Park · Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe
Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park
A dolomite sinkhole a few kilometres past Chinhoyi on the Harare to Chirundu road, with the cobalt blue Sleeping Pool at the bottom. A short stop for most, a serious cave dive for a few.
Short answer
At Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park, international visitors pay from US$5 (about €4.50 or £3.50) per adult per day, depending on which section you visit. The rates apply from 2 February 2026 to 31 December 2026.
- Daily fee, international adult
- US$5 €4from, by section
- Malaria
- UK travel health advice puts everywhere in Zimbabwe below 1,200 m at high risk from November to June and recommends atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline or mefloquine for those months.
- Places to stay
- 8
- Park fee nearby: Lake Chivero Recreational Park
- US$5 €4about 96 km away
Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park fees 2026
Checked Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority tariffValid 2 February 2026 to 31 December 2026, per person per day, in US dollars.
| Pay point | International visitors | SADC nationals | Zimbabwean residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservation fee, day visitor | US$12 €11child US$6 | US$10child US$5 | US$5child US$2.5 |
| Conservation fee, staying in the park | US$5 €4child US$2.5 | US$5child US$2.5 | US$2child US$1 |
- The day visitor rate is for a visit without an overnight stay. The lower rate is for people camping in the park (ZimParks calls them accommodated visitors), charged per day of the stay.
- Children aged 6 to 12 get 50% off the conservation fee, which is the child figure shown; that comes from ZimParks' booking FAQs. The tariff itself prints adult rates only.
- Vehicle fee per day, on top of the per person fee. Chinhoyi is not named in any vehicle table; it is not on the list for the big parks' table, so I take it to fall under the table for Kyle, Chivero and "all other Category IV parks". There a car, pickup or 4x4 is US$10 for a foreign-registered vehicle on a day visit and US$3 a day if you are staying in the park, or US$3 and US$1 for a Zimbabwe-registered one. A trailer or caravan costs the same again. A minibus of up to 25 seats is US$30 a day (US$10 if staying) foreign-registered, US$10 and US$5 local.
- Camping is US$8 a person for Zimbabweans and US$12 for international visitors. Campsites are the only accommodation the tariff lists for Chinhoyi Caves.
- The caves sit on the A1 Harare to Chirundu road, about 9 km north-west of Chinhoyi town (once Sinoia) and roughly 135 km from Harare, so they make an easy stop on the way to or from Kariba or Mana Pools.
- The local rate is for Zimbabwean citizens and residents, the SADC rate for nationals of the other Southern African Development Community countries, and everyone else pays the international rate.
- Everything is priced in US dollars. ZimParks says its prices are pegged in US dollars and that local clients may pay in local currency at the prevailing rate; its booking FAQs say cash in ZiG or US dollars is taken on site, and cards (Visa, MasterCard) or Ecocash online. All charges include VAT. The rise came a month after tourism services moved from zero-rated to standard-rated VAT at 15.5% on 1 January 2026. The international and SADC rates went up while the local rates stayed put.
- The 2026 tariff gives no start or end date. The PDF is dated 29 January 2026 and has been on zimparks.org.zw since 2 February, and the trade press reported the new fees on 12 February as applying with immediate effect, so I count it from 2 February. ZimParks issues its tariff by calendar year and reissued it mid-year in July 2025, so I show it as valid to 31 December 2026 and will re-check then. The 2026 PDF was still the one on zimparks.org.zw when I checked on 18 October 2026.
- Fees are set by Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. Official tariff · Seen a new rate? Tell us
€1 = US$1.12 · £1 = US$1.34 (ECB rate, 3 Nov 2026). Converted amounts are approximate; you pay in US dollars.
How we got these figures
- Only the 2026 ZimParks tariff gives these figures, so each row is confirmed by one source, the official one.
- In the 2026 tariff the Chinhoyi Caves row reads US$5 local day, US$2 local accommodated, US$10 SADC day, US$5 SADC accommodated, US$12 international day and US$5 international accommodated. The July 2025 tariff had US$5, US$2, US$8, US$4, US$10 and US$5.
