This protected area covers 416 000 hectares and encompasses the Thuli Safari Area and three botanical reserves: namely, Pioneer, South Camp and Tolo River reserves. The three last-mentioned are very small, totalling just one square kilometre. Note, access to this park requires driving across the Sashe River. Thus, this park can only be accessed in the dry season, and/or when the Sashe River is low and passable by vehicle. Thuli Parks & Wildlife Land is located in the southwestern part of the country and covers the whole of the Sashe River’s west bank. It forms part of the so-called Thuli Circle, an area with a radius of 16 kilometres that was created by the early settlers as a cattle-free zone in agreement with the indigenous tribesmen. This cattle-free zone was put in place to stop the transmission of Rinderpest (or Cattle Plague) from the local people’s cattle to the settler’s prized oxen, the latter being essential for the trek into Africa, to pursue Rhode’s dream of building a railway line from the Cape Colony in the south, up to modern-day Cairo in the north of Africa. Today, the Thuli Parks and Wildlife Land is managed and protected by Zimparks. Prior to its declaration as a protected area in 1975, it was a controlled hunting zone, and seasonal hunting still occurs in the park.