Lake Chivero Day Trip

Yup, that’s a rhino

About 37 miles southwest of Harare is Lake Chivero National Park.  Being so close to Harare, Lake Chivero makes a perfect day trip – we went on a Sunday.

The tripadvisor page for Lake Chivero has lots of good information on it.  The park is accessible off the road connecting Harare and Bulawayo

$3 per adult (kids are free) and $3 per vehicle is the cost of an unaccompanied game drive around Lake Chivero.  At it’s longest and widest dimensions, the lake is approximately 12 x 8 km across, and the game park is the swath of protected land surrounding the lake.

Animals roam free (up to the game gate)

The entrance fee to Lake Chivero allows visitors  to embark on an unaccompanied game drive in one’s own vehicle.  The whole day (Sunday), we saw only one other vehicle.   The drive is not all that challenging, but a 4X4 vehicle is nonetheless recommended.

The Animals at Lake Chivero

The animals at Lake Chivero, all of which roam free, impressed us.  We saw monkeys, ostrich, gazelle, and beautiful bird life.

By far, the white rhino was the most impressive.  The lady at the entrance gate had mentioned that there were white rhino at Lake Chivero, and we were eager to spot one.  We had been searching for one all day.  At about 2:00 p.m., as we were driving through a rather nondescript section of the park, we looked to our right and saw what appeared to be a large grey boulder.  We stopped our vehicle, and the thing began to slowly move.  It was unmistakeable – it was the white rhino!  It was just about as large as our SUV.

Michelle took a little stroll up to the rhino to get a better look…