- The 2023 sheet gave Chinhoyi Caves only US$5 for local day visitors and US$10 for international day visitors, with no SADC or accommodated rates; the July 2025 and 2026 tariffs list all six.
- The 2026 conservation table lists every station by name rather than by category. The vehicle tables do the grouping: Mana Pools, Hwange, Chizarira, Zambezi, Matobo, Kariba, Marongora, Rifa, Nyanga and Chewore share one table; Kyle, Sebakwe, Osborne, Chivero, Darwendale, Chimanimani "and all other Category IV parks" share another; Matusadona with Chivero North Bank, Gonarezhou and Umfurudzi each have their own.
- ZimParks reissued its tariff in July 2025 and kept the local and international day rates for this park where the 2023 sheet had them (US$5 and US$10), so the 2026 tariff is the first rise in the international day rate here since 2023.
- ZimParks, De-Gazetted Tariff 2026 (the PDF is dated 29 January 2026 and has been on zimparks.org.zw since 2 February 2026) · official · checked 18 Oct 2026
- ZimParks online booking FAQs (child discount, payment) · official · checked 18 Oct 2026
- Tourism Update (6 January 2026), the VAT change behind the rise · one source · checked 18 Oct 2026
- Tourism Update (12 February 2026), ZimParks increases fees with immediate effect · one source · checked 18 Oct 2026
- ZimParks, De-gazetted Tariff July 2025 revised (the tariff this one replaced) · official · checked 18 Oct 2026
- ZimParks, 2023 ZimParks Rates (the tariff before that) · official · checked 18 Oct 2026
- Wikipedia, Chinhoyi Caves (location on the A1) · one source · checked 18 Oct 2026
Chinhoyi Caves is a sinkhole in the dolomite a few minutes past Chinhoyi on the A1, and at the bottom of it sits the Sleeping Pool, a round pool of cobalt blue water that holds about 22 °C all year. It is the most extensive cave system open to the public in Zimbabwe, a national park since 1955, and the obvious leg-stretch between Harare and Kariba or Mana Pools. Most people stop for a look. Divers come for the pool itself.
Getting there
Chinhoyi is about 115 km north-west of Harare on the A1, the Chirundu road, and the caves are 8 or 9 km on from the town centre, turn-off on the right after the Alaska mine road goes off left. Our self-drive guide covers the road basics. Expect police roadblocks and toll gates, and carry US dollar cash in small notes, because cards get declined and fuel stations almost never take them. Without a car, Chinhoyi has taxis and minibuses.
When to go
Any time. The pool does not change temperature. The rains run from November to March and the water level moves with them. Nights from April to August get cold enough that ZimParks tells campers to pack warm clothes. Chinhoyi sits at about 1,187 m and the UK health advice puts high malaria risk below 1,200 m from November to June, so the caves are right on the line. Use repellent in the wet months, more so if you are camping.
What to do
The walk in is a long, dark, sloping passage down to the lip of the Sleeping Pool, with daylight coming in from the open sinkhole above. The rocks are slippery. The Dark Cave is the second route, artificially lit, down very steep steps to a ledge just above the water on the far side. Anyone unsteady on their feet should skip it. How deep it goes is argued about: scuba divers have reached 103 m, ZimParks thinks it could be well over 171 m, and the full system has never been explored. A second passage joins the Sleeping Pool 58 m below the surface, and near the end of the Dark Cave is a small chamber, the Blind Cave, that only divers reach. Diving is for trained cave and technical divers with a permit and supervision, and there is no kit for hire. ZimParks also warns you off the fence of a lion enclosure, which tells you there is one.
Good to know
The pool’s Shona name is Chirorodziva, the Pool of the Fallen, from an attack in 1830 when Angoni raiders threw the people living here into the water. Later that century Chief Chinhoyi hid around 300 of his people in the caves from Ndebele raiding parties. The site is still sacred and spirit mediums hold ceremonies here, so behave accordingly. ZimParks runs a campsite with ablution blocks and hot water, and there is a motel on site. Power cuts are frequent, so pack a torch.
