With the gracious help of Ian, a friend of Hluhluwe River Lodge, we made our way into Durban, and after a stellar night’s stopover at the Happy Hippo backpackers (next to Ushaka Marine World), we landed in Jo’burg airport. Now having traveled our way through Eastern and Southern Africa over the last 8 months we aren’t strangers to African-time or camping out in some fairly average ghettos, but I think we have finally found a winner.

Having pre-arranged a room (one of our first and only double rooms on the trip!) with Gemini Backpackers here in Jo’burg and having been impressed by their website and travel book reviews we were massively disappointed. Even though Gemini offer a free pick up from the airport, they don’t let you organise it in advance and we were told we had to call when we arrived at the airport. 40 minutes we were told – seemed fine too us. Our dudes arrived over an hour and forty minutes after we called… twice. It doesn’t sound like much, but after a cattle-truck style flight all you want to do is get to your accommodation. Except in this case, as we found out. Arriving at Gemini we were greeted by a group of locals, wasted and trying to play snooker, rotting building materials lying at the entrance, a ‘fully stocked’ kitchen with no utensils, dishes everywhere and rooves that leaked in the kitchen, dorm and double rooms. None of the electical outlets worked in our room either, but this was nothing compared to battling small jumping creatures – it doesn’t seem they clean the rooms or communal areas past a bit of moppig. Come on guys.

Now I know it sounds like a bitching session, but if guidebooks keep printing the same reports and pumping up backpacking joints that truly don’t deserve it, then how is there any chance to keep some form of quality control? Apparently, the same owners have had this place for over seven years and it looks like a run down brothel. I guess one good thing that has come out of it is free internet, from which we have been able to plan the very few remaining days that we have left in Victoria Falls, from the Zambian side.

If the only thing you do in Jo’burg is NOT come to Gemini Backackers then it has been a trip well spent. We have two nights in Jo’burg when we fly back from Livingstone in Zambia and we’re looking at other options… all of which also offer tours of the city, Soweto, the Apartheid Museum and other cultural sites around Jo’burg. ‘We have heard’ these are great places to stay. We’ll see… We have plans to meet up with an old lecturer and friend of Kate’s, Rick Snell, from UTas, on the 29th, our second last night in Jo’burg. Let’s hope we finish up our catch up dinner at a reasonably clean and comfortable backpackers this time!!!

We received the call from Rory at Rory’s Garage that Helga has been fixed up and is ready to roll. Saying another goodbye to Jan and Trevor (it must be the sixth by now!) and Tim and Annarosa we piled into our rental Opel Corsa come go-kart and made the distance back to Pinetown. We collected Helga and after checking out Rory’s handy work on the propshaft, engine mounts and powersteering unit, we made tracks for St Lucia, for a few nights stopover before hitting the diving scene with Coral Divers in Sodwana Bay.

Helga was running beautifully on the cruise up to the St Lucia wetlands which is located 2-3 hours north of Durban. Turning off at Mtubatuba we wove our way through the massive pine and eucalypt plantations and into the rather surfy town of St Lucia. There are a few places to stay here in the town but we really enjoyed Bibs, on the main road just up from the fruit and veg market and across from Wimpys. Although the decore is becoming a little tired, the place is clean and staff are ace, with free morning walks of the wetlands to check out hippos and crocodiles as well as table tennis and pool in the bar. They do have an outdoor pool but it currently looks like the amazon river (it is a fair guess to say the filter is broken) and there is quick internet in the lobby.

The next day was our chill day, and we spent it wandering the town and scouting hippos from the shoreline, and heading out on a river cruise to find more wildlife. To be honest, I could take or leave the cruise. It was nice but everything we saw on the cruise we’d seen on our 3 hour walk around St Lucia. But it does give you the chance to see hippos up close and personal as well as the odd fish eagle hunting its prey from the trees.

I swear the sun starts shining hard at 5:00am here in Africa and after a few cups of instant coffee we loaded the tent and strange battery light contraption that Ben has created back into Helga, enroute to Sodwana Bay. Heralded as the best dive site in South Africa we were keen to see what all the fuss was about. After paying our park entrance fees (R20 per person, per day) and camping costs (R65 per person per day plus a community tax of R5 per person) we chose a stellar spot just south of the Coral Divers outfit. Now, we had heard previously that the dive operations here are very similar to a business production line, pumping divers in and out of the water, and mass producing both PADI Dive Masters and PADI Instructors. But we were to find that this only made them more professional and reliable. Both of us being competent divers we checked into the 7:00PM briefing and signed ourselves up to do 7 mile reef and 1/4 mile reef which had just been reopened after the raggies had fallen pregnant.

