Sumbawanga (Feb 10th - 11th by Paul)We headed out of Mbeya early the next day because we were fairly sure the roads would be quite bad so thought we should give ourselves as much time as possible. The first 100km was good tarmac to the border town of Tunduma, which was a crazy town full of big trucks waiting to cross the border, it appeared that a lot of them had come from the way we were headed so figured we should be ok. We eventually got out of town, a bit har...

Mbeya (Feb 8th - 10th by Paul)As we left the Mushroom Farm we had to negotiate the narrow windy road back down to lake level. As we went down we caught glimpses of the lake and we could see these dark clouds that looked like smoke floating just above the water. We then realised that these were in fact clouds of flies that we had seen on the BBC's Planet Earth series (and read about in the guide book). At certain times of the year huge numbers of flies gather to m...

Livingstonia (Feb 6th - 8th by Susan)The next morning we were on our way to Livingstonia.As we drove along we passed through some amazing countryside, as we approached the lake the roads started to wind and climb sharply.It would have been an amazing view of the lake but as luck had it the mist and clouds were rolling in.Then it was more winding roads as we twisted and turned through sub tropical forests on our way down to the lake shore.Finally we reached the tu...

Mzuzu (Feb 5th - 6th by Susan)We hadn't intended on staying in Mzuzu for the night, just a short stop to pick up some supplies and to sort out some odds and ends.As we left Nkhata bay we'd stopped at a row of curio stalls and decided that since we had to send our wooden Kal back to Oz we might as well pick up something else.They had some amazing things, awesome chairs and tables but Paul and I opted for a wooden bowl until we judged how well things would make it ...

Nkhata Bay - Mayoka Village (Feb 2nd - 5th by Susan)This place is billed in the guide books as a rival to Cape Maclear and I have to say it is definitely more scenic than Cape Maclear itself, set on two small bays with forest all around.We'd decided to go to Mayoka Village, more than anything because the guide book said they offered lifts from the ferry which would mean we wouldn't have to go pick Dave and Kaz up at 5am in the morning when it arrived.Sadly they n...