North of Muzuzu the main food crop is cassava, and the cash crop rubber.

Nkhata Bay, apparently the second busiest in Malawi !

Two sunken boats and a few Morokos but very picturesque.

The main road north is closed due to flooding and we are shown a 40km detour.

A truck has gone off on the muddy road and the path around impossible for the many small vans.

Offered to tow this one out as they are on the way to a funeral and the body is in the back.

We are on the way to Livingstonia, an old Missionary settlement in the mountains. No camping places on this small muddy road. Then a small creek where there are not one but two bulldozers stuck and trying to be recovered by a huge digger, that also becomes stuck!

That process went on until around 8pm, then at 1am a grader passing through was also stuck.

The hole the next morning

An entertaining camp.

M180: Bogged Bulldozers Camp

Cost: Nil

Today:  226 Km 

Africa Total: 34,290 Kms

Friday 7th April 2017

It took almost all day with this big digger and 2 other machines working to clear the mud hole and repack with rocks.

We watched and waited.

Purchased beautiful avocados

(A$0.10c each) from these boys then they are off to the Livingstonia market.

Lunch was guacamole on biscuits

Brian was a driver for the construction camp and he also slept in his vehicle last night so we enjoyed an early morning coffee together.

He returned later in the day with sugar cane that, like all the locals we chewed on.

Livingstonia was a mission founded in 1894 by the Free Church of Scotland.

It was moved hear after the previous two settlements failed because of deaths caused by Malaria. Here at nearly 1200metres the area was free from Mosquitoes.

The settlement now is the site of the Livingstonia University.

We were fortunate to be shown through the Church and see the stained glass window depicting Dr Livingstone, his sextant, medical kit and the two natives that carried his body across Africa after his death from malaria.

The children's choir was practising at the time and in typical African harmony echoed and reverberated throughout the church......

I found it quite moving.

Camp is right on the edge of the cliff of the Rift Fault overlooking Lake Malawi 700metres below and across to towards Tanzania

M181/2: Mushroom Farm Camp

Cost: US$5/person/night and a great meal for US$7 each

Today:  23 Km 

Africa Total: 34,313 Kms

Altitude:  1089m

It is so nice we will stay here another day and night !

Rich, is from the Gold Coast and is travelling Africa on his bike.

Somehow I do not envy travelling these roads on a bike in this torrential rain.

Did a pod cast with him this morning

Our road down.

A 600metre drop in a straight line distance of 1.2Km.

Look carefully and you will see 4 roads below as it zig zags down the escarpment.

In Karonga is the Malawisaurus “Malawi Lizard” a fossilised Dinosaur found 30kms south of here.

Have a camp site 5kms north of Karonga. A bit ‘ordinary’ but did not want to cross the border into Tanzania at the end of the day, so that will be tomorrow.

We are ourselves a bit of a tourist attraction as the local children stop and stare.

And we watched this guy making a Mokoro. Very cleaver with just a adze

M183: An old motel Camp

Cost: MKW4000 person/night  (A$6)

Cold showers and dirty so used our own !

Today:  105 Km 

Africa Total: 34,419 Kms

Altitude:  480m

Tomorrow Tanzania