December 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 & 28 December - Shewa Nganda, Nyika, Malawi

We had spent some time with Mark Harvey, the owner of the lodge at Shewa Nganda pouring over the maps trying to decide which would be our best route to get to Nyika Plateau. We had found out from some of the other campers that our planned route would not work. The border posts seemed to be quite dicey or non-existent and the roads are pretty dam awful.

Mark runs a walking safari outfit in North Luwangwa so he had travelled those roads often and gave us the directions. He said it was a good 12 hour trip and that we should split it in two and bush camp somewhere before the Malawian border. But we are a family that always know best and decided that we would just get up very early and try and go for it in one day. Shewa to Nyika.

So we got up pretty early, Ernest was revving his car at 5.30 to try and get everyone going but we are not known for our speedy start and although Tracy and Guy did pull out of the camp at 6 they were very slow on the road out, which was so full of holes and washed away that Guy just could not get up any kind of speed.

We left a good half hour after them but soon caught up with them and at a snail's pace speed to the main road. It is a case of the tortoise and the hare, Mark being the hare of course. He slept in a little, left at least an hour after everyone, and still beat us both to the main road.

So we were back in the great North road with the busses, trucks and the odd taxi (the ones that haven't got squashed yet). Fortunately we only had 120 kilometers of the torture, bouncing, swerving for the potholes and avoiding the odd goats. This environment is however quite beautiful, reminded me of the garden of Eden, very thick green vegetation, beautiful trees, huge rocky outcrops, mango trees just dripping with fruit, small patches of very green mealies and then the big serpent (being the Great North road ) with all its vices and evil winding its way through the garden.

We stopped for fuel at Isoka, which was a mistake as it cost us a good half hour of navigating through the town with people, goats kids, motorbikes and pot holes. Our fuel tanks full, soccer balls handed out and we were on our way.

Finally it was time to turn off that dam awful great north road and head for the hills and Malawi. The smiles very quickly got wiped off our faces as our next disaster struck. Our little hippo which had been and angel up to this point suddenly started to splutter and miss fire. A BIG red light came on which said "ENGINE failure"  service fault 065, and it spluttered to a halt. Just cut out and thanks for playing!

We were devastated, this was our beloved new toy and it had failed on us. So we quickly radioed McGuiver and told him of our plight. By now it was pouring with rain and we were stuck. Both Mark and Guy turned around and came back and started to do what men do best, open the bonnet and fiddle with the engine. We tried to start it again, no luck. Then we phoned SA and got the guy who last serviced the car to ask him what fault 065 was. He didn't know!

Wonderful! After some more fiddling and pumping the accelerator, Mark eventually got the car started again and we decided to just push on. Had to be dirty fuel or something like that or perhaps our car did not function on the low grade Diesel that you get up here...all these possibilities but we were going at it again. That cost us another half an hour so our chances of getting to Nyika were getting slim, but we soldiered on.

At this point we were still on tar, the usual pogo stick ride on a tarred road built by the Chinese, but tar none the less, which did mean we made good progress. But as always in Africa the tar runs out and we were back on dirt with at least 100 kilometers to go. It was only about 2.30pm so still no reason to panic we soldiered on. At least the rain had stopped and although it was still very overcast, there was no actual rain.

As we started to climb into the mountains the road became worse and worse, we went through the most beautiful forests, through spectacular "passes" which were completely unspoiled by man.

Another mountain pass

Thank goodness the rain was holding off as I doubt we would have managed some of the slippery slopes if it had been wet. And still we climbed. We were warned to look out for the Zambian exit office as if you missed it and didn't get your passports stamped out, then we would not be able to get back into Zambia, which we planned to do after Nyika on our way back home.

This "border post"  was not actually on the border but apparently a little office by the side of the road 30 kilometers before the actual border and easy to miss. We found it and after all the official stamping and signing we moved on to the Malawian border. We had two and a half hours to get to the post before 6 when it closed- 30-40 kilometers, piece of cake we thought.

Oh boy, this was not a usual piece of cake. The road just got worse and worse and we were not sure if we were even on the right road. We stopped one transport operator and asked him directions and if we were on the right road "yes” he said, “and the road gets much better and it will take you an hour."

