11 July, Thursday: Harare -> Imire

We got back into our saddles this morning, very cold and wrapped in all our warm clothes. We headed down the main road towards Marondera which had a lovely tar road wide enough for us to cycle on. It was a tough day on the bike. The wind pumped and of course it was an icy front wind! For 70 km we cycled slowly up and down the hills, pushing through the wind, eventually getting to the Imire Game Park.

Imire is run by a Zimbabwean family who are passionate about wildlife and have taken drastic measures to protecting specifically rhino and elephant in Zimbabwe. We were priviledged enough to be hosted by the Travis family at the Sable Lodge. We cycled into Imire and were warmly welcomed by Kate Travis who had organized a delicious lunch for us which we had out on the lawn. We then had the great priviledge of meeting Riley Travis who runs the Imire APU and listening to their journey through wildlife conservation as well as the different community projects that Imire have built up over the last 3 generations was inspiring. The resilience and the dedication that Imire has shown towards the surrounding community and rhino conservation is incredible. Imire was the first ever to start breeding rhino in Zimbabwe and in 2007 they released 15 rhinos into a National Park, only to have them all poached. Yet, over a decade later, Imire is still doing everything they can to protect rhinos.

We were taken to the rhino and elephant boma where we had the opportunity to meet two of the black rhino's and two elephants that Imire are protecting. The rhino and elephant are released in the early morning and in the evening come back into the boma where they are protected by armed guards who live at the boma. After a beautiful sundowner at the dam, we were taken back to the lodge where we were offered a delicious dinner and given a room with a warm bed for the night.

Cycled: 78 km

Time: 4:30 hr

Ave speed: 17.4 km/hr

Ascent: 569 m