ZIMBABWE'S ATTRACTIONS

Gonarezhou National Park

Remote and rough with few good roads and limited facilities, Gonarezhou National Park shelters a profusion of rare species along its lush, riverine belts – oases in the unyielding dry lowfeld. Gonarezhou is a Shona name meaning refuge of the elephants. This was the stamping ground in the 1920s of the notorious poacher, Cecil Barnard, who felled the heavily-toothed Dhlulamithi (Taller-than-the-trees).

As his name suggests, Dhlulamithi was inordinately large, his tusks reckoned to be the largest taken south of the Zambesi, with a combined weight of 110kg. Set aside as a national Park in 1967, much of Gonarezhou is accessible only by sturdy vehicles: but the rewards are enormous, with every Zimbabwean terrain found within its borders.

The park has one of only two nyala antelope concentrations in the country, the best population of the knee-high suni antelope, and the striped king cheetah is found nowhere else.