Malawi

The Malawian formalities took no time at all, and buying insurance was equally as quick in spite of haggling over the price. The road was perfect new tarmac and we flew the 130km to our first stop at Sangillo.

    Buying wood with Helen and John

It was a fantastic spot on a hillside by Lake Malawi, with a beachside bar down a few steps. We chatted with the owners, Mark and Mia, and arranged to watch the England Scotland game in their house that evening. We teased Mia, who is Scottish, about the likely result and were more than a little disappointed when Scotland actually won.

We spent a few days there, doing yet more maintenance jobs and making good use of the mechanics pit they have. I also ìhelpedî Mark as he tried to fix his speedboat engine. Unfortunately I managed to spray petrol in his face while trying to clear the fuel line, but I did redeem myself when, after some random tinkering, it worked. Iím still not sure what I did.

Eric and Sophie turned up in their obsessively clean red landy, and on our last day we were pleased to see Erik and Daniella again in their Series 3. We caught up with them over the afternoon and arranged to meet them a few days later at a beach down the lake.

We were off early, following John and Helen for a while, before heading off on our own to Vwaza Marsh National Park for another walk. We arrived with time to spare so we went for a drive through the park, finding a herd of elephants just off the road.

They had a few young with them and were definitely more wary of us than others we had seen elsewhere. They were 40 yards away amongst the bushes, looking our way and sniffing the air so we turned the engine off while we watched and completely missed the one that snuck up on us until it was really quite close at the front of the car. She was flapping her ears and started when we fired up the engine, retreating slightly before turning back and as we accelerated past she trumpeted, but we werenít staying around to find out if this was in alarm or triumph.

We stopped about half a mile down the track to allow our heart rates to settle, and soon found another hazard of the park as a swarm of flies descended on the car. We realised too late that they were tsetse, with a notoriously nasty bite and a liking for large moving objects and the colour blue. Typically we were both wearing blue t-shirts, and they just loved KT.

We wound the windows up and had a very hot and sweaty killing session before we continued. We stopped counting when we had killed 20, an alarming proportion of which contained very red un-insect-like blood.

When we pulled up at the campsite there was a swarm sat on the car, and they stayed put even when we had stopped. They only flew away when we turned the engine off; presumably they felt the vibrations stop. The guide confirmed they were tsetse, but denied any sleeping sickness in the area, so after changing out of our blue clothes we set off for another walking safari.

Once again we saw a range of herd animals, including some buffalo that were very determined to stand their ground but thankfully decided to move on just as the guide was reaching for his rifle and Claire and I were looking for a tree to climb. There were also a variety of tracks, including hyena and some more elephant prints.

We decided that we couldnít face camping with the tsetse so we set off again, arriving late in Mzuzu in torrential rain. We were planning to camp but couldnít get the tent up because of the weather so we ended up in an unpleasantly damp hut at a site run by a bizarre couple who kept topping their mugs up behind the bar.

We moved on again the next morning, catching up with John and Helen at another, larger and less personal, beach resort. We spent a few days there relaxing with a book, and did a dive. It was not the most exciting dive we have done, but finding the wreck was entertaining as it turned out to be a scrapped VW kubelwagen.

Our last night there was a Friday and there was a large crowd of expats that arrived over the course of the day. Many of them were driving NGO and charity vehicles and one particularly loud and well bred woman (we immediately nicknamed her Stupid Susan ñ on finding out we were camping she said ìOh jolly good. I went camping once!) we got talking to confirmed that they were a regular crowd. When we told her about our trip she was very excited as she was planning to do the same when she was married. We asked when the big day was and she replied ìOh no, I have to find a man first.î

The weather had been getting worse over the days at Kande beach, the rains were not as predictable as normal and had been lasting far longer than the usual two hours in the afternoon. This came to a head the following night a little further south when we were hit by horrendous rain and wind that rocked the car and drove the water through the seams of the tent.

John and Helen decided at that point to head towards Zambia, hoping it was drier away from the lake. But we had 10 days to kill until my mum was due to meet us at a park in eastern Zambia.

We decided to try and stick it out in Malawi and headed for Liwonde National park further south. Most of the park was shut due to the rains and we had another damp night in what should have been an idyllic campsite before continuing south to the fog-bound Zomba Plateau on our way to Blantyre.

    Zomba, like Scotland but warmer

We put the tent up during a pause in the rain and took the bedding to our room to try and dry it out while we considered our options.

There was no point going to Zambia early as we would have to backtrack a huge distance to meet up with my mum, and we had heard rumours (later confirmed by Rich and Camilla who had been stuck there for 8 days!) that the road to the park had been washed away. Our other option was to head into Mozambique, which we had hoped to do anyway but had avoided because of the time lost to Claireís back.

After doing some research we found a place on the coast that seemed suitable and had a good reputation for diving. The visa should be available at the border, so we just needed to find out about the road conditions. We called Bay Diving to see if they knew and got hold of Sarah who gave a characteristically blunt reply: ìThe roads? Oh theyíre shit!î She promised to email some more details once she had spoken to a guest whoíd come that way, but we needed no further encouragement.

The email confirmed that the 900km should take a couple of days, so we aimed to leave early the next morning. Our departure was delayed as Nicole and Antoine turned up whom we hadnít seen since rafting with them in Uganda, but we made the border by mid-morning in spite of the rain and fog.

At first the Malawian officials wouldnít stamp us out as they told us it was impossible to get visas for Mozambique at the border. We knew this wasnít correct, as we had heard of various people who had done exactly that, so we arranged to come back for the exit stamp when we had sorted out the Mozambican side.