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.

21 – 28 August – The Zambezi Valley

I have been unable to update my blog now for nearly a week as we have been in some very remote areas, away from internet access, but I have now got an internet connection at the Parks HQ in Tashinga today (28 August).

21 – 22 August – Travelling down the Zambezi Valley  

Sunday 21^st August saw Tony Howgrave Graham leave the expedition for his long journey by air back to the UK.  He had been great company over the last four weeks and three thousand miles through some very arduous terrain in both Namibia and Zimbabwe and his photography was simply excellent.  We look forward to seeing all his pictures on a proper screen when I finally get back to the UK in November.  We shall miss his dry sense of humour and wry comments.  Ian, a veteran now with three previous expeditions under his belt and with me for the whole of this current expedition, had taken Tony under his wing from the outset and had patiently taught him the skills of camping in the African bush. We now smile fondly at the thought of Tony back safely at home, perhaps waking up at night in a sweat having dreamt that he was still in a tent by the Hoanib River with a sandstorm blowing around him and about to get another rocket from Ian for not meeting the high standards of tidiness and punctuality Ian demanded of him!  They got on very well together.

After dropping Tony at Victoria Falls Airport, we set off for the day long drive to Sijarira Forestry Lodge, situated some 25 miles east of Binga, where we were to stay for one night.  What a place!  The lodges consist of a row of luxuriously built thatched huts on stilts situated right on Kariba Lake shoreline. It used to be a rest camp for the Forestry people but is now under private concession for use by hunters and fishermen who mainly arrive by air to pursue their hobbies.  We drove in by road down a difficult track, the last 12 miles taking us an hour and a quarter over rocky ground and steep stream beds.  The lodges are managed by a South African couple who gave us a tremendous welcome and we had the luxury of sleeping on our own for a change, in three separate huts.

After a comfortable night at Sijarira we left at dawn on 22 August for the ten hour drive into the remote Matusadona National Park whose boundaries are Kariba Lake shore to the north and the Zambezi Escarpment to the south.  Our charity, Conservation Zambezi, has concentrated its funding efforts on this Park for the last 18 years and we planned to meet Lynne Taylor at Tashinga, the Park Headquarters.  Lynne is the founding director of a highly active and well known trust called The Tashinga Initiative and it is to her that we pass all charitable donations to fund important projects in the area.

23 – 27 August –Matusadona National Park  

It was a hard drive into Matusadona National Park yesterday.  The roads are now in a very poor condition and the Landrover’s low ratio gearing had to be used on several occasions to allow us to negotiate the steep banks on each side of the river beds and other areas where erosion had washed the road away: it is one of Lynne’s primary objectives to raise sufficient funds to re-grade these roads and rebuild the broken culverts so tourists can get back into the Park and revenue can start to flow back in again.  Instead of camping, we were delighted to find that Lynne had arranged for all of us to be accommodated with her and Andriss who is working with her, in a disused lodge by the lake shore.  The hot water system had packed up long ago but at least cold water still flowed from a header tank which I think Lynne had installed some time ago.  We therefore washed under a simple shower system in the open air by our accommodation - showering had to be done in the dark unless you wanted to be watched by the others! 

The toilet no longer flushed but Ian quickly set to work and soon had this repaired.  There is no longer any electricity so we used our camping lights to see by night and a torch to find the soap as we washed.  Cooking was done over an open fire using old saucepans we found in the kitchen area.  A chronic lack of funds for investment in these Parks has meant that these wonderfully sited lodges now do not meet the aspirations of modern tourists and so it seems are rarely used any more – a pity as they offer a good roof over one’s heads and security by night when sleeping.

The next day, Tuesday 23 August, saw us up early to accompany Lynne to the first of her project sites. We learnt that, after much hard work, she had managed to raise sufficient funds from the European Union to install much needed solar energy panels at the remote outstations to charge radio batteries.  The panels also provide power to operate a water pump at each station which sucks water from the lake shore to a holding tank near the sparse living accommodation in which the National Park Rangers live.  Our charity had supplied the vital pipes some time ago to bring the water ashore and Andriss was in the process of fitting the pumps .  These outposts are used to provide a network of radio stations for communication purposes back to the headquarters in Tashinga camp on the lake shore and to accommodate armed patrols which are deployed to combat the never ending problem of poaching.  Matusadona National Park is one of the few Intensive Protection Zones (IPZ) dedicated to the protection of the few black rhino left in wild in Zimbabwe. 

Over the next three days we drove with Lynne to all three of her current project sites, some of the drives taking up to eight hours to cover barely 50 miles over nearly non existent tracks.  The going was hard but the Landrovers coped magnificently with the punishing terrain.  I guess after a few months in this unforgiving environment there would be much wear on the vehicle suspension.  Lynne’s Landrover is 14 years old (a little younger than mine) but it has covered nearly half a million kilometres in that time with several suspension changes to combat the wear.

