20 to 27 September - The Drive North Through Malawi to Dar es Salaam

This is the first time I have been able to post a blog for nearly a week. 

We collected Sue and Emma Gumbleton from Lilongwe Airport at lunchtime on 20 September.  Both were very tired after a long flight lasting some 17 hours from the UK via Nairobi and Lusaka.  It seems there is no direct flight to Lilongwe from the UK anymore.  It was a very hot day and in addition to their luggage we had on board containers of extra diesel to see us through Malawi, making the vehicle very full and cramped.  Poor things – what a way to start a holiday in Africa!  It was a good three hour drive to Bua River Camp near the lakeshore in central Malawi and the road was narrow and winding.  In addition to this there were hundreds of people walking along the tarmac throughout the entire drive – something we had not experienced so far on this expedition. 

Finally we arrived at the Bua campsite, hidden on the edge of the remote Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve, and sank a couple of ice cold beers each to wash away the dust of the drive.  The campsite (we were the only occupants) is very basic but has recently been renovated by an Englishman called John who was there to greet us as we erected our tents in the evening sunlight.  The Bua River runs through the camp and is flanked by dense riverine vegetation, although the surrounding hills have more open woodland. 

John told us that, on the afternoon of the day we left Lilongwe, major riots had erupted in the city centre and several million pounds worth of damage was done.  Thank goodness we got out before they started as it seems some of the riots were in the street adjacent to our campsite!  John told us they were caused by dissatisfaction with the government’s record and resentment that the President is building an enormous palace for himself whilst the population starves and there is no fuel and constant electricity cuts – I think I have heard all this before somewhere else in Africa!

But back to the trip…...

The Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve where we camped is Malawi’s oldest Reserve but remains almost totally undeveloped as the rough terrain makes access very difficult.  There are still no roads through it, although we hear two lodges have recently been built on its boundaries and this may lead to more tourism.  The pristine bush inside the Reserve harbours a rich diversity of animals including elephant, buffalo, baboon and various antelope.  It also supports the country’s last viable lion population.

Malawi is a small but fascinating country.  We have been astonished however by the number of people who live here.  At independence in 1964 it had less than 4 million inhabitants but it is now estimated to have nearly 16 million, making it one of the more densely populated countries in Africa.  Until 1907 when it’s present borders were established by Britain it had been the fiefdom of three tribal chiefs and has a long and sad history of violence and poverty.  Slave trading throughout the area was rife and alliances between the Omani Arabs and local chiefs led a one stage to an almost total annihilation of the population.  Livingstone is thought to have had a great influence in bringing the slave trade in this area to an end, although it is sad to read that some of his descendants, who settled and farmed in Malawi, were killed in a series of uprisings in 1915.  Dr Hastings Banda, the first resident and once a doctor in Edinburgh and London, returned to the country in 1953 and later took the title of ‘President for Life’ until he retired aged 95 in 1993.  He left Malawi as a poor and backward country, and little seems to have changed since.

After a two day break at Bua we drove on north, stopping overnight at a small camp by the shores of Lake Malawi, on the way to the Tanzanian border.  At one stage we went over a pass and down into a valley full of the baobab trees – I have never seen so many baobabs growing so closely together before.

The baobab is a fascinating tree so let me tell you a little about it.  It can grow to a height 30 metres and have a diameter of up to 11 metres.  Radio-carbon dating has shown that some baobab trees are over 2,000 years old.  The trunk can hold up to 120,000 litres of water which can be tapped in dry periods.  It is also known as the tree of life as it is capable of providing shelter, food and water for both animal and humans. The cork-like bark is fire resistant and is used for making cloth and rope. The leaves are used for condiments and medicines. The fruit, called "monkey bread", is rich in vitamin C.  For most of the year, the tree is leafless, and looks as if it has been planted upside down.  Legend has it that the Bushmen believed the baobab so offended God that in his wrath he uprooted it and cast it back into the earth upside-down.

Back to our journey..........eventually we reached the Tanzanian border.  As with all African border posts, the bureaucracy involved in arranging to leave one country and enter another is a ponderous affair.  It took us two hours to reach the Tanzanian side after having all our travel documents photocopied and getting the vehicle carnet signed.  For some unknown reason the border officials would not accept US$1 bills but demanded a vehicle ‘road tax’ of US$25 in minimum denominations of US$5 so we had to search our purses to find sufficient notes before we were allowed to proceed.  The 3^rd party vehicle insurance office then tried to sell me a COMESA insurance document which luckily I knew would not give cover to UK registered vehicles involved in accidents, so I refused it.  Only then did they offer me the right insurance.  The reason for this ploy it transpired was to try to get me to pay a larger premium!

