Aberfoyle Lodge, Honde Valley

Aberfoyle Lodge stands on a working tea estate in the Honde Valley, in Manicaland in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands. It was built in 1960 as a club for the tea estate's staff and later became a lodge. Far and Wide Zimbabwe has managed it since 2011. When it was refurbished, the original wooden floors and large verandahs were kept. The billiards table in the games room came from Soho, London.

The lodge sits at about 800 m in the valley below the Nyanga escarpment. It is not inside Nyanga National Park. Around it are tea plantations, rivers, mountains and riparian forest. From Harare it is about 350 km, usually a drive of 4h30 to 5 hours on mountain roads. The road is tarred down the Manga Pass, past Mutarazi Falls and Hauna growth point, and the last 6 km are gravel.

Each of the 15 lodge rooms is named after a local bird, such as the Narina Trogon, the Livingstone's Turaco and the Seedcracker honeymoon suite. Every room has an en-suite bathroom and a veranda looking over the golf course or the forest. Stays are full board, and much of the fresh produce comes from the lodge's organic garden. On the estate there is a 9-hole golf course among the tea, guided birding with local guide Morgan, a tea factory tour that shows how leaves go from field to cup in under 24 hours, and waterfalls within walking distance. For families or groups there are also two self-catering houses and a dormitory.