Activities and sites

Things to do in Matobo National Park

Name: Matobo National Park
Address: Zimbabwe

Matobo is a park you walk into rather than drive through. The day usually runs from a painted cave to a granite summit to a dam, with the game section in the west as a side trip, and most of it within half an hour of Maleme.

If you only want the answer

See the painted caves at Nswatugi and Pomongwe, climb World's View at the end of the day, and walk the granite domes in the cool of the morning. Add the fenced game section in the west if you have a high-clearance car, and a village visit or horse ride through one of the lodges. The caves and World's View need a separate $10 NMMZ ticket on top of the park fee.

The painted caves

The Matobo Hills hold more than 3,000 registered rock-art sites, one of the densest concentrations in southern Africa, and UNESCO dates the art back at least 13,000 years. A handful are set up for visitors inside the park. All of them are managed by National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, not by ZimParks, and are reached on NMMZ's own ticket.

Visit with a guide where you can. Never touch, wet or chalk a painting to make it show up in a photograph: the darkened panels at Pomongwe are what a well-meant 1920s coat of linseed oil did to them.

Site	Where	What you see
Nswatugi Cave	Inside the park, on the west side; reached from the Kezi road or the loop road from Maleme Dam	The finest-known frieze in the park: walking giraffe, lines of kudu and other antelope, and human figures. A short walk from the car park, with a small display. Deposits here date to between 4,500 and 8,000 years ago.
Pomongwe Cave	Inside the park, a short drive from Maleme Dam	A cave of roughly 20 by 20 metres with a site museum and interpretive centre opened in 1994. Giraffe, zebra, kudu, eland and two elephants, darkened by the old linseed-oil experiment. Guided tours are available; reported hours 09:00 to 16:00.
Bambata Cave	On the western side, near the game section	A major archaeological cave first examined in 1918 and excavated again in 1929, with animal paintings on its walls.
Silozwane Cave	Outside the park, on communal land inside the World Heritage landscape	A large painted shelter reached through the local community rather than through ZimParks.
Inanke Cave	Outside the park, inside the World Heritage landscape	A remote painted cave at the end of a long walk; go with a guide.

Pomongwe is described by one source as a proclaimed national monument and by another as never proclaimed. We say only that NMMZ manages it.

World's View (Malindidzimu)

Malindidzimu, roughly the hill of the ancestral spirits, was a sacred place long before it became a grave. A short walk up bare granite from the car park brings you to a summit of rounded boulders and a 360 degree view over the hills. Cecil John Rhodes, who died on 26 March 1902, is buried there, alongside Leander Starr Jameson and Charles Coghlan. A hundred metres away stands the Shangani Memorial, unveiled in 1904 for the members of the Shangani Patrol killed in December 1893, and a small gallery sets out a chronology of Rhodes' life.

The site is contested, and we describe it as such. Calls to exhume the grave go back to the 1980s and returned in 2012 and 2023; NMMZ has rejected exhumation, and many people living nearby oppose it because the site brings in visitors. Whatever you make of the history, the view at the end of the afternoon is the reason most people climb. World's View needs the NMMZ ticket; its opening hours are not published.

Maleme Dam and the central area

Maleme Dam is the park's hub: the ZimParks rest camp, its lodges, chalets and campsite, braai sites and a small shop. The central area around it is unfenced and open to self-drivers on gravel roads that ZimParks describes as suitable for most vehicles. Pomongwe is a short drive away and Nswatugi is on the loop road west.

Mpopoma Dam has a picnic area. Fishing rules and whether a permit is needed are not in the current ZimParks tariff, so ask at the office before you cast.

Walking and hiking

Walking on the granite domes of the central area is widely practised. We found no ZimParks rule that forbids it and none that permits it either, so use your judgement and keep to the open rock. ZimParks' own what-to-bring list includes walking shoes and warns of slippery rocks; wet granite after rain is genuinely dangerous.

Every private lodge around the park offers guided walks, from Amalinda and Big Cave to Farmhouse Lodge, Matobo Hills Lodge and Shashani. None publishes a separate price for them. Camp Dwala in the southern hills is a mapped mountain-bike and walking base, and Big Cave also offers cycling.

The game section and game drives

The fenced game section in the west, known as Whovi or the Hove Wild Area and about 105 km² in size, was restocked with translocated animals. ZimParks lists impala, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, hippo, hyena, ostrich and sable here. A high-clearance 4x4 is recommended. One operator says it charges a separate entrance fee, but the 2026 ZimParks tariff has no such line; ask at the gate. Two game-viewing hides are described in an older guide and their current state is not confirmed.

Guided drives are sold by the lodges, and Matobo Hills Lodge sells half-day and full-day outings into the park.

Horse riding

Older guides describe supervised horse trails run by ZimParks staff from Maleme and Whitewaters. We could not confirm that they still run, and the 2026 tariff has no line for them. Shashani Lodge lists horse riding among its own activities. The former Shumba Shaba lodge, still listed by booking sites with horse trails, no longer trades under that name.

Cultural visits

Several lodges arrange village and school visits: Amalinda through its village cycling tours of 11 or 24 km, Big Cave through a nearby Ndebele village and school, and Matobo Hills Lodge through an Ndebele village visit.

The hills are also a living religious landscape. The Mwari shrines, Njelele the best known among them, are places of worship, not sights. Visitors there must be accompanied by the official custodian, and the August pilgrimage draws more than a thousand people over about three weeks. Mzilikazi's grave, the resting place of the founder of the Ndebele state, lies outside the park to the north-east; treat it as a royal grave and visit only with local permission.

Khami Ruins, a separate World Heritage site near Bulawayo, makes an easy add-on day; NMMZ charges the same price there as for Matobo.

Birding

Raptors on the granite are the highlight: more than a hundred monitored black eagle nest sites across the wider hills, and in summer the migrant eagles and kites. BirdLife Zimbabwe's Matabeleland branch is based in Bulawayo. The wildlife page has the full picture.

Park rules and courtesies

Two tickets: pay the ZimParks entry fee at the gate and the NMMZ ticket for World's View and the caves.
Do not touch, wet or trace rock paintings, and keep children and bags off the painted walls.
Follow any instruction from custodians at sacred sites and do not photograph ceremonies without permission.
Wear earthy colours; ZimParks asks visitors to avoid red, yellow and bright green.
Plan to be back at your camp before dark: park hours are usually given as 06:00 to 18:00, and driving at night outside towns is discouraged in Zimbabwe generally.
Overland trucks must keep to defined routes at Matobo, according to the 2026 tariff.
Assume drones are not allowed without written permission from ZimParks and the aviation authority.

Sources

Where to go next

Entry Fees What each activity costs on the official tariff Wildlife What these activities are looking for Best Time To Visit Which activities run in which months