{"id":311,"date":"2010-12-31T12:39:31","date_gmt":"2010-12-31T12:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/?p=311"},"modified":"2014-03-08T18:27:02","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T18:27:02","slug":"matopos-national-park-day-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/2010\/12\/matopos-national-park-day-46\/","title":{"rendered":"Matopos National Park, Day 46"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We leave Antelope Park early to make it early to Bulawayo\u00a0& the\u00a0Matopos National Park.\u00a0 The park is just outside the city of Bulawayo and\u00a0the park is not much\u00a0larger than 100SqKm.\u00a0 It is where Cecil Rhodes is buried and the birth place\u00a0of the Scout movement.\u00a0 The park has the largest density of leopard in Africa and is home to the both\u00a0black and white rhinoceros.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We start the day with a highly informative talk at one of the many ancient bush paintings that exist within the park. Our guide for the day, Ian Harmer, from \u2018African Wanderer\u2019 is extremely passionate about the park its history and wildlife within it.\u00a0 This passion rubs off on the guys and they are glued to every word he says.\u00a0\u00a0 Well, the dude must not be\u00a0too bad<\/em> if he got voted 4th for the International Guide of the Year Award.\u00a0 The caves he treats us to were off the beaten track and unknown to the general public and it was a pleasure to be one of the few to visit this historic site and learn about the bushman and their culture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Anyway, we carry on for the day and visit a village surrounding the park. The people from this village are from the Ndebele tribe and we get told stories\u00a0by the village chief and let me tell you he is a real character.\u00a0\u00a0 His laughter just brings a smile to your face and you cannot help but enjoy his company and hospitality.\u00a0 His offer on 2 of the single Kiwi girls for marriage was quiet tempting and I know the girls were willing but I just could not work out how I was going to explain that to my boss.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So it was better to decline.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The highlight for the day was the rhino walk.\u00a0 Ian would get us out of the 4X4 to start trekking rhino on foot and see how close we could get to these prehistoric beasts.\u00a0 When dealing with wildlife you need patients and if you wait you will be rewarded, and rewarded we were!\u00a0 We saw two adolescent white rhinos, a male and female, at about 15m away and then just before we departed the park a lone male white rhino called \u2018Gumboots\u2019.\u00a0 We got within 5m of that wonderful animal.\u00a0 There are not many things in life that can get the heart racing and being within meters from a two and half ton rhino can really help the blood flow.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As much as the afternoon is about getting close to these wonderful animals there is also a serious side to the encounter.\u00a0 We get an appreciation of the animal but also the threat they are under.\u00a0 We see the carcass of an adolescent female rhino that had been poached only 2 months earlier. This park is highly guarded with patrols 24 hours a dayand yet poaching is still taking rhinos every year. \u00a0The park only has 64 white rhinos and 34 black rhinos and in the last year they have lost 5 rhino to poaching.\u00a0 Worldwide poaching of these animals is on the increase and the value of their horns is also increasing and therefore threatening their future existence on our planet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As we learned more\u00a0about the species and their plight\u00a0we appreciated our experience even more as we realised that these magnificent animals may not be around in the near future.<\/p>\n

We ended the day with a greater understanding and appreciation for Matopos National Park, the local tribe, the bushman culture and the struggle of the white and black rhino.\u00a0 Even though it was an early start and a long day I know it was a day that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.<\/p>\n

Tip of the Day:<\/em><\/strong> If you get the chance to see rhinos in the wild, do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We leave Antelope Park early to make it early to Bulawayo\u00a0& the\u00a0Matopos National Park.\u00a0 The park is just outside the city of Bulawayo and\u00a0the park is not much\u00a0larger than 100SqKm.\u00a0 It is where Cecil Rhodes is buried and the birth … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[481,483,484,40,477,480,479,478,476,482],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-14th-nov-2010-absolute-safari-on-shaggy-denis","tag-african-wanderer","tag-gumboots","tag-64-white-rhinos-and-34-black-rhinos","tag-absolute-africa","tag-antelope-park","tag-black-and-white-rhinoceros","tag-bulawayo","tag-bulawayo-the-matopos-national-park","tag-matopos-national-park","tag-ndebele-tribe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1244,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absoluteafrica.com\/liveblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}