On the way back from the second patrol base we saw a two metre python crossing the track and stopped to admire it.  The dense bush on each side of the road however meant we saw other little game, apart from small groups of elephant moving down to drink on the lake shore and the occasional herd of impala, often grazing in the open where they have a better chance of surviving predator attack.  Sometimes we saw kudu and bushbuck too.

This small Park has a very large lion population at present (some estimates put it at over 150 beasts) and the dwindling herds of buffalo and antelope are thought to be the result of frequent lion kills, as well as poaching.  The occasional whiff of rotting flesh in the bush during our various drives reminded us of the presence of lion.  Andriss told us that a month before we arrived, a pride of 36 lions were seen on a kill close to our lodge.  A few months before that we hear that a white tourist was attacked and severely injured whilst sleeping in the campsite nearby.  The lioness and her 2 three quarter grown cubs who were responsible for this attack still remain in the area so we kept a sharp eye open for them at night on our thirty metre walk from the campfire back to the lodge.  Lynne was camping alone here recently, cooking her food outside in the evening, when a sixth sense made her go into the lodge.  A colleague of hers arrived shortly afterwards by vehicle and saw the lioness and her cubs in the bushes on the edge of her camp.  Lynne is quite relaxed about this kind of situation but we are inexperienced and have little of the massive knowledge she has built up from a lifetime in the bush so remain more cautious.  So far though we have heard no roaring at night and only seen lion spoor in the dry river beds we cross on our drives to our project areas, so we hope the lion are hunting elsewhere during our stay.  There are two more nights to go until we drive back into town and, as Lynne has returned to Harare to prepare for her son’s wedding in a week’s time, we will remain vigilant!

In the last few days I have been twice, in my capacity as a trustee of Conservation Zambezi, to see the Senior Warden of the Park and on the second occasion was taken on a tour of their facilities.  I found that one of the six old ex British Army landrovers our charity drove down from Kenya to Zimbabwe in the mid nineteen nineties to donate to National Parks is still working, its passenger door ripped open by the tusk of an attacking elephant, but the engine runs sweetly and it is still used for rhino protection patrols.

 Sadly, most of the other vehicles lie unused – we hear from Sergeant Moyo that the problem primarily is due to a lack of money to buy tyres.  I also looked at the two diesel generators we donated in the mid nineteen nineties.  Only one is now running but it appears the other could be repaired and got going again.  These generators provide the electricity supply at night for the Parks Headquarters.  I will talk to Lynne and see whether the money we have raised so far from generous donors supporting my trip can be used to help sort out some of these problems.  Another frustration is a shortage of fuel to run the vehicles.  Lynne warned me of this before the trip began and I gave her at that time sufficient funds to buy one and a half drums of diesel.

It has been so useful over these last few days to see at first hand the problems the Park currently faces as it gives us in Conservation Zambezi a much better idea of what is required.  When I last visited the Park some eleven years ago the roads were rough but manageable and the accommodation was spartan but serviceable.  Since then, due to an ongoing lack of funds, the Park is now in desperate need of major refurbishment if it is to fulfil its anti poaching obligations and attract more revenue from tourists.  Despite this glum assessment though I was impressed during my visit by the morale of the staff I met and particularly by the total dedication Lynne gives to the raising of funds for not only this Park but for projects in all the Zimbabwean National Parks in the Zambezi Valley.

Yesterday we took some time off to visit Steve Edwards, an old friend of Mike’s and mine who runs a luxurious bush camp called Musango some six kilometres away across the river Umi. He kindly picked us up in his speedboat for the 10 minute trip by water across the river – had we gone by road it would have taken us some five hours of driving to reach him!  I last saw Steve some 20 years ago when he was still serving in National Parks.  Steve and his wife Wendy treated us to a first class lunch in their beautiful thatched dining room overlooking the water with fresh vegetables and fruit and ice cold beers to wash it all down – what a luxury after weeks of tinned food! 

After lunch Steve took us on a short game viewing trip by boat before returning us to our lodge across the river in the Park.  That evening, to celebrate the day I found a bottle of brandy that I had hidden in our food boxes.  Ian and I had a couple of tots each but Mike said he was not a brandy man so opted to drink tea instead – we were impressed by his strength of will but I guess, had I produced a bottle of Irish whisky, it might have been a different story!