History and culture
A dolomite sinkhole 8 km past Chinhoyi (Sinoia) on the Harare to Chirundu road, with a pool of startling blue water at the bottom whose true depth divers still disagree about. Most people give it an hour on the way to Kariba or Mana Pools. It deserves a bit more thought than that: the Kore Kore hid from Ndebele raiders in it, the British South Africa Company dynamited them out of it in the 1896 rising, and the liberation war's first battle was fought a few kilometres down the road in 1966.
- Before 1845
Stone tools and pottery dug up around the caves show people knew them long before anyone wrote about them. Before 1845 the low hills here were worked by the Leya, a pre-Shona copper-mining people who smelted ore near the caves and paid the Rozvi Mambo (the Shona king who ruled most of present Zimbabwe in the 18th century) an annual tribute in copper crosses. From the mid 1840s the Mambo let the Kore Kore, one of the Shona-speaking groups, settle among them under Chief Kaguda. A chief is the hereditary ruler of a community and its land. source
- 1830s to 1850s
The name Chirorodziva, the Pool of the Fallen, comes from the 1830s, when Zwangendaba's Nguni army passed through on its way north from Zululand. The Kore Kore ran for the cave, and many fell from the walls in the rush and were killed on the rocks or drowned. In the 1850s the Leya stopped paying tribute, the Mambo ordered Kaguda to punish them and take the caves, and Kaguda died in the fighting. The area emptied for a time, though the colonial claim that it was deserted when whites arrived suited the people making it. source
- 1868 to 1888
Chinhoyi became chief in 1868 after his cousin Nyajichi handed him the royal drum. The Ndebele (the kingdom Mzilikazi founded north of the Limpopo after breaking with Shaka's Zulu in 1821) raided north for cattle and captives in the 1860s and 1870s, and walled hilltop villages did not stop them, so Chinhoyi moved his people to the caves. They built a wall of stone and poles with thorn bush outside it, and at any rumour of an impi (a regiment) about 400 people took their food and dogs into the Dark Cave while the cattle were penned inside the wall. The small entrances could be shut with flat stones. The Ndebele called the hill Siso, for the way the Shona vanished into it. In 1887 the English hunter Frederick Selous swam the pool, which no local would do, and his writing made the caves known abroad from 1888. source
- 1890 to 1908
Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company occupied Mashonaland in 1890 on the strength of the Rudd Concession it had got from Lobengula in 1888. When the Shona rose in 1896 (the first Chimurenga, the war of resistance of 1896 and 1897), Chief Chinhoyi held the caves until the Company's force blew his people out with dynamite. Settlers, many of them Italian, took the well-watered land around the caves, the Company carved the Sinoia Citrus Estate out of the chief's country, and the Leya and Kore Kore were moved to the dry Zvimba Reserve, set up in 1904. The Alaska gold and copper mine opened by the caves in 1900, the same year the caves were gazetted as a national park, and they were fenced as one in 1908. source
- 1910 to 1945
The Company's Commercial Branch built the Caves Road from Sinoia in 1910 to 1912 with money from P. Inskipp, ran it as private property and charged tourists tolls; from 1917 to 1925 the Minister of Mines and Public Works banned private wagon traffic from it altogether. In 1917 Joseph Parhart cut the first steps to the pool and the Dark Cave, hung wooden and steel ladders in the dark tunnels and put strong doors on the entrances against baboons, all for £50.70. Thirty-three convicts cut more steps in 1929, and by the late 1930s the guides who showed tourists round and boiled their water earned about £2 a month. The caves were proclaimed a National Monument in 1936 and the Department of National Parks took them over in 1945. source
- 1955
ZimParks, the authority that runs the country's parks today, dates the caves' status as a National Park from 1955. source
- 28 April 1966
