Aaron's Outlook thus far

Fresh Water heaven found on Lake Malawi
28th July

Even in the darkness of a Malawi night it was plain to see that our expedition had uncovered a beautiful camp site on the beach of Senga, Lake Malawi. The sunrise of the next morning looked like it had just been taken out a movie, and after many pictures were taken, the four of us charged in the calm 26oC waters of the lake with our Kayaks. We spent the next 4 hours snorkeling around an island 2Kms off the beach, watching the brilliantly coloured, fresh water tropical fish that inhabited the island, some of which were specific to only that island, and live no where else in the world.


The dawn of the next day saw the lake whipped up into a wild sea, and the previously calm watered beach, was now being pounded by waves big enough to surf on, and as we found sink k2k’s boats!! A campsite that we found at Kande beach, 250kms north of Senga, proved to be the ultimate test of kayaking stamina, as the waves pounded a few very wet yet enthusiastic K2K paddlers.







Tension rises at boarder crossing

The sudden realisation that Yellow Fever vaccination certificates may have been needed at the Tanzanian border bought on a little group tension due to the fact that Shayne and myself had opted not to bring our certificates, as we understood they were for entry back into Australia and not needed else where. However after a few crossed fingers we managed to enter Tanzania without even being asked for them, and with all members of the group.

Richard nearly sweeps local child off his feet!

After a long and tedious day of driving through Tanzania a stray child who was playing a game on the side of the road, and ran out into the middle of the road gave all of us a very big scare. Fortunately we narrowly missed the child however not before coming very close to rolling the car. Richard who was driving at the time stopped soon after to change his underpants.

Genuine farm yard showers

After 4 smelly days of no showering we were informed by Tim from Cape Town that the farm yard campsite south west of Iringa, provided some magic showering opportunities. After a poor nights sleeping due to the ear piercing birds that continued to keep us (not Graeme) awake and extensive efforts by myself to “Quiten the birds”, we all arose at around 4:15am. A hot shower that early in the morning was well appreciated. Thanks for the recommendation Tim!.


The “Real” Kamakazi’s !

Africa has come up with its own form of kamikazes, and they are the bus and truck drivers. To date we have seen 9 recently rolled trucks on their roofs, sides and noses. This is not an unusual site in this area of the world, due to the speeds and weights these trucks and buses do. It is certainly amazing how these fully loaded buses with people hanging out the doors and stacks of luggage loaded 6 feet into the air on the tops of them defy gravity, as they have been passing us down mountain passes doing close to 140kph!! A local informed us contrary to the travelers companion books, that traveling at night by car was in some cases safer than during the day, as the buses don’t generally run late into the night.















Exphixiated by a python or Swallowed by a Hippo?

As we arrived at the turn off into the Pangani campsite we came across a freshly killed Boa Constrictor stretching 10 feet across the road. As we set up camp beside the river in the dark after arriving at 10:30pm, everyone was on the look out for the older brothers of the sibling python we had earlier seen stretched across the road, some of which may stretch up to 18+ feet in length and more than capable of swallowing an Impala (or us) whole. The light of the morning meant that we were able to see exactly where we were camping and the owner of the campsite exclaimed that often Hippos would arise out of the river and onto the banks that we had occupied the night before, with a smirk he remarked that they “Have not been here for a couple of weeks however”.