clickety click - the blog

Tea for miles...

This update is also long overdue... here - finally - are the last of the Malawi images.

After our two magical days at Liwonde, we enjoyed a two-day stopover at Satemwa Tea Estate. I felt as though we'd entered a colonial time warp! We stayed at Huntingdon House, the original 1920s Satemwa homestead, which has recently been beautifully renovated and is situated on Thyolo Mountain amidst seemingly endless tea plantations. 

We arrived just as the weather was closing in, an amazing sight.

 

In between being wined and dined at Huntingdon by our wonderful hosts and enjoying a peaceful interlude away from the chaos of Malawi's roads (this warrants a post in its own right!), we explored parts of the estate, a vast expanse of tea fields that just seem to go on forever. Beautiful patches of green, divided into neat segments, much like below: 

 

This is what tea leaves look like close up...

Some of the tea bushes date back to the first half of the 20th century, Satemwa being one of Malawi's oldest tea plantations.

 

We made a tea tasting appointment at the factory, which proved to be a surprisingly insightful experience. I for one had no idea of what's involved in the art of making tea! 

While down Thyolo way, we drove over to Mulanje to catch a glimpse of Mount Mulanje, an impressive massif with a plateau the size of a small European country (by which I don't mean the obvious). This is by all accounts a hiker's paradise. We didn't have time to skip up the mountain unfortunately - maybe next time.  

  

And that's it for Malawi! We spent our last night back in Lilongwe, dissecting and digesting all the information we'd gathered over the last week and deciding on an itinerary. It's due to be uploaded to our site any day now so watch this space.

Next on the clickety click agenda: Namibia!

Liwonde National Park - Day Two

This update is long overdue due to a recent skirmish with a Malawi tummy bug!

Back to Day Two in Liwonde. We kicked off with a crack-of-dawn bush walk. The colours surrounding us were glorious by 5:30am - it gets light so early here!

 

Next on the list: a river safari. Hippo galore and, best of all, elephants!

 

As you can see from the images below, the day was largely spent admiring these amazing animals...

 

The following is not a great image by any stretch of the imagination, but it makes me laugh every time I see it so thought I would add it for a bit of general amusement.

 

We also saw a Goliath Heron - the world's largest heron!

Not being a big birdie, I can't remember the name of this juvenile eagle, sorry... The first person to tell me what it is wins a fridge magnet.

 

Back on land, we saw the usual throngs of impala and warthog as well as these lovely waterbuck...

 

Some more ever-present impala (now you can see why they are nicknamed one-one-ones)

 

And finally, as though the sunset from the night before hadn't been spectacular enough... 

I loved our two days in Liwonde. Despite there not being any big cats such as lion and leopard, the amazing abundance of other wildlife more than made up for it. I couldn't get over the sheer number of elephants and the stark barren landscape surrounding all these animals. We were told numerous times that things look very different after the rainy season. It will be interesting to go back again in April next year... 

Liwonde National Park - Day One

As mentioned in my last post, next on our Malawi itinerary: two days in Liwonde National Park, Malawi’s most popular game reserve. Liwonde is known in particular for its great elephant and hippo population. Crocodiles also abound, as do the ever-present impala and warthog.

Much to our delight, we were upgraded to Mvuu Lodge for one night. Talk about luxury in the bush!

 

Our balcony overlooked a swampy little outlet of the Shire river, which borders the park. I could spot two crocs right across from me and in a fleeting moment of panic wondered how high they could jump. They were completely motionless and looked half asleep to me, almost tame and affable in fact. I found out later that this was to change upon night fall…

The following images were taken on an evening game drive shortly after our arrival at Mvuu. 

My first impression was how different the landscape was from Hluhluwe-iMfolozi in South Africa. Much more barren (bearing in mind we’re right at the end of Malawi’s dry season) – some of the land we travelled across was reminiscent of a desert, very dry and almost ghostly in appearance.

 

Everywhere we looked, we were surrounded by impala, warthog, baboons and waterbuck.

We were also lucky enough to see some kudu.

As you can see, these animals all live in relative harmony. There are no real predators to speak of, the last pride of lions having been spotted a number of years ago (they are suspected to have emigrated to Mozambique).

This was the first time I had seen a hippo on land - though it quickly went looking for water...

As per our order, we witnessed a beautiful African sunset halfway through our drive – just magical.

We continued our drive in the dark with a spotlight and were lucky enough to see two hyena – a rare sight in Liwonde! Unfortunately the one picture I managed to snap is rather blurred and not suitable for publication (!), so you’ll just have to take my word for it!

I did, however, manage to capture a genet. These are nocturnal cat-like animals, much like civets, of which we also spotted a few. Hard to photograph!

After a fantastic meal at the lodge, we returned to our “camp”. As I lay in bed trying to cool down and get some sleep (alarm set for 4:45am for an early-morning bush walk!), the animal noises surrounding us were just incredible. The hyena were howling, the baboons screeching, the crocs snapping their jaws, the hippo grunting… and every now and then palm leaves would crash into the water. Accompanying all this were some undeniable human noises from the neighbouring tent! Needless to say I didn’t sleep much…

Time to sign off. Stay tuned for day two – lots of elephants coming up!

Claire

Welcome to Malawi!

Malawi is known as the “warm heart of Africa”. This needs to be rephrased in my humble opinion. It’s not just warm here, it’s stinking hot.

 

We arrived here a few days ago, arriving in Lilongwe to a stiflingly hot and humid scene. The place was much as I remembered from my brief visit five years ago. Bustling with people and traffic, street vendors on every corner and general chaos. Markedly different from South Africa and noticeably poorer.

 

We decided to spend our first night in Lilongwe, having had several people recommend we do not drive at night (potholes are notoriously hard to spot in the dark and, as we have since found out, road signs are sporadic at the best of times, let alone when your vision is impaired by the dark!). So we booked ourselves into a place right in the centre of Lilongwe’s Old Town and within minutes headed to the bar to have our first “green”. Believe it or not, Carlsberg has a brewery in Blantyre and it is by far the most popular beer in Malawi. It went down a treat of course, despite the fact that within minutes we’d experienced a power cut and a fierce onslaught of mozzies. Good to know our horrendously expensive anti-malaria tablets might come in handy!

 

The next day saw us head to Cape Maclear. Formerly a backpackers’ paradise, it now sports a range of different accommodations, a couple of which we were keen to check out. Our trusted guide book, however, failed to mention quite how atrocious the pothole-riddled dirt track was that we had to use for the last 18km leading to Cape Maclear. This stretch took over an hour, with Michelle cursing almost the entire way. A Toyota Yaris obviously not being the most suitable vehicle for this kind of rally driving!

 

We got to our accommodation in Cape Maclear in time for a couple of greens before sunset. This part of Lake Malawi is truly beautiful, with lone fishermen regularly crossing the lake in their dug-out canoes. A particularly scenic sight during the latter part of the day…

 

 

Here’s Michelle hard at work…

 

… while I adopt the lazier approach.

The following day we headed further down the lakeshore, calling into various accommodations as we made our way south. We met some very interesting characters along our route, with the accommodations ranging from up-market lodges to holiday camps reminiscent of the sixties to rudimentary backpackers run by semi-intoxicated hippies. All in a day’s work!

 

Next on the agenda: Liwonde National Park. Stay tuned for some amazing wildlife, incredible scenery and more clickety click adventures from wonderful Malawi.

 

But for now… Khalani Bwino!