Well in the end we were all in 4 wheel drive and going at about 5 kilometers an hour, slipping and sliding all over the road. Guy nearly did a 180 going up one of the steep rocky riveted inclines which was quite interesting to watch from behind. We eventually after many wrong turns up almost non-existing roads made it to the border post at exactly two minutes to six!

Oh dear, there was no official at the buildings, no lights, no nothing, fortunately there was a lady, who seemed to be someone who knew something arrived and with a cell phone started calling around and told us not to worry she would get Mr. Official back and  everything was no problem!!

Beautiful Scenery

Elephant Mountain

It took a good half hour of calling and talking but gradually all the officials arrived back at the empty, dark building to stamp our passports but it still took lots of soccer balls and coaxing to eventually get through. They had wanted to charge us $10,000 per car for import duty but we eventually got away with a fraction of that after Mark had “bambooseled” him properly. We eventually pulled out of the border post at 7pm. “Shew” and we still had about 60 kilometers to go to the gates of Nyika on a road that everyone told us was much improved and the big question was would they let us in at this late hour.

The one thing that I find fascinating about Africa which I have mentioned before is how the local people anywhere in Africa where we have traveled just accepts their lot in life, if the road is bad they just drives down the bad road, even if it totally breaks their cars, if the food is little, they just eat less, if the education is bad, then they just accept it. There is very little standing up for rights or fighting to improve conditions. In other words you just accept what your lot is and make the best of what you do have.

I guess that is why things just go down and down to a point of the irreducible minimum. I have purposely not mentioned the painful subject of the car as it was still giving trouble and the ENGINE failure sign was going on and off at regular intervals. Every time the engine sign came on we would lose power and fall down to a snail’s pace and then yipeeeee it would be off again. We just had to push on, get to Nyika where we were sure that they should have some sort of workshop facilities.

Mark still had some good Diesel mixed with the bad stuff so he wanted to drain all our obviously dirty diesel and put in some of his good low sulfur mix. We were really just grabbing at straws at this point as we had no data...nobody could tell us what fault code 065 was.

Finally we got to the gate at about 8.30pm and although they let us in, they would not let us continue in the park at night and go to the lodge which was a good 60 kilometers into the reserve. At least we were safe inside the park (with a very flimsy few bars between us and the villages) but there was a night guard on duty which gave us a small sense of security. It was the first actual "bush camp” that we had done, which was exciting, even though we had dogs from the village come to scrounging around for bones instead of the hyena that we would have preferred.

The next day we decided to get up early, give the kids some cereal and head for the lodge at Nyika Chilinda camp for a good hearty breakfast at the lodge. As usual our best laid plans didn't work out so good, the road inside the park was as bad if not worse than the one outside and it took us a good two hours to get to the lodge.

Rolling Hills From Chilinda

Luke and Max decided that they wanted to travel in our car, it is always so much nicer to sit in our car than anywhere else and Mark very reluctantly said yes as we thought it wasn't very far and it was inside the reserve so you cannot go too fast. Well After a few minutes I realized that I would have to stay in the back with them as we were bouncing up and down quite hectically and I had to try and keep them in their seats.

I tried a few times to get them to go back to dads car but, oh no, it was far too much fun bouncing around in the back with granny playing eye spy. Both of them are very good at the game but Luke did cheat a bit here and there (shades of his father and grandfather I am afraid).

When we finally arrived at Chilinda we realized that it wasn't the kind of lodge that would serve us breakfast at 10 in the morning or at all for that matter. Eventually after much Q and A and driving around we found the campsite and rolled our kitchen out to give the starving kids something to eat. By this time we were all eating our finger nails.

I was totally dismayed at the camping facilities; it was a Wilderness Safari's camp so we expected at least clean ablutions and a few other facilities. Well it was the same bathroom block that had been there thirty years ago when we were there with Tracy, Mark and Juan. They were in bad shape then (thirty years ago) but you can imagine how bad they are now. The same old wooden kitchen with an old coal stove that must be at least 50 years old and I wouldn't even walk in the place let alone cook in it.