As I write this blog the long shadows of another African evening are beginning to appear.  A hippo is basking in the evening sun just off the shoreline and the evening bird chorus is about to begin.  Three elephant were eating down by the water a short while ago but now have gone.  Mike Moody has taken the Landrover off for a game viewing session on his own and Ian is resting in the shade after carrying out essential repairs to the Landrover before Mike left, in temperatures of 40 degrees centigrade. Ian has found nothing of serious concern but has cleaned the radiator which was covered in grass seed after driving along disused tracks over the last few days and found that a branch had damaged the tap connection of our 40 litre reserve water tank, emptying the tank in the process.  We have patched this up but will have to get it repaired in Harare before our adventures begin in Zambia and Malawi next month.

On Monday 29 August we leave Matusadona National Park for the capital, Harare, where we must have the Landrover serviced and get running repairs done to our camping equipment which has now suffered seven arduous weeks of use.  We will also attend the wedding of Lynne and Russell’s son, Winston, a week today. This will be held in the bush an hour out of Harare and we are told we must all to turn up in bush gear wearing our favourite hats and are to sleep in our tents on site once the celebrations are over. 

I will write my next blog from Harare in a few days time.

Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe 18 – 20 August

This is a rather speedily written blog as time is short this afternoon (20 August) and the battery on my laptop is getting low.

 A dawn start on 18 August saw us packing up camp, shopping for fresh rations (we have no fridge so have to buy daily or live off tins) and then leaving for Hwange National Park by 9am.  After an hour we turned off the main tar road onto a very corrugated dirt road for some 30 miles until we reached the entrance gate into Hwange National Park.  With four people and two weeks rations on board the Landrover was heavy and wallowed on the uneven surface so we had to drive slowly.  At Robins Camp, just inside the Park we paid our entrance fees and began a slow game drive towards Sinamatella Camp where we were to stay the night.  The Park was empty of people and we had it all to ourselves.  At first we saw little game but as the afternoon progressed we came across more and more elephant.  The highlight of the day was Deteema Dam where we watched some 30 elephant, 20 buffalo and other game coming down to drink.  The afternoon went quickly and we had to rush the last 15 miles to reach Sinamatella before the gates closed, being hindered on the way by countless elephant crossing the road in small family groups, on their way to drink.  We hear there may now be up to 60,000 elephant in the Park – far too many for the good of the vegetation which was badly damaged.  Sinamatella Camp is built on a ridge overlooking the bush and an enormous herd of several hundred buffalo grazed below us in the evening sun.  An elephant had knocked over one of the electricity poles the night before so the camp had no power and we cooked on wood outside and the sat in the dark listening to the sounds of Africa before retiring to bed.  The campsite was virtually deserted and only three of the 15 or more lodges were occupied.  Very peculiar as the Park used to be so popular with tourists and South Africans, but it is now very run down so that might be the reason.

The next day, 19 August, saw us up again at dawn.  We drove in the half light to Mandavu Dam some 8 miles away for a breakfast of muesli and tea whilst watching hippo and crocodile in the water.  Rock hyrax scampered through the undergrowth within feet of us.  As the sun rose we drove on, seeing little except more elephant, until the afternoon.  Then, at Nyamandhlovu Pan (a well known haunt to Mike Moody and me from years gone by) we watched growing numbers of game coming down to drink, risking the hunger pangs of the three resident crocodile in the process.  A small group of hippo had adopted the Pan (about one hundred metres wide) as their home and lay submerged in the centre.  Fifteen giraffe drank quietly.  At intervals of 30 minutes or so small herds of some 20 elephant came down to drink and then dawdled around the edge of the pan, intermingling with the ease of old friends. In all we saw over one hundred elephant at this pan in the space of three hours.   Several kudu gracefully but timidly approached to drink but a couple of young adolescent bull elephants charged them like young hooligans at a seaside brawl, trumpeting with ears outstretched and tails held rigidly behind, to chase them away.  Impala came and went with little fuss and dodged the lurking crocodiles. Yellow billed hornbills ate undigested seeds from the elephant dung.  We left with reluctance just before dusk to find our lodge in Main Camp before the gates closed and supped in the small restaurant to save cooking uninspiring tins of processed food.

We rose an hour before dawn on 20 August, our last day in the Park, so we could be back in the bush as the sun rose.  It was very cold.  Ian’s thermometer registered just over 6 degrees Centigrade (it rose to 34 degrees by noon) and we shivered in the sharp wind as we sat silently in a hide watching for game. The bird life was prolific but few animals came to drink and then we heard cheetah had been seen some miles away so we set off in pursuit as Tony, who flies back to the UK tomorrow was longing to see one.  Our search was fruitless however so we packed and left for the three hour long drive back to Victoria Falls to camp overnight before putting Tony on a plane to Jo’burg and then UK. 

As I write this blog the sky above me has clouded over slightly.  The first clouds I have seen since early July.  The wind has got up too so we may be in for a stormy night – no rain of course because this is the dry season.  Tomorrow, having dropped Tony at the airport, the other three of us will begin the long 350 mile, two day drive along dirt roads to Matusadona National Park on Lake Kariba, stopping overnight at the remote Sijarira Forestry Lodge on the way to rest.

