Truck Day 1 – Victoria Falls to Hwange National Park

After 2.5 simply awesome days, this morning we leave the magnificent tumbling falls behind us and head south to Hwange National Park aboard our Nomad Africa truck. Our guide is Rensom and driver Casper.  Its a 200km drive along fairly good paved roads.

Hwange is the largest of Zimbabwe’s national parks and offers excellent opportunities for viewing the diversity of wildlife that calls the park home.

We stop enroute passing a large number of coal mines many of which have seen Chinese investment, capitalising on the rich array of natural resources Zimbabwe has to offer.

Just before we arrive at Hwange we stop to visit the Painted Dog Conservation Centre to learn about these endangered animals that personally we knew nothing about. Painted dogs (lycaon pictus), also known as African wild dogs or painted wolves are one of the most endangered predators in Africa with less than 7,000 believed to be left in the wild. They can now only be found in small pockets of Africa, with one of the last strongholds being in Zimbabwe. We visit the rehabilitation centre and also observe a pack of 3 Painted Dogs that are resting in the shade about 200m from the Centre.

Lunch consists of freshly cooked burgers in a bun with a mixed salad and cheese and oranges quarters for dessert. Hoping that this is a sign of things to come as the food was tasty and plentiful. We drive for approx 30 mins and arrive at our location for the next 2 nights.

We’re staying at Miombo Elephant Camp & Little Miombo just outside Hwange National Park and on arrival we’re advised that as they’re not full we don’t have to camp and we’ll be staying in a room instead. We’ll it’s actually a luxury safari tent and it’s fabulous. We have our own water-hole which is floodlit so we’re hopeful for some night game sightings particularly elephants.

Tomorrow morning we’re scheduled to go on a whole day game drive leaving at 7am.