Eager to get wet we trekked back to Coral Divers from our campsite the next morning and loaded our gear onto the beach shuttle. Well actually, not all of our gear made it on. Ben, being daft as he is, left a plastic bag and wandered off to check something random out. The vervet monkeys in the park have adapted well to human behaviour and are always on the lookout for a freebie. Having spied the lone bag, one brave monkey dropped down from the wooden beams and threw his hand inside, digging out a fresh box of seasickness tablets with a wad of R40 (South African currency) tucked inside. In an instant the money was swiped by another monkey and taken off to their treasure trove in the jungle, while the original perp took a strip of tablets out of the box and gently popped out a single tablet, sticking it in his mouth. It didn’t take long for the little guy to realise it held no taste and the whole packet came raining down from the roof as he spat the tablet straight out!

Glad he didn’t get his hands on anything of real value, we made tracks for the beach and started kitting up. The curents had turned and the vis had been reported as being below par on 1/4 mile, plus the raggies were all hiding out getting ready to give birth, so we all agreed that our second dive would be on Stringer, a set of elongated reefs in close to shore.

7 mile was a great dive. Although the vis was average and the currents mild to strong we saw a great array of sealife: sleeping turtles, trumpet fish, angelfish, nemos, and loads of nudibranchs. The reef topology is gorgeous as well, with lettuce leaf corals and sponges making the scene quite spectacular. The second dive was just as epic, with a myriad of smaller fish and similar reef design, while the front of the group (which was six strong) missed the sight of a huge Raggie swimming underneath us at the end of the dive, just after a large Leopard Ray spooked and glided out into the distance.

But we didn’t come up here just for the diving. It just so happened that the young couple from Hluhluwe a month earlier who had seen Helga and were interested in doing a similar trip to us, were here in Sodwana as well. Chris and Joanna were keen to take a closer look, and now that there had been interest in their bakkie they wanted a test drive and to see what Helga could do in the deep sand and rocky tracks just outside of the park. Taking it in turns to drive her, Joanna and Chris led us out to Lake Sebaya where we knocked back a few beers and watched the sun set over the crocodile filled lake, listening to the grunt of an irritated hippo in the distance. More than happy with how the 4×4 handled the sand and dirt Chris and Joanna agreed to get back to us with an offer, just in case our other sale from guys in the UK fell through.

Not a bad trip up to the coast in the end; great diving and a potential sale on Helga for when we finish our trip, which is now less than 17 days from ending… Crazy!

[View with PicLens]

After finding a bank that accepted Mastercard (again, mental note: bring VISA to Africa) we took to the road again enroute for Chimoio, our next stop before Vilanculos and the Bazaruto archipelago. A word of warning for any potential overland travelers of this route; for the last few years the roads have been under reconstruction from Tete all the way through to the EN6 near the township of Inchope. Don’t let small patches of great tarmac fool you! From Changara which sits just less than 100kms south of Tete through to Cantandica is severely potholed and mashed road surface. Although we were told that a full 180kms of road was in need of dire repair we experienced on around 100kms of this to be true and if you plan enough time and drive sensibly then you should have no trouble. With Helga (our ’83 Toyota Landcruiser) we hit an average of 30-40km/h through the bad sections. From Cantandica onwards we had no trouble.

Once successfully navigated through the tarmac holes our destination was The Pink Papaya backpackers and campground in Chimoio. We promptly discovered that three years ago the government of Mozambique upped the licence costs for owning a campground. After talking to a number of locals it appears that this price hike has put the majority of campgrounds out of business and those that used to offer backpacker dorms and camping have been forced to drop camping  from their list. This was the case for The Pink Papaya. Good old Lonely Planet, even after a reprint about a year ago they still manage to miss the details! Even still, the Pink Papaya had great dorms and the people are lovely. We shacked up for about AU$12 each per night which is the going rate for most dorms throughout the country.

We have recently found that there exists a second Pink Papaya campsite, about 90kms North of Chimoio and is known as The Pink Papaya Overlanders Camp. From here you can experience the pink papaya forest walks and we are pretty certain that camping is still an option here. If you are traveling North, it sits a few kilometers East from where the Pungoe river crosses the EN102 highway.

Mushroom Farm was our first port of call in Malawi and what a way to begin our time in this beautiful lake-side country. Turning off at Chitimba on the main road, we headed the 10km up on a winding, rough 4×4 road up to Mushroom Farm. Do not even begin to attempt the road on a 2WD car as we spent most of our time with Helga in low range, but boy was it worth it. As we pulled into the strange looking car park, we weren’t sure what to expect. We were greeted by the lovely Dulcie, one half of a lovely English couple managing the Mushroom Farm for the owner for 6 months. We were taken down the winding path, filled with crackled dry leaves and the feint almost Australian-like scent of bush and led to a quaint bar/restaurant area, perched on the side of the hill. That was not the only thing that was perched on the side of the hill. Dulcie and her boyfriend Nat then showed us the pick of the camp sites, and given we were the only people staying there at the time, we were free to set up shop. It was completely and utterly breathtaking… we were perched above a 200m cliff drop where the side of the mountain dropped away to a magnificent gully that we later found out glowed in the evening with the dull embers of fires of villagers scattered throughout. In the distance was Lake Malawi and on the clear mornings we could see Tanzania on the other side.

