zimbabwe: falls, plains & the zambezi

It is the short scenic helicopter flight over Victoria Falls.

The standard circuit runs 12 to 15 minutes and a longer version 22 to 30. More than one company flies it, each with its own machines, so the type you are given is settled on the day and we name none in advance.

What decides how much the flight adds is the river.

Around April the Zambezi is in full flood and spray hides much of the Falls from the footpaths, so the air is the one place where the whole curtain can be seen.

By October and November the flow has dropped, and the flight shows the bare rock face and the gorges below it instead. Tell us if you would like it booked.

White rhino, very likely; black rhino, a fair chance that nobody should promise.

The reserve began with a few dozen rhino brought from South Africa in the late 1990s and by 2022 held more than 400, enough that it has sent animals to start new populations elsewhere in Zimbabwe.

White rhino graze in the open and gather at the pans, so they are usually the ones met first. Black rhino are browsers, feeding on bushes and shrubs, so they keep to thicker cover and turn up far less predictably.

Nobody publishes an independent count of how often either species is found here, so we put no figure on it. Three nights gives you around half a dozen drives, and that spread is what tilts the odds.

If black rhino are your reason for coming, tell us, and we will ask the lodge to plan drives around them.

You have three chances, but no sighting of wild dogs is ever certain.

Packs use the private reserve at Matetsi, the Mana Pools floodplain and Hwange, where a long-running research project counts upwards of 160 dogs in and around the park, out of fewer than 700 left in Zimbabwe. The difficulty is their range: a pack can use as much as 750 square kilometres, so finding it on any given day takes luck.

The one time that changes is when they den. In Zimbabwe the pups are typically born in May or June, and the adults then hunt out from the den and return to it for 10 to 14 weeks, which makes June to August the most dependable months.

Outside that window, count the dogs as a bonus on a trip you are taking for elephants, rhino and the river.

Mostly by light aircraft, with a drive at each end, because the five areas are spread across the whole country, from Victoria Falls in the north-west to Malilangwe in the far south-east.

The flights are short hops in small propeller aircraft, typically the single-engine Cessna Grand Caravan with up to twelve seats. Seats are generally shared with other travellers, so timings are confirmed close to the day and the aircraft sometimes lands elsewhere first. At Mana Pools you land at the Mana West airstrip and drive to camp.

The luggage limit is what catches people out: 20 kilograms each, hand luggage and camera equipment included, packed in soft bags, not hard cases. A private charter for any leg is also possible.

Tell us early if you plan to bring heavy camera gear, since the allowance is set by the aircraft and not by us.

Our own month ratings put July, August and September top at all five stops.

They bring dry days, thin bush, animals tied to water, Hwange's elephant herds building at the pumped pans, and a Victoria Falls with plenty of water that you can still see clearly.

June is as good everywhere except Hwange, where the herds are still gathering.

October has the heaviest concentrations of game of the year but real heat, easily above 40 degrees in the Zambezi Valley. The camp at Mana Pools closes from December to March for the rains, so the route is not normally run in those months.

April, May and November are the in-between months, and their advantages are real: camp rates are usually lower, other visitors are few, the country is green, the first rains of November bring migrant birds and newborn antelope, and in April and May the Falls are at full flood. The cost is game that is harder to find.

Yes. It is a sample route, and thirteen nights is the long version of it.

Each stop does a different job, which helps when deciding what to keep:

• The Falls
• Mana Pools for walking and canoeing
• Lake Kariba for a safari from the water
• Hwange for elephants at the pans
• Malilangwe for rhino

The two nights on Kariba are the easiest to drop if time is short, and Malilangwe, alone in the far south-east, is the stop that lies furthest from the others.

What is fixed is mostly the calendar and the size of the camps. The Mana Pools camp shuts from December to March, and with ten tents there, nine at Linkwasha and eight suites at Pamushana, the dry months tend to fill early, so the dates often follow the space.

If the houseboat night on Kariba appeals, ask us about adding it.