We had heard that Kyle was a bit run down, little used, had no animals and generally wasn’t the place of years gone by.  We decided to go see for ourselves as we wanted to see the Midlands of Zimbabwe and the Great Zimbabwe Ruins (about 30kms from Kyle).

The scenery from Bulawayo to Masvingo is worth the drive alone, even if Kyle was dreadful, our journey was not wasted.  Driving into Kyle we had huge misgivings, we were the first campers in over a month and the third this year.  Oh boy !!!!

Like Chizarrira, it was a welcome surprise and we ended up staying for 3 nights.  The staff could not be more helpful and the scenery around Kyle was stunning.  Again, we were fascinated by the sunsets (not to mention amazing mountains).  The first night of sundowners gave us another surprise as a crash of rhino (dehorned to save them being poached) came sauntering by.  On the second night we are not sure who was more surprised, us or the buffalo that clearly hadn’t seen a human in a while.  There were lots of animals – zebra, kudu, giraffe, warthogs etc.  So to anyone thinking of heading for Kyle – we would say go for it, you will not be disappointed.

On the second day, we took a slow drive through Glenlivet (yup – in Zimbabwe), passed the Glenlivet Hotel to the Great Zimbabwe Ruins.   We had been encouraged by all the local people we had met to make sure this was something we included in our trip.  The ruins are incredibly impressive and there is much speculation as to who built these, exactly when etc.  You see a difference in building techniques over the ages – from irregular dry stone dykes to a more progressive form of building where stones were heated and shaped to give uniformity.  Some of the walls are over 6m thick and over 10m high.  This must have been some effort hundreds of years ago and well worth making the effort to see.  You do need to allow at least 4 hours, just to do the main areas.

As words are not always descriptive enough, we have added a few photo’s which we hope will do better.

As a form of security, in later times, there were walls within walls where the corridors narrowed to allow only one intruder at a time.

To really appreciate the ruins, you do need to see for yourself.