Five months after Ian Smith's white government declared Rhodesia independent of Britain on its own authority (UDI, 11 November 1965), seven ZANLA guerrillas who had crossed the Zambezi near Chirundu in March reached Sinoia. ZANLA was the armed wing of ZANU. They meant to cut the power line from Kariba, which carried about 70 percent of the country's electricity, then attack the blacked-out police station. Forty British South Africa Police with four air force helicopters, one used as a gunship, fought them through the day and killed all seven once their ammunition ran out. Zimbabwe counts it as the opening battle of the Second Chimurenga, the liberation war, and keeps 28 April as Chimurenga Day. source
- 1975 to 2013
The caves were re-designated a Recreational Park in 1975, and the 1.2 km² park with 8.6 km² of protected state land beside it became a Ramsar wetland of international importance in May 2013. source
- People and names
- Chinhoyi had 90,800 people at the 2022 census and is the capital of Mashonaland West. The name comes from a chief, Tjinoyi: white settlers turned it into Sinoia, and the Zezuru, a Shona group, later made it Chinhoyi. Sinoia itself was founded in 1906 as a group settlement by Lieutenant Margherito Guidotti, who brought ten Italian families, and German Jesuits started Chinhoyi Mission in 1958. source
- A shrine before it was a show cave
- To the Kore Kore the caves were a holy place where the annual rainmaking ceremony, mupwerera, was held, and the forest around them was rambotemwa, a sacred grove that could not be cut without the chief's and the spirit mediums' say-so. Nobody bathed in the pool, which was believed to hold a serpent, and settlers in the 1920s wrote that in drought a girl had once been thrown from the cliff into it. The bathing taboo kept a permanent clean water supply unspoilt through wars and droughts. source
- The Chinhoyi Seven
- The seven men killed in 1966 are a national story. Edgar Tekere wrote that nationalists locked up in Salisbury's maximum security prison cheered when the news reached them, the Bhundu Boys put the battle in their song Viva Chinhoyi on the album Pamberi, and the battlefield is now the Mashonaland West Provincial Heroes Acre with a museum built by the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe. Chimurenga Day on 28 April is also the anniversary of the execution of the spirit medium Nehanda Nyakasikana after the first Chimurenga. source
For American visitors: Frederick Selous, the hunter who guided the Pioneer Column into Mashonaland in 1890, was Theodore Roosevelt's friend. He helped with the logistics of Roosevelt's African safari of 1909 to 1910 (he did not lead it, whatever you read), and Roosevelt wrote the foreword to Selous's African Nature Notes and Reminiscences. When Selous was shot by a German sniper on the Rufiji in January 1917, aged 65, Roosevelt wrote that he had closed his life by dying in battle for his country. source
For American visitors: The deepest dive on the showcaves.com timeline belongs to the United States Navy, whose divers reached 135 m in 1992, two years before the cave was surveyed again in 1994. source
For German visitors: Chinhoyi's Catholic mission was started by German Jesuits. Helmut Reckter, born in Arenberg near Koblenz in 1933, who studied theology in Trier before joining the Jesuits, did his training placement at the Sinoia mission around 1962, came back as a priest in 1966, led the German Jesuits in Rhodesia from 1969 to 1974, was made Apostolic Prefect of Sinoia in 1974 and became the first Bishop of Chinhoyi in 1985. He chaired the Zimbabwe bishops' conference from 1990 to 1994 and died in Chinhoyi in March 2004. source
For German visitors: The mission German Jesuits opened at Sinoia in 1958 became the Apostolic Prefecture of Sinoia on 17 December 1973, was renamed for Chinhoyi on 25 June 1982, and was raised to a diocese on 28 October 1985. source
Main sights in Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park
4- The Sleeping Pool (Chirorodziva)
A long sloping passage runs down from the main entrance, its limestone polished by generations of animals going to drink, with light coming in from both ends and two shafts in the roof. At the bottom is the pool, roughly rectangular, with stalactites hanging over it, goldfish in it and sometimes water lilies at the edge. People have compared the view to the Blue Grotto at Capri. Mukwa, Cape fig and msasa grow in the sinkhole, and in the dry winter months the birding is good: Arnot's chat, Angola rock thrush and bat hawk.
