Zimbabwe
climbing report, April - May 07
by Neil
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Towards
the end of April we arrived at Mount Dema, a large lump of granite about one
hour’s drive from Harare. This venue gave the group the opportunity
to do their first bit of climbing in Zimbabwe, but before anyone could climb,
Lianna had to do some negotiating with the local village chief. After several
hours of waiting, the chief gave the group the OK to climb here. In the next
three days people .JPG)
climbed
existing routes from HS to E3 and put up new routes. Sarah and Riah climbed
a new route called ‘Fat Banana’ which they graded HVS 4c. Matt,
Keeley and Cat put up a new VS 4c called ‘White Farmer’s Couloir’,
and Jez and Pete climbed a new VS called ‘Return of the Tree Surgeon’.
After all this new routing the group travelled to The Rocks Campsite, which
is on the outskirts of Harare.
The next climbing area was Ngomakurira which has some impressive ancient rock-art.
A few metres past the rock paintings there are some good sport climbs so they
kept people busy for the day. Keeley led her first ever sports climb which
was impressive considering that she had not done any climbing before she travelled
out to Africa. In the evening six newbies arrived and the whole group had
a BBQ together at the campsite.
The group travelled back to Mount Dema and spent three more days climbing
at this superb location. Riah and Brent put up a new E1 5c which the called
‘Good Morning Crazy Man’. Other members of the group climbed the
excellent HVS routes Flash, Thieving Monkeys and Loss Virginity.
‘Flash’ follows a zig-zagging crack line up the south face of
the mountain and offers some strenuous climbing in a great position. ‘Thieving
Monkeys’ strats up a groove and finishes up a long exposed slab. ‘Loss
Virginity’ goes up a long slanting crack and offers some good finger-jamming.
Penny mentioned that this is her favourite route of the trip so far. 
The white truck we’d hired to replace Birt, nick-named the Milk-Float,
rolled on to Ngomakurira. This gave the newbies the opportunity to view the
rock art and sample the sprt climbing that this location has to offer. From
here everyone travelled on to Shamu, a single-pitch crag with both sport and
trad climbing. On the first morning most people congregated around a wall
which has three good sport routes. Judah, the driver of the Milk Float, borrowed
climbing kit from various members of the group and climbed one of the routes
on this wall. It was perhaps a bit of a baptism of 
fire
to expect his to do a 6a sport route when he had never climbed before, but
he did very well. Over the next couple of days Riah, Brent, Nick, Monika and
Lucy climbed some harder sport routes, several groups got up the HVS trad
route ‘Moonwalk’, and .JPG)
Mat,
Dan and Martin climbed an E1 that went up a big crack line. One impressive
thing about Shamu was the sunset: the rock face and a large area of sky turned
red as the sun was going down.
From Shamu everyone travelled on to a campsite called Antelope Park. Next
to the camping area there was a safari park with elephants, giraffes, zebras,
vultures, guinea fowl, springbok, impalas, wildebeest, warthogs and many other
animals. The campsite offered safari rides on a horse-drawn carraige. .JPG)
This
was an excellent way of doing the safari because the wild animals did not
get scared as the horse drew closer. This enabled the carriage to get within
a few metres of the animals. Some members of the group played with lion cubs
in an enclosure next to the campsite. Penny said the experience was exhiliarating
and that she felt privileged to get so near to the animals.
The next stop was Victoria Falls, a tourist town in the north-west af Zimbabwe.
Next to the town there are some amazing water falls which the locals call
Mosi-Oa-Tunya, meaning ‘The water that thunders’. It is easy to
see how the waterfall got its name because the flow of water at this point
is incredibly loud and powerful. A huge amount of spray comes out of the river,
so when the sun is shining it is possible to see a rainbow next to the waterfall.
Further
down the river there is a bridge that links Zimbabwe with Zambia. Some of
the braver members of the group chose to do a bungee jump from the bridge
and others took a helicopter ride over the river. After the excitement of
Victoria Falls, it was good to move on to the tranquility of the Etosha National
Park in Namibia, the subject of another report...
