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MARK E VELEIGH HE ADS TO ONE OF AFRICA’S BEST-KEPT SAFARI SECRE TS, ZIMBABWE’S L ARGEST NAT IONAL RESERVE, TO E XPERIENCE F IRST- HAND THE MOST POPULATED WILDLIFE PARK IN THE WORLD.

PHOTOG R A PH Y BY M A RK E V EL E IG H

t’s the end of the dry season and the Zimbabwean savannah has been burned the colour of a lion’s hide. If you know Hwange National Park as well as our guide Spike Williamson does, you can already see hints of the promise of coming rains. The Kalahari apple-leaf trees have started to signal the long-

awaited wet season with a faint, misty shimmer of purple flowers. The so-called rain tree is also slowly coming into full-flower. The tree is named not from a predictive ability, but because of the vast numbers of insects that live on it. “These insects – known as frog-hoppers – tap into the rising sap,” Williamson explains. “They consume and excrete it at an alarming rate. If there’s a high concentration of insects it literally rains under the tree.”

Williamson describes the drizzle as “almost pure water” but, despite the burgeoning afternoon heat, I resist the temptation of a rain-tree shower.

Williamson has spent much of his life in Zimbabwe’s biggest national park and knows the African bush as few others do.

“My father was an ecologist here, so as a kid this was my backyard,” he says as we stare across the vast plains. As a backyard it’s hard to beat. In Hwange you have the feeling that you’re seeing Africa as it was when the first explorers set eyes on it. With its vast size and super-abundant wildlife, Hwange is what safaris used to be – and should be – all about. The few luxury lodges and camps that are spread throughout the park are so secluded it is easy to sense the great unbroken expanses of desert and acacia woodland.

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I’d woken in my spacious chalet at the remote Nehimba Lodge to the sound of elephants splashing in the waterhole beyond my veranda. I can make out the sinister cackle of a troop of hyena heading homeward from their nightshift, then the territorial roar of a lion carried faintly across the veld. I waited long enough to be sure the lion was heading in the opposite direction, and by the time I wandered up to the lodge building for breakfast, the elephants were already making a good start on drinking the swimming pool dry.

No matter where you go in this land of giants, you’re rarely far from an elephant. Hwange is one of the great African secrets and you are guaranteed to be massively outnumbered by these huge creature.

LEARNING THE ROPES

Once the royal hunting grounds of Ndebele kings, Hwange was established as a game reserve in 1928 and originally named Wankie after a local chief. With the fall of the Mugabe regime, tourists are returning to Zimbabwe in increasing numbers, and it looks like Hwange might finally start to get the

recognition (and valuable conservation funding) it so desperately needs.

Zimbabwe is famous in the safari industry for its guide training programme that is the most rigorous in Africa, if not the world. Each year only about a dozen new guides pass these exams out of the hundreds who apply, and the training goes far beyond the normal Big Five safari sightings.

I hadn’t expected that my Hwange safari would combine aspects of ancient history and bush survival, but Nehimba head guide Ty Hurst was keen to clue me in on some of the novel ways in which Hwange’s first settlers dealt with the harsh desert environment.

In the midst of the herds of zebra, wildebeest and kudu, Hurst spots a little clump of the nondescript weeds he’d been looking for: “This is ‘bushman soap’, otherwise known as small leaf stud-thorn. It’s one of the most amazing plants I’ve heard of, but modern science seems to have completely overlooked it.” As instructed, I rub the leaf between my hands as Hurst pours a few drops of water over it. Suddenly my hands are slippery with soap suds, but the lather simply sinks into the skin so there is no need to rinse off.

Above: The open fronted

thatch roof lounge area

at Nehima lodge, which

sits on its own private

estate within the

Hwange National Park.

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“It makes great moisturiser and even has sunblock properties.” he tells me.

Then we’re off, somewhere between Makalolo Pan and Ngweshla Pan (which means ‘place of the leopard’), when we come across a whole pride of hunting lionesses. A dozen of these mighty cats walks straight down the trail towards us and passes within less than a metre of the open-sided Land Rover where I sit motionless. I need not have been nervous because the hunters had other priorities. Spotting a small herd of kudu in the scrub on the hilltop they start to fan out. The experienced older females take positions of ambush and the more energetic youngsters sidle forward, ears back and shoulders low, into charging positions. From our rear-guard position we can see the black spots on the back of the lionesses’ ears as the instinctive hunting strategy begins to develop. The fleet-footed kudu also have a trick or two up their sleeves, their sharp eyes alerting them to danger and they leap away into the dense acacia before the lionesses start to charge.

