Beautiful Zimbabwe: Episode 5 - The road to Gonarezhou: A place of Elephants

welcome to another episode of overlanding with bruce you've caught me crossing the rundee river it's probably about a 300 meter crossing it's spectacular so this is going to be a big one and i hope you enjoy it thanks for tuning in well thanks for watching tuning in man is that old-fashioned not sure but i hope you enjoy either way [Music] with 450 ks to go and a perfect road ahead of us and boredom setting in then this happened [Music] and instead of pushing all the way there i saw one of the old strip roads that was decommissioned probably late 70s early 80s and i'll show you a bit of a strip road now old days this is how all the roads were made and then what would happen if oncoming cars came then you put two wheels on the left-hand side of the road and two wheels on the left-hand strip of top and it's actually pretty amazing that this is still in such condition said to ryan follow me trust me i'm i know what i'm doing which i actually don't but we've ended up having a nice little stop on this bridge which you can see behind me and we we've pulled out the tracks for africa atlas and we're going to see if there's an alternative route to gonorrhoo so instead of rushing all the way through to gonorrhoeas tower roads and dealing with trucks and buses we're gonna see if there's a bit of an adventure route and hopefully get there later this afternoon but if we don't it's not a big deal we're going to enjoy the trip so stay tuned this might get exciting hey hey magic there we go bruce is sponsored by coca-cola so this atlas is what i carry it's a brilliant little atlas and i'm not sponsored by tracks for africa but they've given me great service and these maps have been really of value okay ryan this is what i think we're doing we've obviously come down from boulevard all the way here we've turned left and we stopped more or less by that river there so what i'm thinking we should do is we'll carry on on this old road as long as possible it may be a very slow going or we get up on the main road we turn right here we go all the way down okay we turn left onto this dirt road then we on to triangle that way so you're basically missing out this whole section just a little bit of adventure might be slow going but it might work out the same sort of time and of course ryan was game he's always up for a good adventure [Music] [Music] that's the first time i've seen you ride me bruce says it's hard work that's the first time i've seen bruce running hey he's getting fit we were really surprised about this mind that we came across in the midlands province that apparently used to mine white asbestos and closed down in 2004. it is still the tallest building in zimbabwe at 141.1 metres with 33 floors the second tallest building in zimbabwe is the new reserve bank in harare which is 120 metres and 28 floors [Music] [Music] okay i'm getting stopped by the cops here let's see what they have to say they're generally very friendly so i put my mask on hello how are you i'm okay and you you're moving away yeah yeah it's fine but i wanted to see these mountains they're beautiful there yeah this one is that bucha mountain yes oh okay and this one yeah this one yeah you don't know okay nice thanks very much eh thank you have a nice day bye thank you bye so you see what i'm saying they're pretty friendly here we are crossing the benghazi river benghazi river eventually flows into the burundi river must be quite a spectacular sight during the rainy season on the top of that mountain yeah it's such a shame i wonder what it's for right now i managed to find out that it is actually the marua diamond mine if you've ever traveled in convoy with me you'll know that i always like to swap positions in the convoy this keeps people awake and it also makes a little bit more interesting for the guy that's in the second position or traveling behind you [Music] okay we've had to slow it right down because the road is quite bad we obviously don't want to damage anything on the vehicles so we just let our tyres down a little bit because the road's pretty rough it's made quite a big difference there's something that we sometimes too lazy to do but definitely makes a massive difference hey when traveling on dirt roads and you see pedestrians slow down so you don't cover them in dust and then greet them with a friendly hello watch this lady's reaction to my greeting eh brian hey my man now we're doing adventure we've got we've got water to go through this is probably our second proper water crossing and i think these things look deep and i'm excited i'm not sure if ryan was excited about the water crossing or excited to see me get stuck in the water crossing either way they ended up not being too difficult and we got through successfully thankfully are you enjoying it did i choose the right route for us well we haven't got there yet so maybe [Laughter] could this not be anything but insane yeah it's awesome it's incredible yeah [Music] the route continually changes and just when you think it can't get any better it does but i must warn you it's not all rainbows and sunshine though as some road users clearly ignore the rules of the road like these donkeys so drive carefully we did not see another vehicle until we got back onto the main road heading towards the main bike bridge ferrari road called the a4 what a pleasure [Music] okay you're gonna have to excuse the bumpy recording but uh the other the gopros are memory cards are full so i'm just trying to capture the road that we're traveling on which is absolutely unbelievable it's so much fun look we're going to be late to gonorrhoea but it's not often we get to ride on roads like this in rural areas it's absolutely stunning so i'm sorry if this is a little bit bumpy so [Music] [Music] hello [Music] the tracks eventually opened up to dirt roads and the dirt road eventually opened up to tar road we joined the main bike bridge hirari road just below the rundee river it started getting dark so we decided not to film so much and we headed off to chirezi where we filled up our fuel tanks the gonorrhoea national park was established as a