Safari

On our first full day here, before we got laid into work on the Monday, we set off at 7.00am to visit the best park in Malawi. It was a long journey 2½ hours each way in the back of a van with sideways on seats reminiscent of travelling in a LandRover. We had been warned that the last half hour was going to be rough as it was off the road and we had to go up and down over dried up river beds. In the event, for me, it turned out to be the best part of the journey as we went through lots of little villages giving a real view of Malawian rural life and it was wonderful to be able to smile and make eye contact with the people and wave back to the children as we went through. Travelling through was a real eye-opener in terms of the basic living conditions that people face.

At the gates to the park there were some wee boys sitting in front of a house so I went up and asked to take their pics. They were an absolute delight, mucking around and giggling and wanting to see their pics in the viewfinder.

When we were told we were going on a river trip we thought we might see some crocodiles, as we had been told about them but none of us had any huge expectations of what it would be like. We were blown away.

Liwonde National Park is smallish at 211 square miles. Our day consisted of a morning sailing down the Shire River and an afternoon driving around the special fenced area of the reserve. We had lunch at the Mvuu Camp.

We chose the best time of year to visit with nearly all the water holes dried up, forcing the animals down to the river side. We saw, literally, hundreds of elephants in many different groups, some with all male, some with babies. The park has the highest concentration of hippos anywhere in the world and we got more and more blasé about sailing past yet another group. (In fact the group visiting the week before actually managed to sail over one rather disgruntled one!) There were zebra crocodiles, warthogs, buffalo and baboons and more types of antelope than I knew existed. Lots of stunning birds as well, eagles, kingfishers and amazing coloured things that I have no idea what they were in electric greens and blues and bright yellow. We got within a couple of metres from the elephants (even chasing one along the road!), crocodiles and elephants lots of times. It was just amazing. I've got some great photos, although I did end up taking over 1800 shots!

A fantastic day and well worth the discomfort of the long journey.

(Oh, and we have been working really hard promise! More of that soon.)