Every 2nd weekend of the month FOTV hosts a community walk that’s open to the public, either on a Saturday or Sunday, depending on the host and any other clashes.

About the walk

The walks are mapped out by the FOTV scouts in conjunction with the host and the venue. The scouts then guide the walkers, who usually number around 20 but can be as much as 45. The walks are always designed to be about 3 hours long but can of course vary a little.

 

Starting at 9am and finishing by 12 noon, we often extend the walk with an invitation to linger a little longer to enjoy the Vumba outing. Mostly this is an invitation to walkers to bring their own picnics to enjoy at the walks’ end point.

 

Occasionally the host extends the invite to bring your own braai meat and a fire is lit for everyone to use. A couple of occasions has seen the host offer a full braai lunch where all you bring are your own drinks.

Costs

The costs are $10 pp, $5 for students or pensioners and U12 free. We do offer a
walking membership to those determined to walk every month possible, which
costs $50 pa or $70 per couple pa. We also have some family walking members.

How to join

See our Facebook Page for details on this month’s walk, or contact us directly: Sally Preston 0712207828 or Sue Fenwick 0779408557

Additional Details

Once or twice a year we plan something a little different. This year we were invited to a guided walk in the beautifully situated Miombo woodlands at Village Unhu, Mount Wolseley estate, 20 kms outside Mutare on the Harare road near Odzi. An artists haven offering studio spaces, workshops, exhibitions and residencies, it is owned by Zimbabwe’s artists Georgina Maxim and her husband Misheck Masamvu.

 

Gina invited our walkers to walk in the hills surrounding the venue and to stay afterwards for a lunch cooked and presented on the premises, whilst also offering an overview of the current exhibition and the purpose of the Unhu artists haven. An extremely memorable day for us all!

We had also planned a days outing to a coffee farm in Burma Valley, which is a known favourite walking amongst the coffee and being offered a tour of the whole process of growing and producing the fabulous Leopards Forest Vumba coffee, to be followed by a very social braai! Unfortunately it clashed with the inaugural RunVumba event and so we plan to schedule this next year.

October 2024 saw us take off for a 3 day weekend to Chimanimani to be hosted
by the wonderfully experienced and generous duo of Tempe and Doug van der
Ruit. We enjoyed 3 different hikes – 2 relatively shorter ones plus a full day in between. The weekend offered a spectacular variety of views and terrain and a wonderfully social gathering of like minded hikers and environmentalists of all ages!

Past Walks

Sept walk 2025

Sunday 14th September dawned dry as was expected, but the air was delightfully
cool. The FOTV walkers gathering for their monthly guided walk, met in the upper Vumba at Hivu as directed, to park their cars and walk from there into the Bunga forest, down through the glorious cool montane forest to reach the famed ‘spiny tree ferns’ that would tower over us all. From there we walked further downwards and after a little tack up a side ridge, we descended into a river bed and upwards to a lovely cascading waterfall.

 

From the depths of the cool forest we then emerged into brightly sunlit open grassland looking down onto the Leopard Rock mountain and the valleys beyond.

Walking a little further we found ourselves beneath the beautiful Msasa woodland, displaying their new Spring leaf with their soft, luxurious hues of classic autumn colours. They never cease to entrance, especially in this spectacular setting where they perch on the edge of the cliffs and the views fall away below them into the pale blue mountains beyond. An iconic Zimbabwean tree, the Msasa produce these colours in Spring and every year we hope to time our Spring walk to be amongst them somehow.

 

This year certainly did not disappoint! Knowing the views from our end point to be spectacular, we planned a lunch picnic stop. Georges’ View, as it’s known, looks down into the Burma Valley below and beyond onto the mountains in the distance known as the Himalayas Mountains. 

 

We sat amongst the lichen covered rocks and trees dripping with a variety of
orchids and ferns and indulged in picnic fare driven down from Hivu via Stu and
Sal Prestons truck. The truck was then used to ferry some of the walkers, who
chose not to stay and picnic, back to Hivu and their cars.

 

The rest of us spread out in various view spots, positioned to enjoy the scenery dropping away dramatically below us. Picnic over, t-shirt mementos bought,
photos memories replete, we all trekked back. Some by foot the way we had
come, some via vehicles.

The season is dry – even for the Vumba – but the Msasa The Friends of the Vumba
(FOTV) monthly fund raising walk has grown over the years from a small gathering of keen local walkers to a group of over 196 on the WhatsApp group that receive notification directly every month about where the next walk will be held.