Month by month
Matusadona in September
September is peak Matusadona: the game is on the shore, the heat is building and the lodges charge their highest rates of the year.
If you only want the answer
September combines excellent game viewing with real heat and the year's top rates. Book early and plan activities around the middle of the day.
Weather
Hot and dry. Afternoons are hot and the dust and haze build as the month goes on.
On the thirty-year model normals September averages 30.0°C by day and 17.9°C at night, with 1 mm of rain over 0 wet days.
Game
Excellent: the lakeshore grassland and the springs hold most of the park's animals. This is also the season when the level of Lake Kariba most shapes what the shoreline offers.
Rates
Bumi Hills charges its 2026 peak of $1,390 per person sharing in September and October. Changa stays at its high-season $682.
The lake
Check the Zambezi River Authority's current Lake Kariba reading before you go: on 22 September 2026 the lake stood at 481.13 m, 40.89% of usable storage, far higher than a year earlier, and the level shapes the lakeshore grassland where most of the game is. We have no sourced month-by-month lake cycle, so we do not predict one.