Nyanga National Park (Day Trip)

Zimbabwe's oldest national park, with its highest mountain and Africa's second-tallest waterfall

Nyanga National Park, about 100km north of Mutare, contains Zimbabwe's highest peak (Mount Nyangani, 2,592m) and the Mtarazi Falls, which drop 762m into the Honde Valley — the second highest waterfall in Africa. The national park also has Zimbabwe's only trout fishing streams and a landscape of rolling grassland, forest patches, and rocky kopjes quite unlike the rest of the country.

The drive from Mutare through the Nyanga highlands is excellent: the road climbs through tea and coffee estates and commercial forest to a plateau with wide views in all directions. Mount Nyangani can be hiked in a day with an early start (the summit is a 2-3 hour walk from the car park). The Mtarazi Falls viewpoint requires a separate approach via the Honde Valley road, which descends dramatically from the escarpment.

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Mount Nyangani (2,592m), Zimbabwe's highest peak, has a peculiar reputation for making people disappear. Dozens of hikers have gone missing on its slopes over the decades, and the mountain is considered sacred and dangerous by local Shona communities. The disappearances remain unexplained — the terrain is not exceptionally treacherous — and the mountain has acquired a genuine mystique.

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