As we entered Tanzania the heavens opened and we experienced our first rainstorm since leaving the UK nearly three months ago.  Since then, we have had one or more showers almost every day but it has been very hot and humid in between with temperatures in the mid thirties centigrade by day and a humid and sweaty 20+ degrees by night.  Shortly after crossing into Tanzania the road began to climb steadily and by the end of the afternoon we had reached over 6000 feet.  Tea and banana plantations grew on each side of the road and the mountain tops were swathed in mist. Everything was green and moist – such a change to the dry arid landscape we had driven through to date. 

The only campsite I could find that evening was a missionary one in the small town of Mbeya.  No beer was for sale (we smuggled a few bottles in later) and we could hear hymns being sung in the distance as we removed our sweaty clothing and showered.  As with many campsites the showers had no hot water and only long drop toilets so we installed the two girls in a small room in the missionary hostel for the night and that had a warm water shower we could all use. That evening as we ate in the mission canteen I met a Frenchman who had lived in this part of Africa for over 30 years. He told us to be careful as the Tanzanian police were some of the most corrupt in Africa. To illustrate the point he told us he had driven down from Iringa that very day and had been stopped and fined for not carrying instructions in his vehicle to cover the use of the mandatory fire extinguisher! When he said this was not compulsory, the traffic police took away his drivers licence and left him stranded on the road until he agreed to pay ‘a fine’.  He also told us the judiciary were corrupt and it was not unusual to pay a bribe to get the right outcome at a trial.  He said when one of his colleagues had a fire in his house recently, the police cordoned off the area and would not allow anyone in (including the privately hired fire engine – there was no local authority one available) until they had plundered the house of its valuables, saying the owner could recover their worth through his insurance premium!

The plan for the next day was to drive for 350 miles (8 hours) from Mbeya to Mikumi National Park, so we set off at dawn.  The traffic was very heavy and we crawled for the first 10 miles, avoiding overtaking vehicles that had no regard for safety or the rules of the road.  I was driving. Within 20 minutes we were pulled over by the traffic police and I was told I had been doing 69kph in a 50kph zone.  I certainly had not as we were very careful about speed limits but I was shown the speed camera reading and told to pay a fine of 60,000 Tanzanian shillings (£30).  We protested and were led off to see the officer in charge who was resting in a Landrover under the shade of a tree by the side of the road.  After much arguing the fine was reduced to 30,000 Tanzanian shillings but I received no receipt – it went straight into his pocket!  We learnt later from two separate white people who had used the same road that they had been stopped also for allegedly doing exactly the same speed on the same road.  We all agreed that the camera appeared to be set permanently at 69kph!

One is bound to compare the merits of each country visited during a trip like this and both Ian and I feel Tanzania sits firmly at the bottom of the pile so far.  Many of the locals we have met appear to be offhand and rude, in some cases just walking off when one stops to ask the way.  Few speak English - or want to – which is unusual as Tanzania was once a British colony.  When we stopped to buy food at Iringa we were charged heavily for parking in the street.  When I asked a passing Indian if this was the norm he said the local council had decreed that all foreigners were to pay a fee to park anywhere in town.  Supermarkets are non existent and food prices in shops are not displayed so you never know if you are paying an inflated price or not at the till. 

We arrived at Mikumi National Park an hour before dusk after some 10 hours of driving.  There were four Rangers sitting at the reception desk on the entrance gate and I was ignored for several minutes whilst they continued to chat to each other.  No one else was there.  Eventually they spoke to me.  I asked if we could camp for the night and was told the entry fees and camping charges would be US$240 for 24 hours – massively higher charges than we had paid anywhere before on this trip.  We had no option so reluctantly agreed and were told to go to Campsite 2.  No map was given to me but I was told to drive eight kilometres into the park and turn left at the sixth junction.  As the light faded we found the campsite under a massive baobab tree – not a fenced one as I had imagined but a wild camp for one party in the middle of the bush.  This was no problem for Ian and me as we were now used to remote camping but I was concerned for the safety of the two girls who had never done anything like this before.  As the light faded we lit a large fire and erected the tents.

I then gave everyone a safety briefing as I was concerned about the possibility of wild animals wandering into the campsite.  I taught the girls how to use a torch to look around before venturing out from their tent at night and said one of us men would accompany them if they needed to do so.  The shower and toilets were 100 metres away in the bush – too far to walk at night - and anyway were in a dreadful condition so I suggested we did not use them.  Instead Ian and I set up a temporary toilet by the Landrover.

