The Victoria Falls one of the world’s seven greatest natural wonders was discovered by Dr David Livingstone. He named it after Queen Victoria as a tribute to the 19th century English monarch. Dr Livingstone, a Scottish missionary doctor and renown Africa explorer “discovered” the falls on November 16, 1855.
However, and long before the Dr David Livingstone “discovered” the falls, the Kololo people living in the area in the 1800’s described it as ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ meaning ‘the Smoke that Thunders’ and now it is also known as ‘the greatest curtain of falling water’.
This mighty waterfall was declared as a World Heritage Site in 1989 for being one of the most spectacular water cataracts in the world. It is a place of legend, romance and myth.
Standing 111 meters (300 feet) high at the height of the floods the Victoria Falls has the largest sheet of falling water in the world with over 545 million cubic metres a minute (9 million liters /sec) cascading over the rocky cliffs. The sound is exhilarating, the sight is astounding and the experience is breathtakingly spectacular in the extreme.
Columns of spray can be seen from 30 kilometres away as the huge mass of water plummets over the edge of the wide basalt cliff, over which the falls cascades and thunder.
The Zambezi is transformed from a wide placid river into a ferocious torrent cutting through a series of dramatic gorges. Facing the falls is another sheer wall of basalt, rising to the same height and capped by mist-soaked rain forest. The only known place on earth where it rains 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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