the open market. But haggling is the name of the game and bargains are plentiful.

But the star of the show has to be the Victoria Falls, totally awe inspiring as millions of tons of water drop from an incredible hight into the rock strewn chasm below. The power of it is deafening and numbing. The spray alone that it creates is visible from miles around looking like smoke from a forest fire rather than spray. To David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer, the first white man to see the Falls, it must have been the most moving experience of all his travels; today his statue stands gazing over the Falls, a mesmerizing sight.

All too soon I was off again in a light islander aircraft, a mere hop, skip and a jump took me to the traditionally built Katete game lodge, fashioned for nature lovers and another Zimbabwe Sun property. It rests on one of the soft hills that run down to Lake Kariba affording panoramic views of the lake and the vast flat grasslands that sway in the soft breezes like green waves. These feeding grounds, host to local wildlife, from impalas to elephants, would be considerably reduced if the lake had anything like its full capacity of water instead of the sixteen per cent at which it was standing. One of the guests staying at Katete bemoaned the fact that when he was younger and came from Johannesburg on holiday he was able to go for long leisurely swims, but no longer. The authorities decided crocodiles should be introduced to the lake to help local industry. There are now hundreds of thousands of them and not a swimmer in sight!

The guides who accompany guests on the various tours throughout the area are highly professional and able to recognize the call and spoor of all the local animals and birds. The "village tour" I found interestingly different. We met the people displaced when the lake was formed. The villagers work in the fields during the day, while the old and the very young remain at home. On the outskirts, a water pump had been installed, drilled and paid for by the "Safe the Children Fund", a well built and staffed nursery school nearby was another example of the practical help this organization provides. It was warming to see the practical use that the loose change we give to such charities is put to. I couldn't help but think if everyone saw the pleasure such small measures of generosity can provide, we would all give much more.

I flew back to Harare and for two days explored the area and its golf courses - a country doesn't produce golfers of the standing of Nick Price and Mark McNulty without having very high quality courses on which to wean them. And that they have. Dating back a hundred years when the Bulawayo Golf Club was opened, golf has flourished well. The majority are situated around the capital Harare, the oldest being The Royal Harare Golf Club founded at the turn of the century. The course is situated near the city centre amid wooded parkland, rich in bird-life and grazing deer. The African Overland Expeditions, a company specializing in safaris and tours kindly provided me with a guide during my time in Harare. The courses I did see were mature, well maintained and provided some of the finest golf to be found anywhere in Africa.

The journey from Harare to the Eastern Highlands takes about four hours by road. It is a pleasant trip, broken half-way by a stop for refreshments and souvenirs in a delightful old thatched styled farmhouse.

 

We were now moving into a totally different terrain to the rest of Zimbabwe. Nearing our destination and climbing into the highlands, a vast panoramic view on our left opened up stretching into Mozambique, a border post was easily visible on the road that headed through the valley. Passing through the rain forest that covers the hill sides we arrived at our destination, Leopard Rock, a very special place. This french Chateau styled hotel looks out over the Eastern Highlands with its eighteen hole golf course meandering through the nearby countryside. My spacious room gave views across the gardens, golf course and onwards to the distant mountains.

                                                         

I was told that another very popular sport in the area is fishing, but unfortunately much as I would have liked to, time did not permit. For evening entertainment the hotel has a well patronized casino and intimate bar, an ideal way to finish the day after dinner.

The next morning I was flying to Mauritius, that beautiful island in the Indian Ocean. With hindsight I would strongly recommend the combination of a week in Zimbabwe and a week in Mauritius as most probably one of the most perfect holidays you will ever experience. 

End