protected area in 1936 as a game reserve and eventually proclaimed the national park in 1975 the park measures just over 5000 square kilometers owing to the vast size rugged terrain and its location away from the main tourist routes large tracks of gonorrhoeae remain untouchable with us so i'm in gonorrhoea national park i know i said that i wouldn't come here and i was irritated with them last time but you know what i decided to swallow my pride and come anyway and i'm actually so glad i did um but the people here are amazing i mean we arrived here probably about hopper seven last night um they came out of their houses to come and help us it's not like south african parks where they would just deny your entry and you'd have to like find alternative accommodation juliana who is the lady that runs the reception she is absolutely amazing she's a friendliest woman that you'd ever meet and she is so willing to help and give advice and do things and go out of the way to help you gonorrhoea is highly recommended it's absolutely fantastic i mean we had a brilliant night at next to the chipinda pools sitting there stars as bright as ever listening to hippos and all all sorts of other sounds in the bush it was absolutely fantastic and [Music] i know i've also said that mana pools is one of my favorite places but it's you know it's hard to to compete with uh gonorrhoea so far we've seen so much more game but the bush is slightly more open than uh what we witnessed that uh monopole so it's probably an unfair comparison but right now we're going down to the causeway where there's a water crossing not sure how much water there is but apparently it is safe to cross even though it's the end of the rainy season and uh hopefully we make it through without getting stuck because i don't want a ford ranger driven by ryan to pull me out of any sort of situation and unfortunately the causeway is a long way from trees so i can't even help myself so i might have to swallow my pride but time will tell tell us how's it here tell us we where we are tell us where we are and how you feel we've just left the chopinda reception uh where we stayed at chibino pools last night and we're driving towards the first water crossing which is uh apparently accessible there's no water it's not very deep at the moment and we've just stopped and had a look over the roondy river i mean look at this view you've got bob abs sticking out higher than any other trees the road right below us that we came in on it's absolutely spectacular and i'm finding it hard to take it all in because it's very surprising and the roads have actually been amazing i mean we we traveled down the main entrance road for about i don't know i'm guessing about 40 kilometers or 30 kilometers and it was perfect perfect condition a couple of corrugations but it was absolutely smooth growing we've seen so much game in the first five kilometers i don't think we're going to make it on to camp before dark as usual so this is gonna rise hey let's enjoy it i'm not sure what kind of ants these are so maybe someone can comment below but the sounds they make is incredible i'll try to capture a chat so listen let's listen to this maybe turn your sound up [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] after visiting the chulojo exclusive campsite we headed back to the causeway to make the crossing we obviously took the route less traveled as has become the tradition on this trip [Music] [Music] um okay so we stopped at the rooney river we're about to do a crossing but these guys are coming across so we decided to let them go first it doesn't look too difficult it's about knee deep at the deepest so it's going to be quite an easy crossing just like sand on the other side might be a bit tricky that little sort of one meter one and a half meter climb out okay here's some lion footprint and i put my cell phone next to it so you can see how big they are there okay so here i go wish me luck okay just to give you an idea how deep it was it barely touched the soul and it was pretty easy ryan's gonna tempt it now let's see how he does ryan also made it without too much difficulty look we didn't even deflate tires but i would suggest deflating tires because the climb out can be a little bit tricky especially if you're towing with a herd of elephants blocking our trek it was a perfect opportunity to have a sundown next to the rundee river always late you know what do you have to say for yourself ryan you know what i would i've got a cold one here i don't need to hear this nonsense my man we've been on some crazy roads though we've been late pretty much every day add two hours on your chute on your trips and just enjoy the adventure what's up after a great evening around the fire and a good rest we awoke and we had a healthy cup of coffee and a bowl of music no wait a healthy bowl of muesli and a cup of coffee so [Music] [Music] both the chipinda pools and chinguli campsites bathrooms were excellent condition and spotless [Music] and what's really nice is both campsites had these run dowels with a cement table in it so you don't have to bring a gazebo with you after using their excellent bathrooms we headed off to the geological cliffs viewpoint [Music] the drive was spectacular and as ryan earlier said add two hours onto your journey and enjoy the trip so the third right here is an amazing [Music] we noticed these vultures and although we had heard lion the night before we wondered if they were circling the kill so we tried to follow them while keeping on the tracks but unfortunately they were circling an area where we couldn't get close to unless we went off the tracks and you obviously don't want to do that in a protected area the bush was really thick in areas and these giraffes were spotted by ryan i have no idea how he spotted because they were quite far off the road but because the bush was so thick you had to be careful of the elephants who seemed to be very aggressive this time of year perhaps it was mating season normally elephants male elephants produce large amounts of hormone which then makes them more aggressive so so we're at the chilojo cliffs we're about 200 meters higher than what we were