Mashonaland East

• Domboshava Cave and Hill

  National Monument No. 16, under National Museums and Monuments since 1936, 17 km from Borrowdale police station in northern Harare. An 800 m path climbs the granite dome to a shelter of late Stone Age paintings, including a trance scene of dancers in a line with elaborate headdresses. The interpretive centre at the car park is good on the site's history and ecology. Open 6am to 6pm; the paintings have been partly vandalised, so expect faded figures.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Domboshava Cave and Hill
• Ngomakurira

  Domboshava's bigger neighbour, about 28 km from Borrowdale police station, with a much harder walk marked by paint arrows over granite sheets to 360 degree views. The main frieze on the orange rock face at the foot of the mountain is four large outlined elephants with people and animals painted over them, badly faded now and marked by graffiti and the smoke of church groups camping overnight.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Ngomakurira
• Tsindi Ruins

  National Monument No. 100, formerly Lekkerwater Ruins, on a granite hill 150 m above the Nyakambiri valley past Marondera, reached along Theydon Road off the A3. About 2 hectares of walling built into the natural rocks, some of it the same type as Great Zimbabwe's, with three occupation stages traced by Sheila Rudd's 1963 to 1966 excavation and a small site museum. Open 6am to 6pm, final stretch on gravel.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Tsindi Ruins (formerly called Lekkerwater Ruins)
• Bernard Mizeki Shrine

  The chapel built over the ruins of the hut where Mizeki, a Mozambican-born Anglican catechist, was dragged out and stabbed on the night of 18 June 1896 after refusing to abandon his converts. Consecrated on 18 June 1938, with a concrete cross on the hill across the valley where his killers lit their fire. Off the A3 beyond Marondera via Theydon Road, entry free.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Bernard Mizeki Shrine
• Mutoko (Tere) Monument

  National Monument No. 61, 143 km from Harare and just under 7 km from the A2 junction in Mutoko town, the last stretch on good gravel with one shallow ford. A circular enclosure raised on granite boulders with three platforms, chevron-patterned walling and the remains of at least five pole and daga huts, plus an interpretive centre showing local finds. Local Budya tradition says it was built in the 1600s by Makate, a man with powerful charms. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 8am to 5pm.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Mutoko (or Tere) Monument
• Luanze Earthworks and Church

  The site of the Portuguese feira, 58 km beyond Mutoko on the A2 and 38.6 km short of Nyamapanda, south of the Masarakufa store. Two eroded rectangular earthworks with corner bastions, which the archaeologist Peter Garlake read as secure warehouses rather than forts, and the low foundations of a pole and daga Dominican church marked by a monuments plinth. There is no monument signpost and little to see; going with a local site guardian helps, as people here can suspect strangers of looking for gold.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Luanze Earthworks and Church
• Ewanrigg Botanical Garden

  Basil Christian bought the Mount Shannon farm in about 1911 and renamed it Ewanrigg, then spent the rest of his life collecting aloes, cycads and succulents. The garden was gazetted National Monument No. 46 in 1943, he left it to the state in his 1948 will, and it opened to the public after his death in 1950. ZimParks keeps about 100 hectares in cultivation. Go between April and July when the aloes are in flower and the sunbirds are on them. Open 8am to 5pm.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Ewanrigg Botanical Garden, a tribute to its creator Basil Christian
• Chiremba Balancing Rocks

  The banknote rocks, 7.4 km along Chiremba Road from the Glenara Avenue junction in Epworth, at the National Museums and Monuments signpost just past the big rock called Domboramwarwi. Granite that cooled underground, was exposed as softer rock around it eroded, and then split and peeled into these stacks. There is San rock art here too. Open 8am to 5pm all year.

  Zimbabwe Field Guide, Chiremba / Epworth Balancing Rocks

• The Chiremba Balancing Rocks at Epworth are the granite stack printed on the Zimbabwean dollar notes of the hyperinflation years, including the one hundred trillion dollar note. The site was declared a national monument in 1994. source
• Marondera, then Marandellas, took in over 600 Polish refugees, mostly women and children, during the Second World War. The camp closed in 1946 and the Poles were moved to Gatooma, now Kadoma. The town had already been destroyed once, in 1896, and rebuilt about 6 km north near the railway. source
• Chivhu on the Masvingo road was Enkeldoorn, Dutch and Afrikaans for lone thorn, named in 1891 after a single acacia. It became such an Afrikaner stronghold in an English-speaking colony that people called it the Republic of Enkeldoorn. The Shona name, meaning anthill, replaced it in 1982. source
• Harare, Chitungwiza and Epworth were cut out of Mashonaland East in 1997 to form Harare Province, 872 km² holding 2,427,209 people at the 2022 census, about one Zimbabwean in six. We keep them on this page because the province's roads, buses and airport all run through the city. source
• Epworth began as a Methodist mission station in 1890 and after independence became the only informal settlement the government chose to upgrade rather than demolish. The 2022 census counted 206,365 people there, up from about 20,000 in 1980. source
• The Mbire people mined iron in the Hwedza hills between the 9th and 12th centuries, and a hoe was a central part of the roora (marriage payment) ceremony. Before colonial rule the area was known as Mbire. source

Checked 19 October 2026.