Within minutes of settling down to make supper Ian’s wife Sue said she could see eyes reflecting in her torchlight.  I investigated - it was only a mongoose watching us from the grass nearby.  Moments later she saw more eyes – again I looked and this time found a jackal.  This was all a good experience as it taught the girls the importance of using a torch properly at night. The next morning we realised why the jackal was so close.  There was a dump of rotting rubbish and tins in a hole about 30 metres away from us that the Parks staff had never cleared away. 

In the morning as we packed up our camp, two cow herds of elephant with calves walked by close to the camp, flaring their ears in alarm at finding it occupied. Then with some time to spare during the morning we set off for a game drive and saw a good variety of animals including some old buffalo bulls, a large herd of buffalo further on, giraffe, more elephant, warthog, wildebeest for the first time and much birdlife

At lunchtime we left the Park and drove on some 200 miles to Dar es Salaam.  The traffic was very heavy and we ended up in several traffic jams, only reaching the city in the evening.  The campsite I had chosen from the internet had to be reached by taking a ferry across a river and we saw dhows sailing past in the evening light. 

We finally reached the camp in the dark and set up our tents without having any idea of what it was like, but the next day brought a pleasant surprise

The blue swell of the Indian Ocean was only yards from our tents and the next morning the heavy humidity of a hot African beach hit us as we sorted out the camp.  Palm trees were all around, offering shade from the sun, and the sand on the beach was near white in colour.  As the morning progressed, the wind got up and white horses appeared on the waves.  This was tropical bliss!

We will stay here for a week.  Ian has taken his family to the island of Zanzibar for a break and I am looking after the camp in his absence.  In three days time the two Gumbleton girls will leave for the UK and Jo and Jessica will come out to join me for a fortnight.  We too will visit Zanzibar before heading north again for Kenya, but more of that in the next blog!

14 to 18 September – The drive through Zambia to Malawi

We set off from our Lusaka campsite after breakfast on 14 September and headed east for the 350 mile drive to Chipata near the border with Malawi.  At first the tarmac road from Lusaka was good but as we headed further east it deteriorated and once again we spent the day dodging deep potholes and ancient, overheating lorries crawling up the hills at walking pace.  The altimeter dropped slowly as we headed downwards from the high central plateau and the temperature in the vehicle cab rose to 40 degrees C.  Even the act of blinking seemed to make one sweat!  The hours passed monotonously and when Ian took his turn at driving I sat in the passenger seat and thought back over the last two months of the trip. 

It seems amazing to think that we have now covered nearly 7000 miles through 5 countries since the expedition began in Capetown 10 weeks ago and yet we have not seen a single drop of rain. Winter in southern Africa is so very dry.  I thought back over the route we had taken.  We had begun by driving up the west (Atlantic Ocean) coast of Africa but now we were heading diagonally east across the continent for 5000 miles towards the Indian Ocean coast.  The journey seemed endless - Africa is such a large place.  If, during the boring winter months ahead you find an old atlas in your bookshelf at home then cut out India and place it over Africa.  You will find that the continent of Africa is nearly five times larger than India.  This will give you an idea of its enormous size and the distances one has to cover on a trip like our one.

It is presidential election time in Zambia at present and President Banda is seeking re-election on 20 September for a second term in office.  Some say he will lose to the main opposition opponent.  Posters proclaiming Banda are everywhere.  As we pass through the many villages en route we find most people are wearing his T shirts, trucks have his banners stuck to their sides and rallies for his supporters are taking place.  I suggested to a local that with such support Mr Banda would surely win.  He smiled.  Everyone, he said, wore Banda T shirts to avoid getting beaten up but when they went to the voting booths, many would vote for the opposition.  To bear this out, at one stage I saw two frightened young teenage boys chased and grabbed by Banda supporters who roughed them up until they agreed to put on Banda T shirts.  They were then released unharmed.

During the day we had to swerve at one stage to avoid a speeding convoy of shiny 4x4 vehicles with tinted windows racing down the middle of the road, led by a police car, and we wondered if it might be Banda himself or perhaps a member of his cabinet.

Last night the drums beat until the early hours and singers extolled Banda’s virtues through loudspeakers placed along the highway near our camp in Chipata.  Many people were drunk and we decided it would not be a good time to be seen in town so we kept a low profile!  So far we hear campaigning in Zambia has been largely peaceful, unlike the elections of its neighbours.  This might be because Zambia (once Northern Rhodesia) embraced democracy some 15 years before Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) and Zambia’s first President, although fairly totalitarian in his method of rule, did not follow Mugabe’s marxist beliefs and allowed democracy to grow. 

