Sunday 10th October

On Sunday morning we woke up bright and early and, as mooted the previous evening, joined Kurt for a walk around the reservoir.

We reached the dam by around 8am, where we had to pay a small fee to enter the dam property, and we negotiated (a rather sophisticated term for the slightly confused and confusing process that actually took place) for a guide.

Our Guide

We had a glorious two-hour walk taking in the waterfall, the trout farm set up by a Scotsman over 70 years previously and the Ku Chawe hotel – quite posh and now part of the Sunbird chain like the Nkopola Lodge where we are going for Lake of Stars.

Liwonde

The Ku-Chawe Trout Farm – entrance

Trout Pools

Baby Fish!

Apparently the trout farm owners had made good money supplying hotels etc but some years previously they had lost the whole stock to poisoning so had started again from scratch.

Naughty Monkeys!

By the time we arrived back at the cottage breakfast was ready – strawberry and mulberry fruit salad followed by bacon and eggs, and toast and jam, all prepared by Bryan, Mikes family cook at the cottage. After that we had just enough time to pack our overnight bags and shower before piling into the car and heading for Liwonde, the national park where we would be spending the night.

Arriving at Liwonde took longer than expected we had to cross the river Shire (pronounced ‘shee-ree) to get to the Mvuu (Hippo) Camp where we were staying, and Mike wasn’t sure where the boat crossing point was for this particular camp as it was the first time he’d used it. After a couple of false starts we found the crossing and – leaving the car at a ‘car park’ (small clearing with a guard) on the riverside, we bundled into a boat with a chap called David who ferried us across the river to the camp.

The jetty

Randall with his ears flapping in the wind as the boat zips away!

The boat was open-sided with a canvas roof that had swallows nesting in it, so the boat trip was punctuated by swallows dipping into the boat to add to or check on their nests before zipping back out again to catch insects around the boat.

Welcome to Mvuu Camp, Liwonde National Park

At the camp we were greeted in the reception/restaurant/bar area by Emmanuel who gave us the safety briefing pointing out that the camp was an ‘open’ camp i.e. not fenced off from the rest of the park, meaning that the animals could come and go as they pleased in and out of the camp. This was evident from the monkeys scampering about amongst the baobabs on the lawn in front of us:

…although apparently it wasn’t the monkeys were were being warned about but the elephants and hippos that were likely to come into the camp at night, and potentially the warthogs although they weren’t generally aggressive. Once we’d been warned about that, Emmanuel had us sign disclaimers, basically to say that if we were maimed, killed or eaten by animals then it was entirely our own fault. Mmmm – hungry work, and thus time for more food – a late lunch (as it was now 2pm) where the lovely Tom took care of us, bringing our drinks and indicating when it was time for us to go up to the server for the next course, despite the fact that we were the only people eating and the poor server had been dragged back out of the kitchen with his pots solely for our benefit. Lunch was rather unprepossessing although rather surprisingly and pleasingly the coffee was excellent.

With only forty-five minutes to go until we had to be back in reception for our game drive, we headed out to the chalet – we seemed to be the furthest from reception on the edge of the camp, which turned out to be a privilege although we didn’t realise this yet. Slight awkwardness at seeing the bed configuration (a small double and two singles) in the main bedroom until the guide pointed out the second double bedroom which Randall and I bagsied. The bathroom was in between the two rooms and was impressive, with stone walls like the rest of the chalet, fluffy towels, and a well designed shower with a glazed brown clay floor that drained perfectly. There were also little bouquets of wild flowers laid out everywhere – on the bed, the towels etc.

The chalets had a double power system – generator supplemented by solar – with separate switches for each. The general rule seemed to be that the generator was on then the solar power ran out, although it wasn’t always clear which to use.

Heading back to the reception we met George, our fantastic guide, who checked what drinks we wanted for our ‘sundowners’ on the boat (‘greens’ all round) before loading us onto the boat for our river safari.

Beer-stealing monkeys!

We set out from the camp around 4pm and immediately saw impala, some kind of antelopes, warthogs, various birds and a couple of crocs.

Start of the trip – all very civilised.

Scary Hippos

Happy Elephant

Around a km from the camp we passed an island that was crocodile city – at least twenty of various sizes including some of over three metres. George said the largest that had been measured recently was 4.8 metres – he had helped to land it and carry it while sedated. Apparently they grow up to six metres but over a certain length their heart can no longer pump blood as far as the end of the tail so it eventually drops off.

Scary Croc. One of hundreds we saw basking and swimming.

Kingfisher. We also saw a tiny blue-and-orange one that was too fast to photograph.

Obviously what I was really waiting to see was the elephants! George spotted some about a kilometre away drinking from the side of the river so we slowly crept up on them – mummy and baby. The baby hid behind mum who kept a close eye on us but was obviously used to these interruptions and not too worried.

Mum and baby.

Then we noticed a couple of large male elephants feeding and drinking across the river so we got an extreme close-up of them until one of them mock charged us…according to George there is no danger as they move very slowly once in water!

Yikes! Note the one missing tusk (from fighting).

As the sun was starting to set, George wanted to take us to a small island where the elephants often spend the day before, at sunset, walking back to the mainland in a single file – not quite but almost tails-in-trunks line which is obviously a spectacular sight. At this point our camera ran out of battery so we managed to take some with Randall’s iPhone, and Kurt kindly offered to send us a memory stick with copies of his which I will post here later. There were over twenty elephants on the island including a teeny (well, in elephant terms!) baby still suckling. They did indeed cross the river from the island exactly at sunset as we watched them with cold beers in our hands. The baby got all confused and managed to get almost across before having a bit of a panic and scampering back to the other side and crossing back again with mum.

Homeward bound…

We watched the elephants until it was dark, then motored back to the camp in time for another cold beer and then dinner, by which time we were all ready for bed!

Yes, all very amusing, IN THE DAY TIME!!