Four of the five overland trucks left early so we awoke before 6am when the engines fired. Kande Beach is a stunning wide beach with crystal clear blue water and a very gradual slope. It doesn't seem to have the big waves of Senga Bay and is perhaps more beautiful. There is an island a few hundred metres off the shore where the resident dive school runs its courses at. We had a swim and a relax on the beach before heading off a little later than usual at about ...

Probably the most significant part of this day was realising Ant's driver's licence was invalid. He just never bothered to check and it had been invalid for 6 months. Now the police everywhere think that surely a couple planning to spend 3 months on the road will try to chance it by setting off without windscreen wipers or headlights and definitely the driver's licence needs to be checked often as they will probably be unlicensed drivers trying to do the trip. ...

The drive to Cape Maclear was uneventful, lots of cotton plantations and a flat road through the flood plain of the lake. After examining a few options we chose to settle at Fat Monkeys which had a camp site right on the lake - it was beautiful! We had some advice not to stay at this place because of all the people trying to sell you things - but it was by far the best camp site and we found if you didn't set up on the water's edge you weren't too harrassed. Th...

The benefit of staying in a house is that you can leave early in the morning so we were able to be on the road at 7 am comfortably for what we expected would be a long drive to Chipatta, Zambia's gateway town to Malawi. It was also a blessing to be on the Great East Road side of town that we missed the traffic and were easily out into the bush. The trip is almost divided into two sections, roughly split at the Luangwa River. The first runs from Lusaka past the ...

The benefit of staying in a house is that you can leave early in the morning so we were able to be on the road at 7 am comfortably for what we expected would be a long drive to Chipatta, Zambia's gateway town to Malawi. It was also a blessing to be on the Great East Road side of town that we missed the traffic and were easily out into the bush. The trip is almost divided into two sections, roughly split at the Luangwa River. The first runs from Lusaka past the L...