To the north of Zambia is Zaire which we hear remains a troubled country and to the east is Malawi where we are heading.  We are told by Zambian acquaintances that the current Malawian president is becoming increasingly corrupt and autocratic and this has led to riots in recent months and the deaths of a number of protesters shot by the police.  When the British ambassador subsequently criticised the president publicly in a speech, he was immediately expelled from Malawi and the president announced he would not accept criticism from Britain and the West.  Since then we hear Britain and other European countries have reduced their aid to Malawi and there are now shortages of many imported goods.

After a night at Chipata we drove 80 miles north to South Luangwa National Park, one of the best known of the Zambian wildlife parks. We spent two pleasant nights here, setting up our tents on the banks of the Luangwa River in a remote concession area leased by the Wildlife Society of Zambia from National Parks. 

Temperatures by day rose to 40 degrees C and when I got up at 0550 hours on the first morning, after a hot night lying on my camp bed without a sleeping bag, it was still nearly 30 degrees in the early dawn light.  South Luangwa is a large and beautiful Park but much of it is unused, remote and relatively inaccessible.  Most of the tourists fly in and congregate in the luxury camps situated in a few small areas on the eastern side of the Park and do their game drives just inside the boundary.  Fees for two people to enter the Park in their own vehicle are now a hefty US$75 a day.  Compared to Mana we had only brief sitings of game, probably due to the heat and the fact that there is no need for animals to concentrate near waterholes as the river flows through the Park all the year round.  Over the two days though we saw a small herd of elephant cross the river on the second day and spotted from our campsite giraffe, kudu, bushbuck, impala, warthogs, crocodiles and hippos.  At night lions roared in the distance. 

We had planned to spend a day in the Park but a chance conversation with a South African visitor put paid to our plans.  He had just been in Malawi and left a week early as he found there was no vehicle fuel available due to a lack of foreign exchange currency (forex).  I rang the wildlife campsite we were planning to stay in near Lake Malawi and they confirmed this fact, warning us that there was no likelihood of more fuel arriving in the near future. This was a major problem as we had to pick up Ian’s wife and daughter at Lilongwe Airport on 20 September and therefore, like it or not, had to go through Malawi.  The only answer was to buy sufficient fuel in Zambia to get us all the way through the country to Tanzania.  I did the sums and found we would need to carry 180 litres of diesel with us, but our tanks when full would only hold 140 litres. 

We abandoned our plan to visit the Park and drove to a nearby village.  Here we bought two old 20 litre plastic, cooking oil containers for the princely sum of 5 US dollars, washed them out with spare fuel and drove back to Chipata.  We then went to a bank and drew out 1,200,000 kwacha (the exchange rate is 5000 kwacha to a US dollar so we temporarily became millionaires!) to spend filling up all our tanks and the extra containers with fuel.  We sealed the containers in black plastic bags to reduce the smell of diesel in the vehicle and drove to the border, hoping we would not be stopped for carrying so much fuel! No one was interested.  In fact it was the smoothest border crossing we have had on the trip and within one hour we were in Malawi.

Malawi is one of the smallest countries in the region.  One fifth of it consists of Lake Malawi which lies along the line of the Rift Valley, a natural fault running southwards from Kenya.  It is similar in size to Cuba and is less than half the size of the UK.  By comparison its neighbour Zambia is six times larger.  South Malawi is the most populated and developed part of the country and north Malawi is the least populated.  The capital Lilongwe (our destination)is in the centre of the country and sits on the central African plateau  in a cool and pleasant climate.

We reached Lilongwe an hour before sunset on 17 September.  The campsite I had chosen from the map was small, dusty and very full of young European travellers drinking beer so it was not attractive.  However we had passed the Lilongwe Golf Club on the way and had noticed it had a campsite too so we drove back there instead.  The club is sited in open woodland near the centre of town and has a wonderful bird population which takes refuge in the trees along the golf course to escape the busy streets.  We were the only campers.  As the sun set we could hear Muslim evening prayers being chanted by a cleric from the minaret of a mosque nearby.  This was repeated at dawn the next morning, raising us reluctantly from a deep sleep.  We remembered hearing Muslims being called to prayer during our stay in Lusaka too.  I do not recall this from earlier visits so perhaps the Moslem population of southern Africa is growing?

