Rural Headlands, Zimbabwe

View across the land, Headlands, Zimbabwe

Despite its problems, Zimbabwe is still a beautiful country, and everyone should have it on their bucket list. The popular tourist areas like Victoria Falls, Hwange National Park, Kariba, and Matobo National Park, are all stunning in what they have to offer in beautiful landscapes, wildlife and wonderful experiences.

There are, however, equally amazing places tourists never get to see. While David was on his fishing trip, I went to stay with Sue and Terry on a farm in Headlands. The scenery there is awe inspiring. Every morning Sue and I went for a walk, and later in the day, we often went on a drive to visit different areas of the farm.

We visited this dam…

…where the locals like to fish.

While we were looking at the dam, we heard a shout, and turned

our heads to see this guy cheerily waving at us as he was herding cattle down the road.

Another day, we ventured into a private game park on the next door neighbour’s land. There are no predators in that park, so we were able to get out of the car and walk from time to time.

On our walk, we couldn’t fail to see fireball lilies among the rocks.

This bright red flower is actually a cluster of many tiny flowers, each at the end of a solitary stem.

You can see the tiny flowers here.

Each of these plants produces just one flower each season. These flowers only last for 2 weeks before dying off, so we were very lucky to be there in that window of opportunity.

Later, back in the car, we were scanning the bush either side to see if we could see any game. But we failed to notice this giraffe until he stepped across the road right in front of the car!

You would think this one would be obvious, but when he

is standing among the trees, he is well camouflaged.

Once we had seen one, we noticed others standing by the road.

We also managed to spot this eland, one of the biggest antelopes in Africa…

…and we were lucky to see this sable antelope.

The sable is an endangered species in Africa, because of poaching and big game hunting, and there are several programmes to protect the species and to increase its numbers.

Thank you, Sue and Terry, for allowing me to stay with you. I had such a wonderful time. I hope to see you and the rest of the family in Zim, sometime in in 2017.

Elizabeth Coughlan