Zimbabwe Field Guide, Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park - The Dark Caves
The side system Chief Chinhoyi and his followers used as their refuge from Ndebele (Matebele) raiders. The caves are still a sacred site and spirit mediums come here for ancestral worship and ceremonies, so behave as you would in a church. ZimParks warns that the rocks inside are slippery.
ZimParks, Chinhoyi Caves - Chinhoyi Seven Heroes Monument
On the battlefield of 28 April 1966, less than a kilometre out of Chinhoyi on the Harare to Chirundu highway, so you pass it on the way to the caves. The National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe runs the site, and its open-air museum covers the battle and the wider history of the country; the monument and museum were complete by January 2020.
Tourism Update, Zim pays tribute to its heroes with new attraction (10 January 2020) - Mashonaland West Provincial Heroes Acre
The battle site of 1966 grew into this provincial heroes acre in Chinhoyi, and NMMZ now lists it among its nine site museums, alongside Old Bulawayo, Ziwa and the National Heroes Acre Museum in Harare.
National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, Site Museums
Did you know?
- The water sits at 22 °C all year, which meteorologists have not been able to explain. When Johan Boshoff's team of twelve South African divers spent a week here in 2012 they went to 91 m twice and could still see trees, people and camera flashes from 50 m down. The pool is believed to reach 172 m. Two people have drowned in it, the first in 1978 after going past the 60 m limit the government had set. source
- The blue is fine lime held in clear water, not depth. Divers from the Zimbabwe Sub-Aqua Speleological Research Group measured the pool at 80 to 90 m, rising and falling with the season's rain; every underwater passage they have followed loops back into the pool, and one joins it 58 m down. The dolomite was laid down in a shallow sea and carries stromatolites, fossil algae that are among the earliest signs of life in Zimbabwe. source
- At 887 m long and 190 m deep it is the second longest and fourth deepest cave in Zimbabwe and the only one fitted out for the public. The first survey was done in 1920 and South African divers from the Normalair Underwater Club got to 103 m in 1969. The goldfish in the pool were let loose there to keep the mosquitoes down. source
- Between the wars the Native Commissioners fought a war on the baboons, which came down to drink and fouled the entrance to the pool; one wanted them shot steadily to keep them out, while Charles Bullock, who ran the district from 1927 to 1932, wrote that the fence built to stop them was wasted money because no fence stops a baboon. In 1937 about 157 tourists came, and some wrote SMELLY in the book. source
- Chinhoyi town sits at 1,187 m, about 116 km by road from Harare, and the Rhodesian Bush War is said to have started on the ground now occupied by Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital. source
Checked 19 October 2026.
Wildlife you might see
9- very likelyFish in the Sleeping Pool (goldfish, bass, bream and catfish)From the viewing points above the pool. The water is clear enough to see fish many metres down. The goldfish were put in to keep the mosquitoes down. All year. The pool stays at 22 °C whatever the seasonsource
- likelyLion (captive)A fenced enclosure in the park. ZimParks moved two adult lions here from Antelope Park at Gweru in 2018 to give people something to do beyond the caves, with two more to follow. All yearsource
- likelyBirds of the caves: Arnot's chat, Angola rock thrush, mocking chat and large striped pipitAll year, with the biggest variety in the dry winter monthssource
- likelyWoodland birds: red-winged starling, glossy starling, woodpeckers, penduline tit and flycatchersThe indigenous woodland round the caves (mukwa, Cape fig, msasa and yellowwood among the trees). All yearsource
- possibleBatsThe Bat Cave, one of the smaller caves. The cave system is home to a lot of them. All yearsource
- possibleBat hawkOn the Ramsar bird list for the site, which also notes the Bat Cave off the Dark Cave. All yearsource
- possibleBaboon and monkeyThe woodland round the caves. Before the lions arrived there were hardly any big animals here, and Tourism Update reported that monkeys and baboons were only seen now and then. All yearsource
- possibleImpalaThe woodland in the 1.2 km² park and the 8.6 km² of state land round it. ZimParks names them with baboon as the small animals of the areasource
- rareBushpig and rock hareBoth are listed for the area round the caves, but neither is something to count onsource
Likelihood is for a normal visit of two or three days, from the sources linked. Nothing is guaranteed in the wild.