Looking ahead, we will pick up Ian’s family at Lilongwe airport on Tuesday 20 September and they will then travel with us up into Tanzania over the next 9 days.  This means we now have a couple of days in which to do much needed administration and get some rest.  Tents and clothes must be washed, the vehicle, its storage boxes, the plates, saucepans and cutlery must all be scrubbed until they shine – newcomers to the expedition are probably horrified by the dusty conditions we now happily live in so we feel we should try to improve things a little so they get a good impression on arrival! 

I am not sure where or when I shall find an internet café to send my next blog from but hope it might be somewhere in northern Malawi in the next few days.

9 to 13 September - The Zambezi Valley and Lusaka

It is Tuesday 13 September and Ian and I have now reached a campsite outside Lusaka in Zambia where we are stopping for a day to do much need administration.  How pleasant it is to feel clean again!  Our last shower, bar a brief wash using water from a hole made by elephants in the dry bed of the Ruchomechi River, was in Harare last Thursday. 

We reached Lusaka safely last night after a long drive via the Kariba border post.  Here, having cleared customs and immigration, we were hassled by two officials dressed in civilian clothes on the Zimbabwean side of the border who called themselves ‘Interpol’ but I think they were something else.  They went through all our documents, including my own instructions and were clearly looking to cause trouble.  Luckily they found nothing and we were finally released and reached the Zambian side some two hours later. 

The roads in Zambia are even worse than those of Zimbabwe!  Some potholes in the main arterial roads are 9 inches deep and vertically sided.  Maintenance is virtually non existent and on occasions one has to leave the road and drive on the dirt beside it to avoid the craters.  Thank goodness we were in the old Landrover as we survived the first deep pothole which we hit at 50mph before realising what lay ahead.  After this we slowed down!  Later we saw a Mercedes car stop in front of us, damaged after hitting another hole, with petrol pouring out of its ruptured fuel tank.  As with Zimbabwe, the road sides are littered with crashed trucks, some crashes clearly having killed people in the process.  Locals stand on the verges trying to flag down the enormous lorries to buy diesel off them – no doubt the drivers siphon off a few gallons to make a bit of money on the side.

9 to 12 September – the annual Game Count   Enough about driving.  Let me take you back to the Mana Pools game count last weekend which was one of the highlights of our trip so far. 

We left Harare early last Friday morning with our hosts, Russell (a well known ecologist in Africa) and Lynne Taylor who overseas the disbursement of all Conservation Zambezi funds we raise, to drive to Mana Pools National Park in northern Zimbabwe where we were scheduled to attend the annual game count organised by the Wildlife Society of Zimbabwe.  Dr Adrian Wilson, our UK chairman, joined us in the Park.  The count, done under a full moon, lasts 24 hours and the aim is to record every animal (by sex and size) seen from your nominated viewpoint.  This information is then collated and assessed by the Society which has much experience of running counts, having done so for many years in most of the Zimbabwean National Parks. 

We arrived a day early to settle in and let the animals get used to our presence and then left a day after the count ended, thus having three days to enjoy this beautiful area.  The spot we were given for the count was on the banks of the remote Ruckomeche River which flows only during the wet season into the mighty Zambezi.  As September is the dry season, the river was dry but the elephants dig holes in the sand to reach the water some two feet or more below the surface and other game take advantage of this to drink as well.  Such spots therefore become focal points for seeing concentrations of wildlife.

We set up camp –tents and a cooking area - under the watchful eye of Lynne and Russell in the shade of a large tamarind tree some 50 metres from the vertical sides of the riverbank and then established an OP on the bank itself with screening material to hide us from the animals.  At 10am on the allotted day (Saturday 10 September) the count began and Russell split us into three groups of two so we could man the hide throughout the 24 hour period.  At first, in the morning, little came to drink other than baboon, impala and guinea fowl.  However, by early afternoon the number of animals arriving at the various elephant-made holes in the river bed had begun to increase. Firstly, small family groups of elephant, each consisting of perhaps several cows and their offspring, then a herd of Cape Buffalo, the heavily horned bulls looking suspiciously at anything that might be out of place.  Then more elephant and by early evening the riverbed was full of animals. At one time we counted 43 buffalo and 67 elephant all standing closely together, drinking their fill after a day in the hot African sun.  The elephants often stayed for several hours socialising between groups once they had satiated their thirst but the buffalo left almost immediately.  During the night our group spotted the rarely seen aardwolf (an ant eating member of the hyena clan) and jackal patrolled the periphery in the hope of a quickly snatched meal.  Then, by morning, the riverbed was empty once again and the cycle would no doubt repeat itself. 