15 – 17 August – Victoria Falls, ZIMBABWE

I apologise that my blog recently has contained no photographs.  Over the last two weeks the speed of the computers in the internet cafes I have used has dropped markedly and the price for their use has gone up in equal measure!  The result is that it is now taking up to 20 minutes to download just one photograph from my laptop into the blog which works out to be about £4.50 per photograph!  I therefore have given up the unequal struggle but hope things will improve as we move on.

The drive from Namibia to Zimbabwe on 15 August was uneventful and only took some 6 hours, including negotiating two border crossings. The section through Botswana took us through Chobe National Park and we saw a surprisingly large number of animals on the way.  The Namibian and Botswana border crossings were fairly slick but the one into Zimbabwe was slower, bureaucratic and inefficient.  This we soon found was the norm. The supermarkets in Namibia, we found, contained most of our needs.  Botswana sold just about everything and both were clean and hygienic.  But when we reached Zimbabwe, the Spar and TM supermarkets in Victoria Falls were both poorly equipped.  Thank goodness we took Lynne Taylor’s wise advice and stocked up with rations for the next two weeks in Botswana!  The same can be made for the people: we were never hassled in Namibia and Botswana but the touts in Vic Falls are now a dreadful nuisance. 

We arrived at the Vic Falls campsite in the late afternoon and found it also lagged behind those we had used in Namibia for comfort and cleanliness.  The hot water for showers and washing was lukewarm and most of the equipment was in a poor state of repair. Vic Falls town was the same: I had good memories of it from my time in Zimbabwe twenty years ago but it is now somewhat neglected and dirty and the lack of tourists suggests this is having and effect on the local economy.  We were told that tourists now tend to stay just over the border in Zambia or Botswana and are driven over for day trips to see the famous Victoria Falls - certainly, the hotels in Vic Falls seemed half empty and this is the height of the season!  We walked around the town the day after our arrival and then went to see the Falls.  The entrance fee is now USD30: I think we had paid less to see the whole of Etosha National Park in Namibia a fortnight earlier!  And the queue to get in was long as there is only one entrance desk.  I wonder if this noticeable decline will be reflected over the rest of Zimbabwe during our month long stay here.

It is peculiar to find that Zimbabwe now uses US dollars as it’s currency but it seems this has helped reduce the rampart inflation that was endemic here until two years ago.  Street traders now offer souvenir one million Zimbabwean dollar banknotes for sale to tourists for a few US dollars.

The campsite today (17 August) now has an invasion of baboon and vervet monkeys and we have to leave someone on guard lest they destroy our belongings and rip open the tents.  I can see that this has been an ongoing problem as the perimeter fence has electric wiring laid all around the top but I guess it no longer works for they now get in with ease.  There is however a camp dog in residence and, though old and stiff, he works hard (when not sleeping) to see them off with growls and shoulder fur standing on end - I note though that he is careful not to get too close!  Baboon incisors are as large as those of a leopard and would do fearful damage to an adversary if cornered.  In return for his services though, the old dog is fed by grateful campers so both parties benefit from this unusual relationship. But I see that a new tactic has been developed by the baboons which the old dog has yet to fathom.  Baboons are canny animals and have learnt, when they see the old dog on patrol, to mount lightening raids across the camp from the perimeter trees overlooking the fence.  In a single raid taking seconds they will race across the open ground, tipping up rubbish bins and grabbing tasty morsels as they sprint for the opposite fence and safety.  But we humans are learning too during our brief sojourn here.  We find if we stoop to pick up an imaginary rock as the baboons approach they retreat rapidly for safety.  I guess this game for survival has gone on for thousands of years.

This morning I picked up Mike Moody from Victoria Falls Airport some 12 miles out of town, avoiding the police speed traps as I drove.  Air Zimbabwe is apparently on strike so Mike’s journey to reach here had been somewhat convoluted and since leaving the UK, had involved some 5 plane journeys over the last few days!   For the next three days we will now be four strong (I fear the Landrover will groan with this extra weight and the additional food and water we need!) whilst we drive through Hwange National Park.  We will then return to Vic Falls on Saturday for a single night to drop off Tony Howgrave Graham (our doctor) for his return journey to the UK and the other three of us then will continue along the Zambezi Valley to Tashinga Camp in the Matusadona National Park.  Our visit to Matusadona will be a major highlight of the journey.  We (the trustees of our charity Conservation Zambezi, working in close harmony with Lynne Taylor and The Tashinga Initiative) have spent the last eighteen years trying to raise money to help preserve the unique biodiversity of this part of the Zambezi Valley - I will tell you more when I have completed my visit!