THE FORCE OF NATURE

Hwange is famous for its super-prides, with more than 20 big cats hunting together. It’s unusual, however, for lions to target something as huge and powerful as an adolescent elephant, but the Nehimba pride became notorious recently when a TV crew (working with Hurst) produced a dramatic documentary called Lions Behaving Badly that shocked many viewers with footage of the pride undertaking an elephant hunt. The world’s largest land mammal is the dominant species in Hwange and it is only natural that the area’s apex predators would come up with a strategy for dealing with this surplus.

“It’s hard for lions to kill such a huge beast effectively,” says Hurst, who’s seen more than his share of such hunts over the years. “But they can administer fatal injuries then simply back off and wait until the herd is forced to abandon the victim.”

When the park was founded 90 years ago Ted Davison, the head warden, realised it was not going to survive unless waterholes were installed to keep the animals – and therefore the tourists – in the area. When he sank the first pump-driven boreholes near the spot that is still known today as Davison’s Camp (one of the park’s loveliest tented camps) there were only about a thousand elephants in the park.

Today there are more than 60 diesel- and solar-driven waterholes in Hwange, but the permanent water sources that effectively created one of Africa’s most diverse national parks have also led to a massive elephant overpopulation. In 1980 conservationist Dick Pitman estimated in his book Wild Places of Zimbabwe, “Today there are probably 13,000 or more and, as it stands, Wankie probably now supports its viable maximum number of elephants.”

Almost 40 years after Pitman wrote those words there are an estimated 46,000 elephants in Hwange. Originally, the government provided funds for the maintenance the waterholes, but when those funds began to dry up so did the holes. So Zimbabwean conservationists made a plan. Today scores of boreholes across Hwange are financed by the camps themselves, and by organisations like Friends of Hwange and Bhejane Trust.

Over the course of eight days I drive hundreds of kilometres through Hwange and stay in five camps. I saw several thousand

elephants and scores of lions and had four leopard sightings. At an exclusive camp called The Hide I spent a night listening to a pack of wild dogs squabbling with elephants right outside my tent.

On my last day in the park we stop near a waterhole to stretch our legs. The driver barely has time to mix sundowners before a boisterous herd of about 20 elephants appears out of the dusty veil of acacia. They come blustering past our vehicle like a gang of hooligans invading the local bar, passing within trunk-reach of the G&T I’d balanced on the bonnet before my hasty retreat.

It is a fitting reminder that we are fleeting visitors in a land of giants, a unique wilderness where elephants outnumber foreign tourists by almost 200 to one.

Above and right: No matter

where you are in Hwange,

you’re never far from the

more than 100 species of

mammals that call it home.

GETTING THERE

There are flights from all main Australian cities to Johannesburg, where there are connections to Victoria Falls Airport.

From here you can get an hour-long charter to Hwange National Park or drive, which takes four and a half hours and includes two hours in a game-viewing vehicle.

STAY

The dry season (June to October) is the best time to travel when wildlife is concentrated around the waterholes.

Nehimba Lodge imvelosafarilodges.com

The Hide thehide.com

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THE BIG CATS IN INDIA

If tigers are on your must-see list, then India is a must-do. It has the largest tiger population in the world with Kanha National Park (kanhanationalpark.com) acknowledged as one of the best wildlife reserves in the country. At Singinawa Jungle Lodge (singinawajunglelodge.com) head out with a naturalist who’ll point out the variety of species in the park. Back at the lodge, take some time to peruse the museum, which houses some of the finest pieces from local tribal artists and don’t miss the new addition to the lodge, a purpose-built platform overlooking grasslands perfect for bird watching.

Four hours’ drive west there’s another key location for those seeking out tigers. Pench National Park (penchnationalpark.com) is located in southern Madhya Pradesh and inspired Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book series. Declared a sanctuary in 1965, it was named a national park 10 years later. Here you’ll find Bengal tigers, chitals, jungle cats, wolves, Indian leopards, gaur, four-horned antelopes and sloth bears. The region is home to Project Tiger, a government initiative to protect and conserve the big cats. On the northern side of the park, where there are no other lodges, you’ll find Jamtara Wilderness Camp (jamtarawilderness.com). Its 10

luxury tents (pictured below) are surrounded by arjuna trees and an ancient banyan that’s rooted on a dry riverbed. Book the Star Bed – it’s built on farmland and a portion of the night’s rate is paid directly to the local farmer. There are also resident naturalists who can take you walking into the park or through the village, where you can see how locals churn sugarcane juice into unrefined sugar.

C L O S EC L O S EC L O S EE N C O U N T E R S

FROM THE VAST L ANDSCAPES OF SOUTH AFRICA TO THE JUNGLES OF BORNEO, WE’ VE FOUND THE BEST LUXURY

WILDL IFE E XPERIENCES AROUND THE GLOBE.