Hyena and jackal called incessantly through each night and although we never saw them, lion were constantly all around us, roaring during the latter part of each night: the roar of a lion is a primeval sound that makes the hairs stand up on the back of one’s head - Russell told us the sound can carry for miles.  We assessed there were at least three prides of lion in the area but they seemed to drink in the early hours of the morning when the full moon had gone and we were unable to see them.  On several occasions their roars would get very close to both the camp and our viewing point and Russell was forced to escort each group to and from the OP, armed with his .50 calibre twin barrelled rifle for safety.  Only months earlier a lioness had killed someone at a similar spot nearby so safety became an important part of our routine.  To enhance this, Russell parked one of the landrovers behind the OP in case we had to get into it in an emergency.  On our first night there was the sound of thundering hooves just behind us and a herd of buffalo stampeded past some 100 metres from the tents.  The next morning we found lion spoor thirty metres away, on the other side of the tamarind tree.  No doubt they were chasing the buffalo and we had got in their way.

The game count was the last event that Mike Moody attended before returning to the UK after nearly a month with us.  Mike took over from Tony Hargrave Graham (our intrepid doctor for the Namibian stretch) and proved to be another great team member - constantly witty and cheerful, despite the inevitable setbacks that occur on this type of journey, and also very smooth and urbane.  Mike was only member of the team to wear a (by then slightly crumpled) linen suit and ‘proper’ hat for Winston’s wedding.  He proved to be a great success with all and a tremendous ambassador for our charity, Conservation Zambezi.  I am sure his new wife, Berthe, will be glad to have him back in one piece after all our adventures.

The next Stage  We leave Lusaka tomorrow morning (Wednesday) heading east down the magnificently named (and heavily potholed) ‘great east road’ to visit firstly South Luangwa National Park and then enter Malawi.  Once we leave Lusaka we will not see another town for several days so I guess I will not find an internet café to update the blog again until we reach Lilongwe this coming weekend. 

5 to 8 September - the Zimbabwean Highlands of Nyanga

We left Harare mid morning on Monday 5 September bound for Nyanga in the Zimbabwean Highlands, a high altitude area situated some 200 miles to the south east of Harare near the border with Mozambique.  Until 10 years ago, Nyanga was the focal point in Zimbabwe for the production of temperate fruits like apples pears, strawberries and the like.  Some of the fruit farms still exist but the intensity of production has dropped notably since the farm invasions of the last few years and the resultant loss of white ownership and management.  The countryside around Nyanga is very different to that of other parts of Zimbabwe.  At times, was it not for the dryness of the African winter here, one might almost imagine one is in Scotland during the summer.  High hills, dense woodland and sparkling streams that cascade down mountainsides lend credibility to this perception. 

After a 5 hour drive we entered Nyanga National Park and my altimeter began to register nearly 7000 feet.  We could see Mount Inyangani in the distance – Zimbabwe’s highest mountain - rising to over 8000 feet.  I had climbed it once but now, in my mid sixties, think perhaps I will not try it again!  I remember some twenty years ago that the locals regarded it as a treacherous mountain.  The climb is deceptively easy but mists can swirl in quickly and the cliffs along its sides mean unwary climbers without a compass and map can easily fall to their deaths in the poor visibility.  I am not up to date with records around here now but I seem to remember that seven or more people have done just that in the last 30 years or so.

We were bound for the Gaerezi River where Russell Taylor likes to fish for trout.  He is a trustee of the Gaerezi Fishing Club, set up by a group of whites in early 2000 who have built, with permission of the local headmen and financial help from USAID, two spartan but comfortable fishing lodges on the river banks. 

These lodges are rented out to club members for fishing holidays.  The rent received is used to maintain the lodges and employ several locals to look after them.  All remaining profits go back to the local community.  Last year this amounted to some £5000 and the local headmen usually decide to spend it on fertiliser and maize seed for the next year’s crops.  It is a good arrangement as all benefit from the deal.  

The weather is much cooler here than elsewhere in the country.  The night temperatures can fall to as low as 2 degrees Centigrade and winter frosts are not unusual (we had both last night!) but they usually then bounce back to the mid twenties by noon.  Heavy mists shroud the surrounding hills at dawn but the sun quickly drives these away and the air is then crisp and very clear. In the summer months (we are here in winter) heavy rainfall regularly takes place and it is not unusual for up to 300mm of rain to fall over several days.