Hikes and walks
2- Main passage to the Sleeping Pool
Steps lead down the main sloping passage to the viewpoint over the Sleeping Pool, which lies about 46 m below ground level. The steps are steep but most people manage them, with resting spots on the way down and benches along the paths. Thirty minutes does it as a stop on the road; a picnic turns it into a few hours.
Permit: Covered by the park entry fee
Great Zimbabwe Guide, a guide to Chinhoyi Caves - Dark Cave route
Very steep steps and a narrow passage lead down to a spot just above the water on the far side of the Sleeping Pool. The route is lit, and the Field Guide's advice is that anyone less agile should give it a miss. The Blind Cave, near the end of the Dark Cave, is for divers only.
Permit: Covered by the park entry fee
Zimbabwe Field Guide, Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park
Staying safe in Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park
- Malaria
- UK travel health advice puts everywhere in Zimbabwe below 1,200 m at high risk from November to June and recommends atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline or mefloquine for those months. The Ramsar information sheet gives the site's top elevation as 1,172 m, just under the line, so if you come between November and June take the tablets. From July to October the same advice rates the risk low and asks only for bite avoidance. The Zambezi valley you may be heading for next (Kariba, Mana Pools, Chirundu) is high risk all year. source
- Malaria, the US view
- The US CDC lists all of Zimbabwe as a malaria area and recommends prescription prophylaxis for the whole country, with no seasonal let-off. The parasite is mostly falciparum, the dangerous kind, and it is resistant to chloroquine. See a doctor straight away for any fever during the trip or in the year after it, and say where you have been. source
- ZimParks' own warnings
- ZimParks keeps it short for this park: watch your step in the caves, mind the slippery rock, wear proper walking shoes, and do not get too close to the fence of the lion enclosure. source
- Children and edges
- There are not many barriers round the steps or the pool, so younger children need carrying on the way down. source
- How deep it goes
- The walls of the Wonder Hole drop about 150 feet (some 46 m) straight down to the Sleeping Pool, and the water goes far deeper than that: a US Navy team reached 135 m in 1992 and another dive team 191 m in July 2013. Treat every edge as the edge of a cliff into water, because that is what it is. source
- The road
- The UK Foreign Office advice for Zimbabwe applies to the drive here: deep potholes, poorly lit roads, a very poor standard of driving and a firm instruction not to drive outside the main towns at night. Stop at every police roadblock and toll gate, and if you are fined, get a receipt. Fuel is sometimes unavailable, so top up whenever you pass a pump that has it. Traffic lights fail during power cuts. source
Tips from travellers
- Treat the caves as a stop on the way to Kariba or Mana Pools rather than a destination. They are about 9 km past Chinhoyi town, well signposted on the left coming from Harare. As a break, half an hour is enough; with a picnic it fills a few hours. There is no need to book and it is never busy. one source
- Wear walking shoes with grip, as ZimParks itself advises. The steps are steep and the rock in the caves is slippery. Sandals are a mistake. official
- Do the main passage first, then decide about the Dark Cave. It also takes you down to the Sleeping Pool, but the way out is extremely steep and it is not for everyone. one source
- Pack a picnic. The picnic sites are shaded, the campsite has three ablution blocks with hot and cold water, baths and showers, and the big car park under the trees does for a coffee stop if you are not staying. one source
- Carry US dollar cash in small notes. The Foreign Office says most suppliers prefer US dollars in cash, change is rarely available, and changing money anywhere but a licensed dealer is illegal. official
- If you want to dive, sort it out well before you arrive. There are no dive facilities at the caves, so all the equipment comes with you, and you need the permit and supervision arranged. This is not a site for inexperienced divers: years of technical and cave diving training are expected, and the system is still not fully explored. one source
Checked 19 October 2026. Conditions change, so confirm with the park or venue before you go.