RHINOS RULE IN NEPAL

UNESCO World Heritage-listed Chitwan National Park (chitwannationalpark.gov.np) is the first protected area of Nepal, with 70 percent of its mass made up of forest. It’s home to 550 native bird species, including the great hornbill, ruddy shelduck and pied kingfisher, as well as about 68 species of mammals. The Bengal tigers, leopards, wild dogs and sloth bears are in abundance,

but the park’s main attraction is the greater one-horned rhinoceros. There’s also an elephant safari, museum and seven resorts within the park. One of those, the Meghauli Serai (tajhotels.com) is the first Taj Safaris property to open in Nepal. The 30-room lodge epitomises its heritage, right down to the chandelier in the lounge made with 10,000 hand-painted Nepalese beads. From here, resort guides lead safaris and cultural walks through the local village, and canoe expeditions on the Rapti River.

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GOING APE IN BORNEOFor a jungle safari experience, there’s nothing better than a close encounter with a great ape. These days, however, there are only two places in the world where you can see an orangutan in the wild – the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in South-East Asia. One of the best spots to observe these amazing creatures is Camp Leakey (orangutanfoundation.org.au) in Borneo’s Tanjung Puting National Park. The forest is home to the largest population of wild orangutans in the world, with many of them rescued and relocated here by the Orangutan Foundation International. The park also hosts 230 species of birds, along with clouded leopards, civets, bearded pigs, Malaysian sun bears, deer and two species of crocodiles. For a true luxury experience, get there on Silversea Cruises Silver Discoverer (silversea.com), which has a pool, fitness centre and beauty spa. From the ship, board a Zodiac to get to Camp Leakey. On these tours guests are joined by internationally renowned environmentalist, anthropologist and orangutan expert Dr Biruté Galdikas.

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RIVERSIDE ROAMING IN SOUTH AFRICA

Say safari and most people think of Kruger National Park (krugerpark.co.za), and it’s not hard to see why – it’s where you can experience a true wildlife experience in every sense. There’s an abundance of wildlife, including the big five, but also more than 300 bird species and 145 different mammal species. Head

to Sabi Sands Game Reserve, a 65,000-hectare reserve that shares an unfenced border with Kruger. Here, a limited number of open safari vehicles are permitted to drive off track meaning closer wildlife encounters for lodge guests. Stay at one of the Dulini Game Reserve (dulini.com) properties, such as Dulini River Lodge (pictured above), which, as its name suggests, has eight thatched suites located on the riverfront where wildlife roam freely.

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ELUSIVE GORILLA IN RWANDA’S RAINFOREST

Volcanoes National Park (volcanoesnational parkrwanda.com) in northwest Rwanda is a sanctuary for the endangered mountain gorilla. Base yourself at Bisate Lodge (wilderness-safaris.com), adjacent to the park, and contribute to a community project focusing on the indigenous reforestation of a 42-hectare site. This project has already seen about 22,000 trees planted and led to the reintroduction of a number of mammal species to the area. As well as giving back to the environment, you can go gorilla tracking and, when you find one of the wild families, spend about an hour in their presence.

SOAR ABOVE A STAMPEDE IN TANZANIA

Serengeti National Park (serengetinationalpark.com) in Tanzania is best known for having the ‘big five’ we all expect to see on a safari: lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants and rhinoceros. It’s also where you’ll see the great wildebeest migration, and the best view is from above. Take a hot air balloon with Serengeti Balloon Safaris (ballonsafaris.com) founded by Tony Pascoe and Colin

MacKinnon, pioneers of commercial ballooning. They’ve hosted royalty, presidents, heads of state and celebrities in their flying baskets and this year carried their 200,000th passenger. They also take flights over Ruaha (further south), which is the largest national park in Tanzania. If you’re in the Serengeti, stay at Singita’s Serengeti House or Sasakwa Lodge (singita.com). The latter has a new oversized, ultra-luxurious suite for two with private pool, kitchenette, private butler, vehicles and its own private access road.

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ABU DHABI’S ARABIAN ‘UNICORN’

In the 1970s the Arabian oryx was all but extinct, but in what has been hailed a conservation success story, the Arabian ‘unicorn’, as it’s been dubbed, is now thriving. On Sir Bani Yas Island (visitabudhabi.ae) it is one species among the 10,000 animals, including gazelles, giraffes, hyenas and cheetahs,

that roam free over more than half the island. It is also home to the UAE’s only discovered Christian monastery, believed to have been built around 600 CE. Stay at Anantara’s Al Sahel Villa Resort (anantara.com) in one of 30 villas in the middle of Sir Bani Yas Island’s 4100-hectare Arabian Wildlife Park. Here you can experience wildlife drives, culture and history tours, mountain biking and water-sports activities.

H O W T O E N T E R

1 Follow @ eccoaustralia and @ aptouring on Instagram

2 Post a photo of your latest adventure wearing ECCO shoes

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