Matobo Hills

The OUV of Matobo Hills is a bit hard to grasp, but it boils down to the meaning this landscape had for the San hunter-gatherers (Stone Age, Iron Age) and the Ndebele nation (from the 19th century onwards). Nowadays most tourists come here for the Rhinos and the Rock Art. I visited for 1.5 days as part of a small nature group tour (4 pax). We stayed overnight at the recommended Rowallan Camp, a small ‘glamping’ site with self-catering amenities just inside the park’s borders.

My 3 Australian tour mates were surprisingly smitten by the Matobo’s distinct landscape of rocky boulders – something that they could have observed very well at home I think. At sunrise and sunset, it provides a picturesque setting, as do the neat bundles of hay waiting to be picked up that have been gathered during the day by female workers. There is some overflow of cattle from neighbouring areas into the park and several fires had encroached as well when we were there.

For the Rock Art, we went to Nswatugi Cave and Bambata Cave. The road system in Matobo has severely deteriorated over the years and one now needs a 4WD to get around properly (there’s a paved road that crosses it but you won’t see much from there). Nswatugi was the easiest of the two to get to by car; its access road has only one nasty stream to cross. The paintings are in a rock shelter about a 15-minute …

The Matabo Hills are inscribed as a “Cultural Landscape” - A somewhat opaque concept which can mean everything or nothing but often seems to mean that no single structure or natural site is worth inscribing but that the whole in some way is greater than the sum of the parts in representing a way of life! Indeed the relatively small area of the Matabos does offer a variety of sights

a. Some quite striking (if nor outstanding) scenery characterised notably by “Kopjes” – strangely shaped weathered granite outcrops often in the form of “castles” or huge “marbles” balanced on top of each other

b. A game park area which is full of reintroduced animals and, in terms of the whole gamut of African wildlife parks, rather “tame”

c. At “World’s View” outcrop the “White Colonial” memorials of Rhodes Grave and the Shangani Patrol (in memory of a group of white soldiers wiped out by the Ndebele in 1893).

d. Shrine caves of the Mwari Cult which are taboo to visitors

e. A number of caves or overhangs which can be visited and contain Rock paintings whose age is still a matter of some conjecture but were done by Stone and/or Iron age hunter gatherers.

Somehow all these aspects (including the Colonial memorials!) are credited in the inscription. Given time to explore and/or access to appropriate wildlife expertise the area would no doubt repay more in-depth exploration than is possible during a quick “tourist visit”. …