Zimbabwe’s Polar Bear Club
Dear Family and Friends,
Come with me to the mountains in Zimbabwe this week. This is the place where the roads wind and curve and bend as you get ever higher and the views are spectacular. Rolling hills and vast green valleys, steep cliffs and deep gorges, silver streams and rushing rivers. The mountains are blue in the distance and you push on, passing sawmills and timber plantations where the trees are immense, reaching for the sky.
The early winter days here in the mountains are of blue sky and drifting clouds which often gather in the afternoon and close in over the mountain tops and drop down into the foothills before dark.
The temperature plunges the moment the sun falls behind the tops of the mountains and soon you must go indoors and light the log fire because the nights are very cold here.
Chimanimani is a spectacular mountainous wilderness area and a place where time seems to have slowed right down. The name Chimanimani means ‘to be squeezed together’ and describes the narrow pass in the mountain range through which the Musapa River flows.
It’s easy to get lost here as routes, tracks and paths head off in many different directions. We plan our routes with care, check the maps, wait for the mist to be burnt off by the sun, pack a picnic and then head out into the sunshine.
In the foothills of the mountains, Outward Bound, the outdoor learning centre which started in 1961, is open again. Last time I tried to get there four or so years ago, the road had been barricaded by a boom and a wooden shack and men who said they were war veterans would not less me pass.
Outward Bound is in the history, hearts and dreams of countless Zimbabwean children. This is the place where we went on school visits to learn about life skills, leadership and team building; a place of excitement, adventure and happy memories. At the end of a long gradually descending trail you come to a spectacular waterfall plunging down a cliff and into the beautiful Tessa’s Pool.
Surrounded by immense trees, vines, creepers, ferns and moss, the water is crystal clear and freezing cold. It is into Tessa’s Pool that generations of school children have become members of The Polar Bear Club and get a Certificate if they go for the 5am freezing cold swim in Tessa’s Pool.
A trip to Chimanimani is not complete without a visit to Bridal Veil Falls on the other side of the village where a waterfall drops 50 metres into another stunning, clear-water pool where there is, according to local legend, a resident water nymph.
Zimparks (National Parks) have done a superb job here recently, upgrading the campsite, building a superb new ablution block with solar showers for campers and erecting four pretty stone patterned gazebos by the river below the falls.
Kudos to Zimparks who, as I write this Letter, have just given oral evidence before a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Tourism and the Hospitality Industry in Zimbabwe.
Nomsa Chitsaka from Zimparks said the deteriorating state of its infrastructure, poor road networks, rundown accommodation facilities and inadequate funding have collectively led to declining domestic tourist interest in National Parks. (newZimbabwe.com)
So much more needs to be done in our National Parks and it would be remiss of me not to write about the alien plant which is running wild along the roads in Chimanimani and Eastern Highlands areas.
The roadside verges are densely populated with the Bee Bush, an invasive Brazilian shrub which was originally introduced as a nectar plant for bees into Mozambique but has now spread like wildfire.
Driving along roads lined with dense walls of the Bee Bush feels like being in a tunnel and it is alarming to see how widespread it is in Chimanimani, Chipinge and other Eastern Highlands areas.
A 2017 study conducted in the Burma Valley by the University of Zimbabwe’s Biological Science Department described it as a “serious invader of disturbed areas at lower altitudes around parts of the border mountains of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.” (Ngarakana & Kativu).
We can only hope that authorities do something about eradicating this bush which is suffocating the natural environment here and also moving into timber, avocado, macadamia and coffee plantations and other agri-business projects here.
With all these thoughts of Zimparks and this alien bush invading our spectacular Eastern Highlands areas, I stopped on my return journey home for a quick picnic lunch at a pretty little church yard on the highway.
An elderly lady who was overseeing the church came and greeted me and I shared my sandwiches with her. We did not talk much but we didn’t need to, we know how things used to be and how they should be now, if only the wealth from our country’s natural resources came back here, to these beautiful places, and not into the pockets of people in power.
There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.
Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 25th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.
Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)
Love Cathy 22 May 2025.
Copyright © Cathy Buckle https://cathybuckle.co.zw/
If you enjoy my stories about Zimbabwe’s wild places look for my ‘Zimbabwe Timeless Beauty’ evocative photo-books which are available to order from my website https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ or www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018. Please visit my website for further details on all my books, to link into my social media sites, to contact me or to see pictures that accompany these Letters.