The beautiful thing about riding in this area is that you can take any turn and you will be surprised by what is around the corner, we went as far as Chipinge looking for dirt roads, asking locals and police, I realise now that we could have found some awesome riding through Tshingwesi and onto the Gonarezhou National Park, but it is all good.. there awaits something for us next time. We were quickly realising that it is almost impossible to blow through this area, there is so much to explore and find that no doubt it will keep me returning plenty of times. Even thought this was just the 1st day in Zim we had already seen so much and we just knew this was going to be an epic ride.
We cruised past Thomas Moodie’s grave, he is the oke who founded Chimanimani which was named after the mountain range we were hoping to ride through the following day, but for now my focus of attention was on the road that lay before us.. we had finished up our dirt riding for the day, before us lay a stretch of 45km of WTF. I can distinctly remember thinking in my helmet that it is not possible for there to be an even better road than the one we have just been on.. for the Cape Town okes.. take Franschoek pass, camber the corners and stretch it out for 45km with a forrect on either side of the road.. to say I was laughing in my helmet was an understatement.. the 45km of tar leading up to Chimanimani is rated as one of my top 5 international tar road rides of all time.. it was lekkkkkeeerrrrr. I am not taking anything away from the dirt we just spent hours on, but after hours of shake rattle and roll over dust and rocks, having a great tar road is a welcome relief and great fun.
Chimanimani is a dump of a small town that clearly has’nt had any kind of help economically which is typical of so many small towns in the area, it is such a pity, you can see the potential, but without economic growth these places are just going to decay into ruin.
I would have thought that the people who live in these parts would be more inclined to help themselves by at least putting up signs leading you to potential tourist destinations.. maybe I am wrong in my thinking, but here we are.. tourists, coming into a town and there is nothing, no signboards, no information office, not even a piece of paper with a basic map and where to find stuff, you just have to wing it, and wing it we did, riding through the town it was now starting to get slightly dark and I have no problem in saying that I was feeling more than fatigued by this time, we had been on the road since 6:30am and it was now going dusk.. I was tired and hungry but the locals pointed us in the right direction and soon we had our resting spot..
Our final destination.. The Frog & Fern, another place we got off of Wayne Ducks RR, although all we got from the RR was the places name, we did’nt know what to really expect when we arrived, yet alone if they would be open. We arrived at the gate of Frog & Fern to be greeted by a sign saying ‘ for reservations please call….’ Oh flip, please don’t say you have to book in advance. We were mulling around getting ready to phone when a lady walked down from the main house to greet us. She was very polite and factual.. Camping $15, lodges, I forget now, probably around $45, they are strictly self catering.. bummer. We immediately felt spoilt by our experience at Lion & Elephant where camping was $5 and they had a full restaurant, oh well, it was getting dark.. lets set up camp. With that we set up camping and that was the last we saw of our host.
Not to nit pick, but just an observation on the different standards between places.. where the Lion & Elephant had security, there was no security here, where the last campsite was well swept and maintained this one looked like it was’nt attended to in a long time, at 3 times the price these differences became obvious which was compounded by the electricity failure they were currently experiencing. On a positive front the showers and toilets were top class. We set up camp and Martin headed off into the dark night to source food and a local sim card while I made a fire and got a bed of coals ready hoping he would return with some prime Zim steaks.
Apparently the words 'prime' and 'steak' are not words you can use in the same sentence in this town as Martin returned with 2 of the worst looking T Bones I have ever seen in my life, they were so bad we were not sure if we should even eat it or not, they steaks were aquired from the local hotel, who by the way offer camping at $5 cheaper and offer security and food. Thankfully Martin bought back up.. hamburgers and chips.. excellent.. I threw the T bones on the fire anyway and cooked them extra well done.
