All activities / Wildlife Safaris / Matobo National Park
Wildlife Safaris in Matobo National Park
Zimbabwe's oldest national park, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape of balancing granite hills south of Bulawayo, known for tracking white and black rhino on foot, dense leopard and black eagle populations, and ancient San rock art.
Why here
Matobo is Zimbabwe's oldest national park and the best place in the country to track rhino on foot, walking up on white rhino and, with luck, the more elusive black rhino across a landscape of balancing granite castles. The hills hold one of Africa's densest leopard populations and the highest concentration of Verreaux's black eagles anywhere, hunting the rock hyrax among the kopjes. Matobo is also a cultural landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site scattered with San rock-art shelters thousands of years old and the grave of Cecil Rhodes at World's View. It pairs a genuine on-foot wildlife encounter with deep human history in one compact reserve near Bulawayo.
Best months
Rhino tracking runs year-round on foot with licensed guides and rangers, best in the cooler, drier months from May to September when walking is comfortable and the grass is short. The summer rains from November to March green the hills and suit the rock-art shelters and scenery, though afternoons turn hot and stormy. Mornings are the prime window for tracking rhino and for the black eagles that soar the granite kopjes.
Getting there & around
Matobo National Park lies about 35 to 45 kilometres south of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, which has an airport with flights from Harare and Johannesburg. Most visitors come on a day trip or overnight from Bulawayo, tracking rhino on foot with a licensed operator and combining it with the rock-art sites and World's View. A park entry fee applies, and rhino tracking requires an accompanying guide and ranger.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Amalinda Lodge
OutfitterAmalinda Lodge is an owner-run lodge built into the ancient granite boulders of the Matobo Hills, with nine individually designed thatched rooms and a pool cut into the rock. It offers rhino tracking on foot for white and black rhino, guided walks to San rock-art panels, and visits to World's View, roughly 45 kilometres from Bulawayo. The lodge is the flagship of the Amalinda Safari Collection, a Zimbabwean group that also runs Khulu Bush Camp, Sable Valley and Ivory Lodge near Hwange.
Black Rhino Safaris
OutfitterBlack Rhino Safaris is a Bulawayo-based operator specialising in rhino tracking on foot in Matobo National Park, collecting guests from their Bulawayo accommodation in open safari vehicles for a full day in the hills. Alongside tracking the park's resident white rhino, it runs guided visits to Matobo's San rock-art shelters, World's View and the Khami Ruins, a separate UNESCO World Heritage Site outside Bulawayo. Its guides are long-serving and licensed.