It’s not often that we both manage to get away together over Easter but this year we were lucky. Despite the kennels that we trust being full we managed to find someone to come and house-and-dogsit over the weekend. We have been to the Humani Ranch camp on the Turgwe River before in December 2014 but this time we had downgraded from the rather expensive chalets to the glamping section with a group of friends from Mutare on the eastern border. It was comfortable enough.
It was a long 6 hour driver to the camp in the south-east of Zimbabwe but there had been recent rain and the countryside was greener than it had been a few months earlier. The recent cyclone Idai had expended most of it’s force before getting to this part of the countryside so a few bridges had experience damage but had already been fixed. The bush was thick and water plentiful so we didn’t see much game and that we did was very skittish. The Savé Valley Conservancy, of which the ranch is a part, is also a hunting area and most game did not wait to see if we were friendly or not. Still, it was good to get out of Harare for a while and enjoy the bush.
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- We stopped here for afternoon tea. Paradise.
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- Also looks like an hibiscus
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- It was not the best time of year to see game (too much bush) or flowers which were around earlier in the season.
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- Lala palm trees (http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_lala_palm.html) near the Save River. The fruit are sometimes known as vegetable ivory and can be carved.
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- Flower of the “Chinese lantern” tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichrostachys_cinerea
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- Ground hornbills roosting in a tree at sunset. Huge birds, they will eat anything smaller than themselves. https://www.sanbi.org/animal-of-the-week/southern-ground-hornbill/
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- A bug holds on for dear life near a pan
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- A pair of giraffe. Game was sparse and skittish.
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- Looks a lot like a hibiscus but I have no idea what it is.
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- Butterflies were everywhere but unlike this one, sledom stayed still
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- Just a small pretty flower
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- One very hairy caterpillar
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- The insect life was rich
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- The baobab, Adansonia digitalis, icon of the lowveld of Zimbabwe
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- Clowning around. There just has to be one in every group.
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- A large male baboon chills at Karen Paulilo’s Turgwe Hippo Trust property https://www.facebook.com/savethehippos/
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- Croc catches early morning sun just upstream of the ford (no bridge to wash away here)
Zimbabwe Absurdity 