From canopy tours to safaris, Victoria Falls is perfect for an adventurous yet relaxing family trip. Photo / Wild Horizons Elephant Camp
On the hunt for a meaningful and eye-opening holiday experience with his teenage son, Richard Holmes finds wildlife, water and soft adventure in Zimbabwe
I took a deep breath and then stepped off the platform. Out into fresh air, my body momentarily weightless, the earth dropped away beneath my feet. My ears filled with the roar of the Zambezi River somewhere below, hopefully drowning out my involuntary yelp of fear. In that split second, I was debating the wisdom of my choices.
For many travellers, there’s a similar sensation when leaping off the bungee platform that sits midway along the famous Victoria Falls Bridge. At a height of 111m above the Zambezi, it is one of the world’s most thrilling bungee jumps, drawing thrill-seekers from across the globe. But, not me.
I had come to Victoria Falls – formed as the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth-largest, plummets into the Batoka Gorge in a headlong rush to the Indian Ocean – to discover a different side of this World Heritage Site. For while the Falls is often marketed as Africa’s adrenalin capital, there’s far more to this charming destination than throwing yourself off bridges or hurtling headlong down class-five white-water rapids.
That’s not my idea of a good time.
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The platform I’d stepped off was part of the Wild Horizons treetop canopy tour; an adventure-lite excursion that had my 13-year-old son and I zipping between platforms tucked into the basalt cliffs of the Batoka Gorge or perched in the boughs of towering leadwood trees. Across 13 zip-lines, most with remarkable views of the Zambezi River, it delivered just the right amount of adventure for one morning, thanks very much.
And though you’ll be offered no end of activities – Helicopters! Rafting! Bungee! – at almost every turn, my advice is to start with the reason it’s all here in the first place.
Twice the height of Niagara Falls, and stretching nearly 2km across, Victoria Falls is the world’s largest curtain of falling water and is nothing short of spectacular. It’s also a waterfall of moods, from the delicate cataracts of the dry months to the full-throated roar of high water. A place where vervet monkeys and chacma baboons rustle in the treetops, and you may even spot elephants grazing on Livingstone Island upstream. The sound of up to 500 million litres of water per minute tumbling into the 100m-deep gorge is astonishing, outdone only by the plume of spray visible from nearly 30 kilometres away. My family and I spent a happy three hours wandering and watching in awe, laughing at the spray that rained back down on our umbrellas.
But which side you stand on depends on when you visit. When the Falls are in spate – roughly May to July – both sides offer impressive views. Zimbabwe’s forested cliffs are perhaps prettier, while Zambia’s long sweep of water is arguably more dramatic. But when the water levels drop – typically September to November – the Zambian side all but dries up, and you’ll want to spend at least some time in Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls National Park.
Whichever side you choose it’s certainly not hard to see how the local Batonga people dubbed this place Mosi-oa-Tunya; ‘the smoke that thunders’. That is until old David Livingstone rocked up in 1855 and named them for his Queen.
It’s a history well told as we rattled our way through Victoria Falls town and out onto the bridge on the Bamba Tram. One of the newer attractions in town, the tram is a fun and family-friendly way to avoid the two-kilometre walk from Victoria Falls town to the centre of the bridge for more stunning views of the Falls.
But a family, like Napoleon’s army, stravels on its stomach. Happily, there’s no shortage of great places to eat in town.
The vintage-style Bamba Tram stops right outside Three Monkeys, a contemporary bar and restaurant that serves up the perfect trifecta of cold beer, wood-fired pizza and water misters to keep the heat at bay. The Victoria Falls Distilling Co. is on the doorstep too, offering craft gin infused with local flavours of baobab, buffalo thorn and ‘grains of paradise’.
Across the road, the iconic Victoria Falls Hotel is the grand dame of town, with a century of history and an Afternoon Tea experience to match, or stop in for a light lunch on the terrace and a wander to the end of the garden for more views. Come evening the sunset dinner cruises on the Zambezi River above the Falls are a delight, and you won’t want to miss The Boma, which combines a hearty set menu with an evening of colourful African dance and an interactive drum show.
But we needed lunch, and top of the list should be The Lookout Café. Just a short walk from town, clinging to the side of the Batoka Gorge, this airy café-restaurant offers an extensive menu of local craft beer and top-notch family-friendly plates with a generous side order of river views. We spent most of our meal admiring the ironwork elegance of the iconic railway bridge spanning the gorge.
We wanted to know more, so quickly signed up for an activity that is something of a sleeper hit in the area. While most visitors admire the Falls from the public roadway, jostling for views at the railings, we strapped into safety harnesses for a walk beneath the iconic iron span.
The Victoria Falls Bridge, we learned as we clipped into a safety wire on the catwalk below the roadway, was dreamed up by colonialist Cecil John Rhodes as part of a railway line linking Cape Town to Cairo. A marvel of early 20th-century engineering, it was constructed by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company in England and shipped out to Africa. Completed in 1905, the apocryphal tale is that a wild leopard was the first animal, human or otherwise, to cross the completed bridge.
Though you’ll spend much of your time, like we did, in and around the Falls, there’s more to discover beyond.
One afternoon my son and I teed up for a round at Elephant Hills, host to the only 18-golf course in the region. Laid out by iconic South African golfer Gary Player as a parkland track amid the bush of northern Zimbabwe, it’s a course where impala and warthogs patrol the fairways, and you may want to leave that ball in the water hazards. ‘Beware of crocodiles’ reads the sign.
It was ellies, not crocs we went looking for the next morning. We were staying at Elephant Camp, a 10-minute drive from Victoria Falls town, where 12 under-canvas suites gaze out across the Victoria Falls National Park to offer a safari-style experience close to town. This corner of the park plays host to the Wild Horizon elephant orphanage, hosting pachyderms once used for elephant riding in the tourist industry.
Rides are, happily, no longer offered, but the ellies still need expensive care. To pay their way guests are able to meet – with minimal impact – the habituated herd in a purpose-built riverside walkway. With trained safari guides leading the tour, it was a fascinating way to learn more about the challenges facing Africa’s elephant population; an eye-opening first-hand experience for any teenager.
And that’s exactly what I was after, taking my son to Victoria Falls for the first time. Not adventure or adrenalin, but to open his eyes to one of the world’s natural wonders, and the rich history woven in and around the smoke that thunders.
When to go: The Victoria Falls reaches its peak between May and July each year.
Getting there: Airlink flies direct to Victoria Falls from Johannesburg and Cape Town. Qantas and Singapore Airlines offer the shortest routes to South Africa from NZ.
Visas: New Zealand passport holders can purchase a visa (US$50) on arrival in Zimbabwe.
Plan your trip: wearevictoriafalls.com
For more things to see and do in Zimbabwe, visit zimbabwetourism.net
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