Mana Pools National Park

Zimbabwe's Mana Pools National Park is one of the most spectacular reserves on the continent, thanks to the looming Zambezi Escarpment which forms a dramatic backdrop for the broad river that shares its name. In the drier months, this waterway sustains a wide array of wildlife who leave the relative safety of the park's ancient gallery forests for the grassy floodplains in search of a drink.  

We visited in June 2019 and found Mana Pools to be refreshingly quiet, and even more so as we headed inland to the remote Chitake Spring. Aside from being incredibly photogenic and secluded, here are two great reasons to visit this UNESCO World Heritage Site: 

Mana Pools is one of the very few national parks in which visitors can walk (with a permit from the Parks office). You can also canoe the Zambezi River,  dodging crocs and hippos. Best of all, you can do both activities on the same trip and often on the same outing! 

For safety reasons and to greatly maximise your chances of good wildlife sightings, I’d strongly suggest you do them with an experienced and qualified guide. Unlike more popular safari parks such as Etosha and Kruger, the animals in Mana Pools are quite shy and not at all habituated to humans or visitors. You'll find that they run away from vehicles and humans in general. Also the rugged terrain means that an experienced guide will be able to show you plenty of interesting things you would never have found on your own. 

When we visited in June 2019, the bush was already thinning out and very dry. As such, we saw a mind-blowing variety of wildlife and witnessed some incredible behaviour, including both crocodile and lion hunting impala, a leopard kill and a bull elephant in musth. 

Getting to Mana Pools is not cheap nor is it straightforward.  We flew from Australia into Johannesburg, and then into Zambia for these two reasons:

1. At the time of booking (February 2019) flights into Lusaka, Zambia from Jo’burg (on SAA’s Airlink) were much cheaper than into Harare, Zimbabwe (AUD300 vs AUD600pp one-way!)

2. Lusaka is closer to Mana Pools than Harare by road (5.5 hours not including stops).

To save us having to overnight in Zambia's capital, I booked the earliest flight out of Jo’burg, 0635hrs, which saw us arriving at 0830hrs. 

As for ground transfers, I arranged an airport pickup on arrival through Hersov Tours. Given Lusaka's terminal was all but deserted when we arrived, it was easy to work out who our driver was! He would take us by road out of Lusaka to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border, where we would be seen through customs. Once our Zimbabwe visas were processed, we were driven to Mana Pools National Park - the starting point of our canoe trip.

In June 2019, the transfers with Hersov would work out to be around USD1700 in total return for our group of five.

Aside from there being no tourists at Lusaka Airport, there were also no foreign visitors at the Chirundu border post. Chirundu looked like it was mostly used by freight truck drivers, with plenty of local food, drink. mobile phone card and currency exchange vendors plying their wares. 

Once inside the big brick building, expect to wait. Everything is hand-written; visitor names for instance, are written down in dog-eared exercise books stored inside ancient filing cabinets where books are filed by country. Street vendors popped in to sell barbecued corn and potato chips to on-duty customs officials, and it was not uncommon for their friends to drop in for an unhurried chat. This is just the way things are, so remind yourself that you're on holiday. Be polite and keep smiling! 

We would come back here again on our return to Lusaka.

At the start of the dirt road leading into Mana Pools National Park, we were met by Mark and Manu, our guides from Natureways. From here, it was a 2-hour open vehicle drive to our campsite. However, our journey took a lot longer than that because we made a few impromptu stops to look at lounging lions, for lunch under a shady baobab and to see African wild dogs on foot!