yesterday in the campsites and down by the river plus minus i'm not willing to go near the edge ryan's laughing at me but it's very high and i can see quite fine from this distance but what a spectacular place and i bet my wife and daughters are laughing at me now also because they know how i get so this is too close to the edge hey we're on the left or right jesus right here i didn't even see him he's right here on the left now the correct thing we should have done after leaving challenger cliff's viewpoint was to head west and then cross the rundee river where we had crossed the day before we decided to hit north east and have a look at what other other crossings which we were told was crossable and as usual we took the less used route to get there [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] okay so we're crossing the roondi river hopefully it's not too deep we haven't deflated tyres but we seem to be doing okay so fingers crossed wish us luck okay there's quite a few tracks you can see the guys have been playing silly buggers on the pair or on the riverbed i can see tracks going out the other side but i have no way of telling how deep it is and with it being hot was five at night and getting dark so i don't think it's worth the risk to be honest i think we got to play on the safe side and not be silly and then just head to the closest game okay so we decided not to try the uh water crossing mainly because it's full of crocodiles and hippos and uh i don't know ryan wouldn't wouldn't uh take his shoes off and and go and test how deep it is for us some unknown reason anyway so now we're racing back to chabinda pools um we've got 60 k's to go only only but it's still it's still got it correct so the gps is still correcting so it's probably about 45ks um so we're going to get there in the dark again ryan's blaming me of course but i'm blaming ryan so i think we actually both guilty but what an adventure as you would say [Music] none of the crossings were crossable because we weren't willing to take a chance and cross and check how deep they were so we've unfortunately have to come back the whole way that we came today which has left us in the dock it's now 6 30 at night it's pitch black i hope we don't get in trouble for this but you know we've got no there's no option basically um if we had managed to cross where everybody told us that we could cross then we would have been a camp an hour and a half two hours ago so but when you see crocodile swimming in the water it's upwards um taking a chance and trying to cross you know or trying to walk the crossing and i'm not willing to drive into a crossing unless i've walked it it's just not worth the risk so we're driving a little bit fast but we've got 30 kilometers to go we're doing well and uh let's just hope we don't get in too much trouble because [Music] now please don't do the same as us obviously the park has rules and they need to be followed and respected and unfortunately we just messed up with our timing and just understand that when you're traveling in a park like on a resort with the roads that they are distances do take a lot longer than normal parks like for example kruger because sometimes you're doing 5-10 kilometers an hour so it is unacceptable behavior to be driving through the park after hours and at night but unfortunately it was unavoidable so we've come to the end of the zimbabwe trip and i must say it's been pleasantly surprising if you ever get the opportunity to travel in zimbabwe do it the people are friendly everybody's smiling kids on the road are waving fuel is available in all major centers yes in one garage in the whole trip i found that well we found that there was no diesel but we drove two kilometers down the road and we found easily you know i would be careful in the smaller towns because sometimes they have power failures and they can't pump fuel but we never experienced that we had fuel everywhere where we needed so i hope you've enjoyed the series i hope i've justified the beauty and the experience of zimbabwe by putting these this series together because one of my biggest concerns was that i wouldn't be able to to express how wonderful this country is to visit so yes some of the places are expensive i save it and visit these places because they're very special [Music] [Music] [Music] so a few thank you first of all i'd like to thank you all for supporting my channel you know helping me grow making uh making comments please carry on please give me criticisms and compliments because it all helps you know second of all i'd like to thank my wife for allowing me to do this journey i mean two weeks away i don't think i've ever been away from my family for so long and then ryan from 4x4 ventures for allowing me to join him on part of his trip thank you for watching it's been an epic trip i will definitely be back and touring the bible [Music] in the next episode we head to botswana for a midlife escape we fly over the okavango we swim in narcobenga and then we float on venga my brother heath decides to join us on his first trip ever to botswana [Music] we then head to the far south of the makharikari pans and visit coconia island we meet up with tyron from adventure with toggs and his brother cameron who decide to spend a couple of days with us and we head back to south africa via some cut lines and i give a demonstration on bad plan bruce do you want to explain yourself okay so this is a lesson i planned this oh it's a planned exhibition of what not to do they've taught me so much this trip already appreciate this

Channel: Overlanding with Bruce

Views: 67,432

Keywords: overlanding zimbabwe, overlanding africa, overlanding lifestyle, overlanding adventure, travel zimbabwe, mana pools zimbabwe, wildlife zimbabwe, adventure overland show, adventure overland 4x4, adventure overland, zimbabwe offroad, zimbabwe wildlife, zimbabwe adventure, zimbabwe road trip, zimbabwe travel vlog, zimbabwe wildlife safari, off road adventure 4x4, adventure trip, youtubevloggersouthafrica, roadtrip, adventure, overlanding, newdefender, landrover

Id: J3UNkF-jl2w

Length: 39min 5sec (2345 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2022