Once upon a time, this area had little human habitation due to the rocky granite substrate and resultant erosion of good soil, but some terracing is still in existence and the odd primitive fort show signs of early settlement. The area once consisted of open grassland with some sparse indigenous woodland by the many streams that abound the area but early European settlers took advantage of the climate to introduce pine and gum tree plantations so much of Nyanga is now heavily wooded.  Straight limbed trees do not grow naturally in this part of Africa and the Australian gum and the inevitable pine were planted extensively to produce straight poles for building and mining work. 

Fruit trees were also introduced at a later stage to provide temperate fruits for eating and jam making.  Trout were first introduced into the local streams in 1905 but it was not until the 1930s that serious attempts were made to populate them.  Then, in the 1950s, a series of lakes and a trout breeding farm were formed, making this area a popular fishing retreat from the heat of the Zimbabwean plains. 

Wild life is comparatively sparse these days and consists mainly of plains game: bush buck, antelope, kudu and to a lesser extent, waterbuck. I hear that there is still a large but secretive population of leopard in the hills and occasional groups of lion and buffalo still transit the area from the lowlands of Mozambique: buffalo apparently were numerous here once but rinderpest greatly reduced their numbers.  The bird life is wonderful.  The legend is that the name Nyanga (an abbreviation of the Shona word for swallow) comes from the abundance of birds that occupy the area.  There are no crocodiles at this altitude but three species of cobra, pythons, the green mamba, the berg adder and the lethargic but lethal gaboon viper can be found in the area and the local fishing book advises walkers to wear tough high sided boots to reduce the risk of snake bites - not quite what one might expect to find in Scotland!

We return to Harare today (Thursday 8 September) to pack and then depart tomorrow for Mana Pools in the Zambezi Valley where we will take part in the annual game count, but more of that in my next blog which I hope to write when I reach Zambia on or around 13 September.

29 August to 4 October – Matusadona and Harare

28 August –  Matusadona   Our last night in Matusadona National Park was a memorable one. Firstly, the Area Manager of the Park (originally titled the Warden), Hardwork Chikumba came and see us.  He arrived at 7pm by vehicle and we saw from his headlights that he had stopped for a few minutes less than a hundred yards from our campsite before driving on to us. When he arrived he told us that an impala had leapt across the track just ahead of his Landrover with a leopard inches behind it in the final seconds of making a kill.  The vehicle split the two animals up and the impala got away, leaving the leopard hungry. 

He stayed with us for an hour to brief us on the problems he faces in running the Park and the shortfalls he has in equipment.  We took notes and promised to discuss his concerns with Lynne Taylor: it is important that we always deal through Lynne on these matters as she has the trust of the Parks staff, knows how to deal with them and is enormously experienced in handling their demands. 

As I have mentioned in an earlier blog, the problems this particular Park faces are enormous, due to the low budget they are given to work with by central government.  This hampers their efforts to protect wildlife from poaching and leads to poor maintenance within the Park; the latter resulting in fewer tourists and a further drop in income.  The roads (or more accurately the tracks) within the Park are now virtually impassable in places, due to erosion, flood damage and a lack of maintenance; the lodges and campsite lack electricity and hot water and some of the toilets in our lodge were not working on our arrival; cooking in the lodges now has to be done on wood fires outside as the stoves no longer work.  Parks vehicles lack spares and a number are no longer on the road; the two diesel generators we donated to Matusadona in 1995 urgently need servicing and one has been cannibalised for spares to keep the other going.  Lynne Taylor has done miracles with the funds she has raised to date and is using them to install solar panels to power water pumps and radio equipment for the main camp and outstations. She has a 4 year plan in hand to make up for some of the shortfalls and we in Conservation Zambezi hope to help her fulfil a small part of this plan if we can raise sufficient funds.  But the upgrading of roads and living accommodation etc will require big inputs of money from larger conservation trusts and charities and Lynne is constantly preparing and submitting proposals to them in the hope that some might help.

The second excitement on our last evening happened in the middle of the night.  I woke to hear wood snapping and looked out of the window of the lodge.  A large bull elephant was contentedly eating the branches of a tree only 5 metres from the veranda.  I tiptoed to the next bedroom, mindful that I was almost within reach of his trunk, and told the others.  We all crept onto the balcony and watched.  We could not have been closer to a wild elephant if we had tried.  He paid no attention to us however and just carried on eating, slowly moving away as he did so until he was finally lost in the night gloom.  This final spectacle gave us a wonderful ending to the rewarding and fruitful week we had with Lynne, studying her projects and seeing at first hand the problems she and the Parks staff face.