There were three small shelters but only one allocated for us and the thing that really amused us all was the wooden stand with Five hooks all painted in red and marked in big red letters FIRE. The out point being there was only one red bucket, with a hole in it! I guess it rains so much up here there is a fat chance of a fire but then for goodness sake only have one hook and a bucket without a hole!

The rest of the day was spent doing the much needed washing of clothes, it is amazing how much dirty laundry is created by 11 people. It was a bit of a stupid thing to do as it was very overcast and there was a good chance of rain and then the drama of loads of wet washing would be disastrous and smelly inside the car. We did however have the little covered shelters so our little “AF DAK” turned out to be one big washing line.

Nyika is known for its cold weather, it sits at 4000ft above Lake Malawi (7000ft above sea level) and it is cold and rainy even in the middle of summer. We knew that there was a great possibility that it would rain but we were holding thumbs that our luck would hold out and the rain would stay away just for a day or two.

This is called  "The Great Mountain in the Sky"

It did hold off that first day and we sat in the campsite  that evening overlooking the most beautiful vista of green rolling hills, with Zebra, Reedbuck, Eland and bushbuck grazing right in front of us. It is evenings such as these that make the long arduous drive worth while. It was this Africa of peace and beauty that we love and it feeds our souls.

We had a wonderful time around the campfire with Ernest telling the kids stories of our early travels with their moms and dads and all the hilarious stories of what they used to get up to. A special moment for them to learn about how we survived in the bush in the early years and how clever their parents were. I don't think I have ever seen the kids laugh so much and it was always "tell us another one Gampie."

We all went to bed in very high spirits, looking forward to seeing more of Nyika the next day. Unfortunately our luck never held out and it started to rain during the night and it just didn't stop.

When it rains on the plateau, it just rain and rain. When we got up in the morning it was still raining and the fog was right down on the ground so we could see none of the vista that we saw the night before. It looked pretty set in for the day so we had to face the prospect of wet smelly washing in the car for the next day or two.

We had booked a game drive for the morning and decided to stick with that plan...either that or sitting around under the cloths line full on wet washing.

The drive turned out to be really worth while, we had a really terrific guide with his little "helper" who had the most unbelievable knowledge of the fauna and flora of the region. He took us to a huge lake that the local people believe is a healing lake. They believe that there is a very large serpent that lives in the lake and if you come to the lake and the serpent appears and you are able to touch its tail then you will be healed. Of course he was very eager to tell us about an actual time when some very ill man was recently brought to the lake and he drank the water and is now totally healed.

I have no doubt that this is a true story but it really shows the power of the mind and what can be achieved if the belief is strong enough. Nyika is very famous for its 200 odd species of Orchids and although it is apparently the wrong time of the year for Orchids, we did manage to see about 6 or 7 different  kinds flowering in the veld grass.

Wild Orchids

They are quite magnificent and I really wish that it hadn't been raining and we could have walked through the bush. He also managed to find us a few of the medicinal plants growing up there like Artemisia (the anti malaria Warner herb that we were on) and St. Johns wart which is for depression, which Ernest and I  really needed at that point because of the "Engine failure" and the weather (joke) There are huge herds of game on the slopes of the hills, we saw, Eland, Roan and Zebra.

Anyway no amount of feeling sorry for ourselves was going to change the weather so we soldiered on, again!

Mark, Ernest and Guy spent the afternoon fiddling with cars. Guy handled the big hippo and Mark spent the whole afternoon handling the momentous job of taking out both fuel tanks draining them and then putting them back. Unfortunately the roof of this "workshop " at the lodge was not high enough to allow the camper into the shed so they had to work outside and although the downpour had stopped it was still very very cold and miserable and it mostly rained again.

The girls spent the afternoon sitting amongst the wet washing which wasn't getting any dryer. Tracy Garrick, Aiden and I sat and played Rummycub and got trounced by Garrick who has got that game sussed out.

The men took the car on a short drive but unfortunately the problem still seemed to be there.

After dinner we got everything packed up as we wanted to get an early start the next morning so we could get to Mzuzu to see if we could get some decent low sulfur fuel.

Until next time, over and out.