Distance: 157km (Cumulative: 20 653km)
Moving time: 3:34
Average speed: 44km/h
Road surface: 90% Tar
Accommodation: Camping
Bushman's Baobab - R100 p.p
Basically inside Liwonde National Park, without having to pay entrance fee to park.
We took our time to pack up as we only had a short drive ahead of us. We left Fat Monkeys at 11:00 and stopped in the town to buy some eggs and fresh produce.
The road to Liwonde was the same as usual, but the last 10km had roadworks. First, just short detours around sections where they are adding cement tunnels under the road and then for the last section the whole road was being resurfaced and we had to drive next to it on a bumpy gravel road.
We got to the Bushman’s Baobab campsite just in time to join Gerrie and Lisa, who camped here since last night, on a boat trip on the Shire river. We thought the boat would start in the small side river close to the campsite, but then the land rover set off towards the town of Liwonde. We drove into someone’s yard next to the river and there a small boat was waiting for us.
We only booked a 2-hour boat ride and it took almost 45 minutes just to reach the border of the national park. We saw plenty of hippos and large crocodiles, but only waterbucks and elephants in the distance in terms of game next to the river.
At least we saw an amazing sunset on the way back, partly due to the smoke in the air. The sun was blood red just before going down with a perfect reflection in the water.
We arrived back at the camp in the dark and we quickly set up camp. Gerrie has an AHA Canopy, which looks really interesting, but after seeing how long it takes to setup we decided it wasn’t for us. The staff had already started a fire for us. Gerrie and Lisa offered us steaks for dinner which we didn’t decline. Caro made pap on the fire and then we all had dinner together, talking about Africa and all kinds of things. They’ve been to almost all the countries we went to, but over only two months. They also have a large 100-liter freezer that was filled with meat sealed in frozen vegetable bags. They thus still have meat from South Africa left as well as other luxuries like butter and rusks.
We went to bed around 21:00 with the sound of hippos in the distance and bright stars overhead.
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