We set off on good roads with about 200k to go before turning off towards the Lodge. Paula had brought lots of children's clothes and shoes with her that her grandchildren have grown out of and along the way we topped a couple of times at small villages to give out the clothes. The first place belonged to one family and had about 3 huts and a few goats. The father was there and he told us he had 9 children. At first the children were quite frightened of us, hiding behind each other, and the father told us they though we were satanists appearing out of the bushes!! They stood wide eyed as we handed out shoes and clothes to the smaller children as we only had clothes for kids up to 7. It's lovely to see the little smile on a child's face when he is given probably his first pair of sandals. It is also nice that the older children who didn't get anything don't sulk or stary crying, they are just so happy for their younger brothers and sisters. At the next village one small girl was screaming hysterically as we stopped and got out of the vehicles but she soon calmed down when her grandma explained that the new little T shirt was for her.

We turned off the main road and travelled 50k down a deeply potholed road and then a further 50k on a badly flooded bush road. The further along the single track bush road we got the less the road had been used recently. The area we were travelling through was full of Tetse fly and we couldn't even open our windows for fear they would fly in or worse get out as both vehicles were surrounded by thousands of flys. The area was very very remote and by this time it was getting dark, it had taken us 5 hours to travel 90k and by the time we arrived at 7.30 it was literally pitch black and the place was closed due to flooding!!!!!!!!

Luckily for us some of the staff were still on site as otherwise we don't know what we would have done as we couldn't have turned around and gone back. One of the guys offered to direct us to the camping site and had to jump into Steve's vehicle which was behind us. We pulled off the road to let them pass and heard a loud crunch which Peter knew instantly was further bad news. Not being able to do anything until morning we made camp and the staff built a big fire for us.

We awoke to find outselves in a beautiful setting just by the Itchy Titchy River.One of the staff showed us around the lodge which consisted of 4 very private luxury tents with en-suite facilities built on platforms over looking the river. Although the lodge catered for campers this was definately one of the more upmarket lodges. Everything from the wooden platforms to the ornaments inside the tents was made from local natural resources. The central lodge building was complte with bar, restaurantd and a long jetty jutting out over the river complete with fire pit. Unfortunately due to heavy rains in January the whole place had been seriously flooded and the water level reached 2meters higher than normal . The staff were busy repairing and restoring things back to normal and we were the only guests for the 4 nights we were there.

Peter checked out the damage to the truck which turned out to be an eploded c.v. joint which was now making a lot of noise. He had to remove the drive shart which meant that we were not reduced to only 2 wheel drive instead of 4 and we were stuck miles from anywhere with difficult roads to go back on, the only consolation was that at least now we had 2 vehicles just in case we got stuck or broke down somewhere.

On our second day Thom the ownder of the lodge returned and he was a marvelous and very interesting and knowledgeable host being a former conservationist. He arranged for us to go aon a couple of hikes, one of which was to watch the magnificant sunset from the top of the highest rock. We had to make our way back in total darkness which was a bit spooky, especially as our eye sight, coming from a well lit metropolis, is not accustomed to pitch blackness, but the guides made sure we got back safely.

Another day we went on a river cruise again with Thom, his gun, and two of his guides. We got on and off the boat at various islands looking for elephant which unfortunately we didn't manage to see but we were lucky enought to see some hipp in the river. We had wanted to go on a game drive in Thom's old Land Rover but it turned out that it was broken down. Thom had taken the cylinder head off last November and bought all the parts to do the job but just hadn't had time. Peter offered to have a look at it and spend half a day refitting the cylider head and a new distributor and getting it running again. Unfortuntely we rn out of time for the game drive.

On our final evening the 4 of us had a delicious dinner with Thom in the lodge prepared by his dedicated staff who afterwards treated us to a few traditional Zambian songs. It was a fitting end to what had been a very enjoyable few days being treated like kings by Thom and his staff.