Walking across the Zim-Zam border

When we exited the park, we walked to the border with Zambia, getting our clothes dry in the sunshine as we did so. The Zimbabwe/Zambia border is in the middle of a bridge across the gorge. People are allowed to walk across and stand with one foot in each country. You just have to pick up a pass on the Zimbabwe side so that you can get back in again. We walked to the middle and took photos down into what they call the ‘boiling pot’ below. We also watched as some mad fools bungee jumped down into the gorge!

The bridge was the brainchild of Cecil Rhodes, part of his grand and unfulfilled Cape to Cairo railway scheme, even though he never visited the falls and died before construction of the bridge began. Rhodes is recorded as instructing the engineers to "build the bridge across the Zambezi where the trains, as they pass, will catch the spray of the Falls." It was designed by George Andrew Hobson of consultants Sir Douglas Fox and Partners, assisted by the stress calculations of Ralph Freeman, who was later the principal designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The main central arch is a parabolic curve.

The bridge was prefabricated in England by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company before being shipped to the port city of Beira in Portuguese-ruled Mozambique and then transported on the newly constructed railway to the Victoria Falls. It took just 14 months to construct and was completed in 1905.
The bridge was officially opened by Professor Sir George Darwin, son of Charles Darwin and President of the British Association, on 12 September 1905.

Constructed from steel, the bridge is 198 metres long, with a main arch spanning 156.50 metres at a height of 128 metres above the lower water mark of the river in the gorge below. It carries a road, railway, and footway. The bridge is the only rail link between Zambia and Zimbabwe and one of only three road links between the two countries.Read more