When I read the subject of the @qurator Photo Quest of this week (Safari) it immediately brought me back 20 year (damn I'm old 🤣). Way back in 2005 my wife and I (we only knew eachother for one year) made our first 'big trip' together. We decided to make a tour through the southern part of Africa.
Beeing around eachother 24/7, often under less favorable conditions like after sleeping in tents and being tired from traveling around, seemed a great way to test our relationship.
And it worked out because 20 years later we are still together! With memories of a great trip we made.

Although is has been 20 years since then, the Qurator contest inspired me to create a travel blog about this memorizable trip we made!

The trip

Back in 2005 we joined an organized trip through the southern part of Africa. We started in Joburg, South Africa and went all the way round through Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and back to Cape Town, South Africa. It was a truly unforgettable trip!
During the trip we stayed on different locations where we did some excursions. Among those places were quite a lot of National Parcs like Matopos (Zimbabwe), Okavanvo (Botswana), Ethosha, Namib Naukluft (Namibia).
The complete roundtrip took us 5 weeks and there is so much to show and tell that I will focus on one single park in tis post; Matopos National Park in Zimbabwe.

Because the qurator contest will pick the first photo in the blog for the contest I will share the photo that was most memorizable during one of the safari trips which was an encounter with a white rhino during a waling safari!
I'll explain more about it later in the post!

Matopos National Park

One of the first parks we visited was Matopos National Park in Zimbabwe. Matopos is in the southern part of Zimbabwe near Bulawayo. It is the oldest park of Zimbabwe and was created in 1926. The park is over 400 square kilometers big.
The park is home to animals like rhinos, leopards, and many birds, but it also has some ancient rock paintings.

We did our excusion in Matopos with a jeep, which are commonly used by rangers in national parks when people want to spot wildlife.
It was the first park we were visiting during our trip, so we were quite excited. The ranger, a very experienced one, tempered our expectations a bit. He explained that you always have to be lucky to spot wild animals. It's not a zoo he said.

The ranger really knew a lot about the park and nature in general. The funny thing was that he always walked barefoot, which is quite a thing. Not only because of the droppings of animals (like the ones below), but there are also a lot of pointy rocks and thorns everywhere.

The ranger carries a rifle he called Betsy. He carier Betsy along because of the wild animals in the park that can be very dangerous. He told us he had only had to use Betsy once. That was for a warning shot for a rhinoceros that was agressive.

And that was what he was looking for; a white rhino. Not an angry one though. It took us a while before we found a trail. Fresh droppings on the path showed us that there was one in the neighbourhood. And finally we managed to spot one. We drove closer with the jeep and then the ranger asked us to get out of the jeep. Wait, what!? Yes, he asked us to get out of the jeep, so we could get closer to this magnificent animal.
He instructed us on how we should behave. Rhinos have a very bad eyesight and we would have to stay in a straight line begind the ranger, so he wouldn't notice us.

It was such a thrilling experience. We slowly shuffeled closer to this massive beast. An adult white rhino usually weighs between 1,800 and 2,700 kilograms. The males are heavier than the females. Big males can even reach up to 3,500 kg. You do think to yourself; What if he attacks us? You really won't stand a chance! But the rhino stayed calm, hardly even noticed us and kept doing what he was doing.

I had quite a good zoom lens on my camera, so I could really make some really cool close ups of the rhino. It also helped that we were just a couple of meters away from it.

It was a bit exciting when he lifted up his head and the giant horn pointed right at us. We then all held our breath until he pointed his head down again.

I even have a short video where you can actually see how close we were:

Other wildlife

The rhino was amazing, but there were a lot more animals in Matopos besides him. There were for instance also a lot of birds like this Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill which is a very common bird in the dry savannahs and woodlands of Southern Africa.

Here are some more pictures of animals we spotted:

Rock paintings

We also drove up to some of the giant rock formations the park has. This area was once inhabited by the San people (also Bushmen). While they stayed there they created some beautiful rock paintings.

It was like walking into an open air museum. Some of these drawings are over 13,000 years old!
They painted a lot of anumals, but also themselves hunting, dancing and perfoming rituals.

It is wonderful to see that a lot of these historic drawings have been preserved quite well. Even after so many years. Not all of them are preserved that well, but it was amazing to see.

Landscapes

The Matopos National Park has some beautiful landscapes. It has grasslands, pools, rock formations and lots of animals. To end this blog I will share some of the panorama pictures I've taken in the park:

It was really nice to dig up these 20 year old photos. It really took me on a trip down memory lane. I hope you enjoyed it just as much as I did.
If you made it til this point; thanks for reading my blog and leave me a comment what you think about it.

Kind regards,

Friendlymoose

Topcomment

Topcomment is an initiative to reward high quality comments.

Hive Photographers

For all Hive Photographers: come join our Hive Photographer Discord Channel

A weekly blog with an overview of all the photography contests on Hive. #photocontests.

Share anything about cycling in the Cycling Community