Fastjet has increased its service between Johannesburg and Bulawayo from one to two flights daily, and Travel News was a guest on the inaugural early-morning flight on October 30, followed by a tour of the scenic Zimbabwean city.
Bulawayo has many sites of historic and natural interest. Just outside the city lies the Rhodes Matobo National Park.
Matobo, an area of granite domes and wooded valleys, is home to some not-to-be-missed sightseeing. The Matobo Hills, a group of distinctive hilly rock formations formed by volcanic activity over two billion years ago, was given Unesco World Heritage Site status in 2003. The park has over 3 000 registered rock art sites, of which three caves, Bambata, Nswatugi and Pomogwe, allow visitors to view paintings of elephants, giraffes, buck and much more. Malindidzimu Hill, or World’s View, holds significant historic importance as the resting place of Cecil John Rhodes and other early white settlers. It is also the home of a pre-colonial spiritual oracle among the Ndebele and Shona people. The Rhino Community Centre asks visitors for donations to preserve the park’s rhino population, which was restored between the 1960s and 1990s and resides in a designated area in the west of the park.
Bulawayo’s CBD features a statue near the old High Court of Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo – affectionately referred to as Father Zimbabwe. The statue faces down J M Nkomo Street and watches over passers-by on the wide road lined with orange-flowered Flamboyant trees. Bulawayo is famed for its very wide roads, which are broad enough to turn an ox wagon.
The neo-Gothic Nesbitt Castle was built in the early 20th century with no architectural plans. Now a boutique hotel, it is furnished with antique carved wooden furniture, traditional African ceremonial masks and other Gothic curiosities. The lawns display classic red telephone booths, stone fountain statues, griffin grotesques and a giant metal chess set.
The new Fastjet flight FN8662 departs daily from OR Tambo International Airport at 06h50 and arrives at Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport in Bulawayo at 08h10. The return flight FN8664 departs at 18h10 and arrives in Johannesburg at 19h30.