Selous swam in it and called it an old gold mine
Cape Town, 27 January 1888. Frederick Selous, back from a season’s hunting in Mashonaland with three English companions, wrote to the Royal Geographical Society about a hole in the ground near the Angwa river at a place called Sinoia. It was round, a hundred feet or more deep, with a pool at the bottom running back into a cavern. The water was a deep cobalt blue and so clear he could see pebbles a long way down. A tunnel sloped into it at about 45 degrees. His theory was that the whole thing was an ancient gold working: miners had followed a quartz vein down that tunnel until they hit a spring, and the spring had filled the hole. If people had dug it, he wrote, the labour must have been extraordinary. Then he and his friends went down and swam to the far end of the pool. The water, he noted, was quite warm.
Nobody dug it, and somebody remembered it
The Wonder Hole, as the open shaft is called now, is a cavern in the dolomite whose roof fell in, what the Ramsar listing calls a swallow hole. By the time Selous put the trip in his 1893 book, Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa, the gold mine had gone quietly and he was writing about “the limestone caves of Sinoia”, with the blue compared to the grotto at Capri. The book also says “we discovered” them. The Zimbabwe Field Guide puts it more honestly: he is the first European believed to have been shown the cave.
He was wrong about the people too. In the same letter he wrote that the locals had no tradition about the place at all, while describing the stockaded town they had built round it. He had swum in water they would not get into.
The outlaw before the chief
The story told in Chinhoyi starts before the chief the town is named after. The caves were the stronghold of an outlaw called Nyamakwere, who killed his victims by throwing them into the pool, until Chinhoyi defeated and killed him and took the chiefship. Isdore Guvamombe told it in The Herald in 2014 and the Zimbabwe Field Guide tells it too. In Guvamombe’s version Nguni raiders flung the people they beat in battle into the same water, to sleep there for good.
The other thing visitors hear is about stones. The pool looks small enough to throw a stone across. Try it and the spirits guarding the water are said to catch the stone and curse whoever threw it. Guvamombe heard it and so did a blogger who went down in 2016, which suggests it is still being told at the top of the steps.
Pots that named an age
Under the stories there is plain archaeology, and it goes back much further than any of them. In the 1960s K. R. Robinson dug around the main cave and found the leavings of early farmers who also worked metal and made a decorated pottery so distinctive that the caves became its type-site. Archaeologists call it the Sinoia, or Chinhoyi, ceramic tradition and date it to roughly 300 to 1100 AD. Stone tools lie scattered round the main cave as well. The grain stores of the 16th century and Chief Chinhoyi’s grain bins, whose remains could still be seen in the underground passages until fairly recently, are late chapters in a long occupation.
A caretaker with blanks in his gun
Colonial officials advertised the caves at home and abroad as one of the sights of Mashonaland that should on no account be missed, and the tourists who came out for Victoria Falls wanted to see them too. Many visitors slept in guest houses in the town 8 km away. Some stayed at the caves in pole and dagga huts, and a report in 1938 complained that borer dust kept falling on them from the rafters. The local guides who showed people round were not allowed guns, though lions, elephants and leopards were about. In the 1940s one caretaker, Mapfumo, a descendant of Chief Chinhoyi, was given a shotgun on the strength of his family, but only with blank cartridges, for scaring baboons away from the tourists.
The settlers were harder on the cave than the baboons were. Bat guano was dug out of it in 1929, and through the 1930s and 1940s enthusiasts shot stalactites and stalagmites off the walls. There is a story that one passage of the Dark Cave comes out at Maningwe Hill, about 8 km away. Vimbai Kwashirai, the historian who went through the colonial files, notes that there is certainly a cave entrance on that hill. The link between the two is still a story.