We spent four nights at Mushroom Farm after only intending to spend one or two. Our camp site was two metres away from the edge of the cliff, but given neither of us are sleepwalkers, nor did we get drunk in our time there, it really didn’t matter. We sat on traditional Malawian chief’s chairs (we’ll be purchasing some of these in the not too distant future), huddled around our own private camp fire, cooked ourselves evening meals on our little stove and drank yummy gin and tonics. During the evening you can join the owner/managers for dinner and for only around 900 kwacha you get amazing, home cooked vegetarian fare coupled with amazing company. We were lucky to have both Jan and Trevor and another traveler we’d met on the way (albeit ANOTHER Landrover owner) Thomas, join us for the evening we decided to take up the home cooked evening meal. We ate lunch made by the lovely chefs on each of the days and the food – from vegetarian Asian style-noodle soup, to vegetarian pancakes, to stir-fry and more – was incredible: freshly made, with local ingredients. A lot of the ingredients also came from the Mushroom Farm garden (NB: the Mushroom Farm doesn’t actually grow mushrooms!!).

If you add the amazing food, the amazing position and the amazing silence to the splendidly placed hammock, gently rocking you over the edge of the cliff face; the lovely two hour walk up into the village of Livingstonia, so quaint that it still looks like an old English colony, and the eco toilets and showers that have you sitting in what seems to be a grand room overlooking the bush, to see others, but remain unseen, then you have the most quintessential Mushroom Farm experience that has us wanting to come back for more.

If in doubt, don’t and take yourself up to the Mushroom Farm. If you don’t have your own car, you can wait at the sign in Chitimba at the bottom of the hill and ring for a lift. And in season when the owner Mick is around (although he was back in his, and our native Aus when we visited) you can canyon swing and abseil the Manchewe waterfalls to your hearts content. What a great start to Malawi!

[View with PicLens]

12►

Having had a gorgeous ‘family holiday’ on the Zanizibar islands, we left the stunning waters of Maikadi Beach on the Tanzanian coast behind, loaded up our tent and camp gear into Helga and took off. We were enroute to Mbeya, where we had heard on the travellers grapevine that there was a reliable workshop located in the town who would be able to help us out with replacing an inner tube (of one of Helga’s spares) and sort us out with a handful of spare fuel and oil filters before we head into Malawi. But the drive from Dar es Salaam is long, and especially traveling in the old Cruiser meant that we didn’t stand a chance at making it in any less than three days.

Now for the record the Tanzanian speed limits are 80kms an hour either way and traveling through towns means a slowing to 60, sometimes 50kms an hour. In Helga, keeping in true old Toyota form (incredibly reliable but… slow!) we take it easy and even overestimating the days distances we were caught up in heavy roadworks and rolled on into Riverside camp, about 70kms out of Mbeya, after dark. Driving the often dirt highways at night with trucks screaming past, heavily laden with goods from Zambia and Malawi isn’t something we recommend trying on an empty stomach. We have quickly become accustomed to aggressive driving through battling cities such as Kampala, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam but always during the daylight. At night it is absolutely pitch black; no streetlights outside of the centre of major cities, no house lights to throw any luminance of the roads and the biggest issue that plagues the continent is the mass of people that utilise the roads as walkways after dark. Thankfully we haven’t had accidents but the same cannot be said for individuals we have seen on the side of the roads, one motorbike rider carrying a loadful of straw and another bicycle rider were not lucky enough to make it after having accidents with oncoming traffic. Bottom line: avoid night driving at all costs.

Struggling with directions, especially in the dark, we were lucky enough to be guided into Riverside camp by Jan and Trevor, who had left Dar es Salaam that same morning. The four of us camped out the night by the river, listening to the crackling of a not-so-distant bushfire that we swore was getting closer to the river by the minute, but come morning, the fire that turned out to be burning off had subsided. Cruising into Mbeya we found our mechanic, promptly repaired our inner tube and picked up a few spare filters for the Crusier, before scooting 8kms north of the town towards an exclusive coffee plantation that was rumoured to accomodate self driving campers.

Driving up over a the mountain crest we set our came across the coffee plantation accommodation. Tennis court, squash courts, swimming pool, and outdoor cinema set the tone and the price on this small oasis in the middle of Mbeya region, normally known as the transport hub between Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania, and not a luxurious resort for coffee lovers! Settling on the US$10 per night, per person camping fee we drove down next to a couple in crisp white Lacoste polo tops playing tennis and pitched our tent on the Helipad.

After 4 months traveling through Eastern Africa in a simple setup we are far from the fancy 5-star travelers, covered in dirt head to toe, and constantly playing with the vehicle to check and fill fluids and regrease metal parts. But we took advantage of our winfall with the ‘resort’ and spent two days playing in the pool, watching Babel on the outdoor screen, and taking a great tour of the huge coffee plantations that surround the helipad, learning all about the growing, drying, and production processes of the Tanzanian coffee. These guys used to supply coffee to Starbucks, which we shouldn’t hold against them, and although their beans weren’t the best we have sipped, the tour was incredible and the pool even more so!

[View with PicLens]