29 August - The Drive to Harare  We were up at 5am the next morning (29 August) to load the vehicle so we could depart at 6.30am for the long drive to Harare. The road out of the Park is in terrible condition and it took us 3 hours, often in low ratio, to cover the first 40 miles of the journey, then another three and a half hours to cover the next 85 miles.  The tsetse flies in the Park were out in force to bid us farewell and we all got bitten a dozen times in the first couple of hours.  At one stage there were several hundred on the bonnet and windscreen so we kept the windows closed, despite the heat. 

Harare    We arrived in Harare some 280 miles and eleven hours later, just as dusk was falling, to a tumultuous welcome from the Taylor family.  At first Harare seems much the same as it did 20 years ago until one looks more closely. Then you see the ravages of time and the lack of essential maintenance.  The roads are all potholed and the tarmac is breaking up everywhere.  Some wag said one needs a 4x4 in Zimbabwe just to negotiate the potholes in tarmac roads! The once carefully cut verges are overgrown.  There is an air of dirtiness and neglect, but the people are as wonderful as ever - smiling and charming and always keen to help.  There are electricity cuts almost daily, some for up to 12 hours at a time, and the Taylor’s now have a diesel generator to power the lights when the cuts start.  Cooking without power has to be done on a wood fire in the garden.  There is no longer any running water in much of the city but residents still have to pay the monthly charge for water rates!  The Taylors have overcome the water problem by installing a borehole in their garden but I hear that the increasing number of boreholes for private dwellings is lowering the water table under the city which may well lead to a further water crisis one day.  Theft is on the increase and all houses have extensive protective systems to combat this – alarms, electric gates, strong rooms and electrified fences on top of garden walls.  Food (for European consumption) is more expensive than in the UK but the shelves are fully stocked again, after years of shortages.  This turn around has happened because Zimbabweans no longer have their own currency, having adopted the US dollar some three or four years ago.  As a result of this move inflation, which was the highest in the world, has now dropped to about 8%. 

Most of the people I have spoken to are very positive and believe the situation is improving.  They know best, having endured the nightmares of the last fifteen years, but an ignorant outsider like me tends to feel more cynical - I hope they are right and I am wrong.  The white population, once nearly 250,000 strong at the height of Rhodesian rule in the early 1970s is now down to perhaps 20,000.  No one knows the true figure as there has not been a census for some time.  Despite these problems though, I hear that many businesses are booming and there is money to be made by the more astute white and black middle classes.  The poor though remain very, very poor.

The next three days were very busy ones as the Taylors were in the final week of preparations for their son Wintston’s wedding on 3 September and my Landrover had to go to a garage for a major service after 5000 gruelling miles of driving, mainly on dirt roads.  I was delighted to find it came out with flying colours a day later, the white garage owner telling me he had not driven such a ‘tight’ Landrover for a long time- I was not quite sure what he meant by this but it sounded reassuring!  He said nothing had broken but in addition to the service, he had decided as a precaution to change some rubber bushes on the suspension.  The filthy, dirt encrusted door locking mechanisms which had been causing increasing problems of late also had been pressure cleaned and then washed out with paraffin and are worked well again.  The sand covering the engine after the sandstorm in the Hoanib River in Namibia had been removed and the chassis pressure hosed.  The vehicle almost looked new!

3 September - Winston's Wedding   On Saturday 3 September we attended Winston and Laura Jane’s wedding.  This took place in the open air on the shores of Lake Manyame, an hour’s drive out of Harare.  Winston has married into an old Zimbabwean farming family called the Breitensteins who emigrated from Denmark to Zimbabwe many years ago.  The event lasted the whole weekend, starting with supper on the Friday night and ending with breakfast on Sunday morning.  We all camped in tents near the lake shore.  It was a marvellous event. 

The bride and bridesmaids arrived in two ox drawn carts and the service was conducted under a simple arch of wood interwoven with leaves and oranges, erected by the lake.

After the marriage, we all repaired to a marquee nearby for drinks, dinner, speeches and dancing until the small hours of Sunday morning.  Many had hangovers the next day but a healthy breakfast of bacon and eggs under a hot African sun the next morning helped to dispel these.

Our Plans for the Next Week    I am writing this blog after our return to Harare.  Tomorrow (Monday 5 Sep) we will drive with the Taylors to Nyanga in the Zimbabwean highlands where Russell Taylor and Mike Moody will fly fish for trout and the rest of us will probably go for long refreshing walks in the cool mountain air.  On Thursday we will return to Harare and pack again in preparation for the second phase of our Drive for Conservation which starts with a 24 hour game count in Mana Pools on the banks of the Zambezi River.  Then Mike Moody will leave us for England and Ian and I will continue driving north into Zambia, en route for Malawi.