What the bottom does to people
People who go down describe the same few things. It is quiet, quiet enough that visitors drop to whispers, and both Guvamombe and the 2016 blogger reached for the word eerie. The blue does not depend on the sky. It holds on overcast days and in the shade of the cavern, the Ramsar sheet says it is the same by day or night, and Guvamombe warns that it photographs badly. Then comes the climb out. Guvamombe wrote that people come up from the Dark Cave “panting like fish out of water”. The blogger thought there was nothing to see in the Dark Cave but the dark, though that is one traveller’s view.
When the caves were listed as a wetland of international importance, the information sheet set out what threatens them, and most of it lies outside the fence: farmland spreading round the park, more and more boreholes drawing on the water underground, and dolomite quarrying nearby, with the number of visitors the one pressure inside it.
In and around Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park
9 places listedWhere to stay in Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park 8
- 17.36°S 30.13°ECampsiteChinhoyi Cave National Park CampsiteChinhoyi
- 17.36°S 30.13°EGuest houseCamp site accomodation
- 17.36°S 30.13°EMotelChinhoyi Caves motel
- 17.36°S 30.13°EGuest houseRooms 11/ 12
- 17.36°S 30.13°EGuest houseRooms 7/ 8
- 17.36°S 30.13°EGuest houseRooms 9/10
- 17.36°S 30.13°EGuest houseStaff House
- 17.36°S 30.13°EGuest houseStaff Quarters
Sights 1
- Chinhoyi CaveViewpoint
Quick answers
How much is the entry fee for Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park?
International visitors pay US$12 (about €10.50 or £9) per adult and US$6 per child per day. These rates apply from 2 February 2026 to 31 December 2026 and are set by Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks).
Do Zimbabwens and SADC citizens pay less at Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park?
Zimbabwean residents pay US$5 per adult and SADC nationals pay US$10 per adult per day. You need ID or a passport to get the lower rate.
When were these Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park fees last checked?
We last checked them on 18 October 2026 against 7 published sources. We re-check every two weeks, but always confirm with Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) before you travel.
What animals can you see in Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park?
Most visitors see fish in the sleeping pool (goldfish, bass, bream and catfish). You have a good chance of seeing lion (captive), birds of the caves: arnot's chat, angola rock thrush, mocking chat, large striped pipit and woodland birds: red-winged starling. Bushpig and rock hare are there but rarely seen.
What are the best hikes in Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park?
Main passage to the Sleeping Pool and Dark Cave route. See the hikes section for times, difficulty and permits.
Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park and the parks nearest it
| Park | International adult | Distance | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park | US$5 €4 | · | Mashonaland West |
| Lake Chivero Recreational Park | US$5 €4 | 96 km | Mashonaland West |
| Nyamaneche National Park | US$5 €4 | 105 km | Mashonaland Central |
| Mukuvisi Woodlands | US$6 €5 | 115 km | Mashonaland East |
Where the Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park fees come from
- ZimParks, De-Gazetted Tariff 2026 (the PDF is dated 29 January 2026 and has been on zimparks.org.zw since 2 February 2026)
- ZimParks online booking FAQs (child discount, payment)
- Tourism Update (6 January 2026), the VAT change behind the rise
- Tourism Update (12 February 2026), ZimParks increases fees with immediate effect
- ZimParks, De-gazetted Tariff July 2025 revised (the tariff this one replaced)
- ZimParks, 2023 ZimParks Rates (the tariff before that)
- Wikipedia, Chinhoyi Caves (location on the A1)
Open data: all park fees (CSV) · JSON (CC BY 4.0)
Cite as: Travel Africa Guide, "Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park fees 2026", checked 18 October 2026, https://travelafrica.guide/zimbabwe/chinhoyi-caves-recreational-park/
Map of Chinhoyi Caves Recreational Park
See every place on this map as a list