Travel deep dive
The Matobo Hills, a Granite World South of Bulawayo
South of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, the land breaks into the Matobo Hills: granite domes, boulders piled into towers and balancing rocks, wooded valleys and small dams. Their caves and shelters keep paintings left by hunter-gatherers over thousands of years, the hills are sacred to many Zimbabweans, and the national park at their heart protects white and black rhinos. The whole landscape is a World Heritage site, an easy day or a few nights from the city.
Updated 2026-10-08
The granite landscape
The Matobo Hills are a maze of bare granite, worn by weather into smooth domes, kopjes of stacked boulders and the famous balancing rocks, one stone poised on another. Between them lie wooded valleys and grassland, with small lakes behind dams such as Maleme, and walks and drives lead from viewpoint to viewpoint across the hills.
The rock art
The caves and rock shelters of the hills hold one of the great collections of rock paintings in southern Africa, left by the San hunter-gatherers: people, giraffe, kudu and other animals in ochre and white. Nswatugi cave, Pomongwe and the White Rhino Shelter are among those open to visitors, reached by short walks, and a local guide shows the way and the meaning of the scenes.
Rhinos on foot
The game park within Matobo National Park protects white and black rhinos, with zebra, giraffe, sable and leopard in the hills. Rhino tracking on foot with an armed guide, following tracks through the granite country to find the animals grazing, is the highlight of a visit for many.
World's View
World's View, a great dome of bare granite in the heart of the hills, looks out over the whole range, its rock patterned with lichen in green and orange. The graves of colonial figures lie on its summit, among them that of Cecil Rhodes, and the hills also hold the grave of Mzilikazi, the founder of the Ndebele kingdom.
Visiting
The hills begin about half an hour south of Bulawayo, and lodges and the national park's camps lie among them. Two or three days give time for the rock art, rhino tracking and World's View; the dry months, from about April to October, are the most comfortable for walking. The hills lie on the heritage circuit by road towards Great Zimbabwe.