Bush Walk Through Lanner Gorge

What is a bush walk? Going hiking with rifles!

Our bush walk guides

I gave a general overview of a typical day at Baobob Hill House in my previous post. On our first two mornings we did guided bush walks: the first one was a walk from our house in the hills near the Luvuvhu River, and the second one through the spectacular Lanner Gorge.

Single file hiking, following our two rifles

Our daily guide Andile is not yet certified to guide bush walks as they are considered a riskier activity and require additional training. To complete this training he will have to do some firearm certification (including an “action” component of shooting at simulated charging elephants, buffalo, etc.), pass some additional examinations, and complete a certain number of hours and encounters joining other guides on walks. On this hike we had Brent (from Zimbabwe) and Jan (from South Africa, and I might have spelled his name wrong) joining us as our guides and riflemen. The rules were strict: when walking don’t talk, when talking don’t walk. Look for hand signals from the front guide and stay in a single file.

Lanner gorge overlook

After an early morning pickup, we drove for over an hour to reach a dead-end near a promontory overlooking the gorge. We did a quick side hike to the overlook then started on our hike into the gorge proper.

This could vary a lot by locality, but it seems like our guides were most concerned about aggressive buffalo. The guides were extremely safety concious and would pause when they saw fresh dung, or when coming through a narrow bush trail.

We found that the bush walks are a great way to experience the local terrain but that the wildlife viewing suffers from appearing as a greater threat to the mammals.

Saddle-billed stork in flight

By the time we reached the river, we found an abundance of wildlife. A large group of hippos surrounded by many crocodiles awaited us when we first joined with the Luvuvhu, and we took our brunch break just up-river from there in some beautiful rocky rapids.

Below the hippos the water was shallow enough (and hence safer from hippos and crocs) that our rules relaxed and we were able to socialize a bit more and trudge through the cool river water. The birdlife was spectacular as we followed the river: saddle-billed storks, African fish eagles, herons, egrets, lapwings, and more.

Ussie on our river bush walk

After a total of about 5 miles of hiking we met up with our Land Cruiser to return to the house. The pace was slow: 4 hours for a 4.9 mile hike, but this is due to a slow and safe pace and plenty of breaks.

The hike alone would be worth it for the scenery, but add in the wildlife and this becomes a top 5 all-time hike for me.