The Matobo National Park forms the core of the Matobo or Matopos Hills, an area of granite kopjes and wooded valleys commencing some 35 kilometres south of Bulawayo, southern Zimbabwe. The Hills were formed over 2000 million years ago with granite being forced to the surface, this has eroded to produce smooth "whaleback dwalas" and broken kopjes, strewn with boulders and interspersed with thickets of vegetation. Mzilikazi, founder of the Ndebele nation, gave the area its name, meaning 'Bald Heads'.

The Hills cover an area of about 3100 km², of which 424 km² is National Park, the remainder being largely communal land and a small proportion of commercial farmland. The park covers some beautiful scenery including some spectacular balancing rocks and impressive views along the Thuli, Mtshelele, Maleme and Mpopoma river valleys. Part of the national park is set aside as a 100 km² game park, which has been stocked with game including black and white rhinoceros. The highest point in the hills is the promontory named Gulati (1549 m) just outside the north-eastern corner of the park.

History of the Park

The national park is the oldest in Zimbabwe, established in 1926 as Rhodes Matopos National Park, a bequest from Cecil Rhodes. The original park borders extended well to the south and east of the current park. These areas were redesignated for settlement as part of a compromise between the colonial authorities and the local people, creating the Khumalo and Matobo Communal Lands. The park area then increased with the acquisition of World's View and Hazelside farms to the north.

The current name Matobo reflects the correct vernacular pronunciation of the area.

The Matobo Hills were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The area "exhibits a profusion of distinctive rock landforms rising above the granite shield that covers much of Zimbabwe".

Flora

The Matobo Hills is an area of high botanic diversity, with over 200 species of tree recorded in the national park, including the mountain acacia, wild pear and the paperbark tree. There are also many aloes, wild herbs and over 100 grass species.

Fauna

Matobo National Park has a wide diversity of fauna: 175 bird, 88 mammal, 39 snake and 16 fish species. Game include white Rhinoceros, sable antelope, impala and leopard. The park contains the world's densest population of the latter, due to the abundance of hyrax, which make up 50 % of their diet. The game park in the west has been restocked with white and black rhinos, the former from Kwa-Zulu Natal in the 1960s and the latter from the Zambezi Valley in the 1990s. It has been designated as an Intensive Protection Zone for the two species, as well as giraffe, zebra, wildebeest and ostrich.

Matobo National Park contains the highest concentration of black eagles, and breeding pairs of these birds, worldwide. Nearly one third of the world's eagle species breed in the park.

A limnological research centre has operated since 1950 at Maleme Dam and researched species such as the yellow-fish Barbus mattozi.

Geography and Geology

The Matobo Hills are comprised entirely of granite, making up the Matopos Batholith. The granite weathers into fantastic shapes, such as the Mother and Child Kopje. Between the granite mountains, narrow valleys form. These are often swampy valleys known as dambos or vleis,due to runoff from the whaleback mountains. These valleys form the headwaters of the Maleme, Mpopoma and Mtsheleli rivers, and the source of the Thuli River is just east of the park.

Archaeological, Historical and Cultural Sites

San (Bushmen) lived in the hills about 2,000 years ago, leaving a rich heritage in hundreds of rock paintings. There are over 3,000 registered rock art sites[4], with the main periods of painting being between 320 and 500 C.E.. In the many crevices and caves, clay ovens and other historic artefacts have been found, and various archaeological finds date back as far as the Pre-Middle Stone Age, around 300,000 B.P. The following major sites have been developed for tourist access:

* Bambata Cave: Also an archaeological site, located in the west of the national park, north of the game park on the Kezi-Bulawayo road. The frieze includes elephants, giraffes, warthogs, tsessebe and mongoose.

* Nswatugi Cave: Contains beautiful friezes of giraffes, elephants and kudu. Access from Circular Drive, west of Maleme Dam

* Pomongwe Cave: Near Maleme Dam, this site was damaged by a preservation attempt in 1965, where linseed oil was applied to the paintings. Archaeological digs within and downslop of the cave revealed 39,032 stone tools, several hearths, with the main fire-making areas were in the centre of the cave floor. Bone fragments showed that hyrax formed a major part of the meat component of the diet of early human inhabitants of the cave, which also included tortoise and larger game animals. The oldest material on the site is probably pre-Middle Stone Age.

* Inanke Cave: The most extensive paintings, located in a remote cave accessible by a three-hour hike from Toghwana Dam. Along the route of the hike is an iron age furnace.

* White Rhino Shelter: Small site near Gordon Park, on the main tarred road through the park. The frieze includes the outline of a large rhinos, which is said to have inspired the re-introduction of the species in the 1960s.

The hills were the scene of the famous indaba between white settlers and Ndebele leaders in 1896 -- the Second Matabele War -- which ended with the assassination of Mlimo by Frederick Russell Burnham in one of the Matobo caves. Cecil Rhodes and several other leading early white settlers, including Leander Starr Jameson and the members of the Shangani Patrol, are buried on the summit of Malindidzimu, the 'hill of the spirits' this is a great source of controversy as this is considered a sacred place by nationalists and indigenous groups. This mount is also referred to as the World’s View. Even today, a great deal of the pottery and artefacts found on cave floors and most of the clay grain bins in the hills are remnants from the 1896 rebellion era. There are other reminders too - bronze plaques dotted here and there in various hills mark the sites of armed forts or brief skirmishes.

The grandeur and stillness of the hills has contributed to their hallowed reputation, especially to the Shona and Ndebele people. Many rituals and other religious activities are performed in the hills. Before the colonial era, it was the headquarters of the spiritualist oracle, the Mlimo.

credited to wikipedia and flickr: photonogrady