Day 74 to 78 (29 September to 3rd October 2015 )

We drove from Livingstone and our destination was Lusaka the capital of Zambia. The trip was too far for one day so we decided to do this leg in 2 days and stayed over at a campsite about half way called Moorings. Moorings is a working farm with mainly pigs but also grain and cattle and then has this makeshift campsite that is very basic but safe. Lusaka is a typical large African city with the usual major traffic problems. We camped at Eureka Camping Park situated just 12 km from the city centre which is truly a park with Zebra and giraffe just a few metres from the main road. We met Wayne Wiid for drinks which is a friend originally from Nelspruit working in Lusaka for the past two years. The next evening we went for a fabulous dinner with Wayne and his wife An-Marie. Its truly great to have someone living in a city and knowing the best places to have a meal.

We left Lusaka destination South Luangwa Game Reserve. The road out of Lusaka can only be described as ones worst nightmare. With regular power outages throughout the day it can take up to 35 minutes to drive just a few blocks which is the distance between one and the next traffic circle. Traffic around the circles result in utter chaos and traffic officials can do little to improve the situation.Finally after3 hours we could swing Bhejane’s nose east towards Chipata. The road was under construction and was very bad with long detours and it took 8 hours to do 250 km. We camped at Bridgecamp which was still 350 km from Chipata our destination before driving to South Luangwa Game Reserve. The next day we arrived at Chipata and booked into a Campsite called Mama Rulas just before the SA/Samoa rugby game. Max plugged in the Electrical connection into the lodge supply and when he  stood barefoot on the step entering the  campervan as the camper is a no shoe zone, he received a terrible electrical shock which sent him flying away from the vehicle for a good few metres. Wilma got the fright of her life but got Max up and dusted like they do during Rugby matches put his shoes back on, reported the problem to management and discovered that the barman also experiences the same when handling the fridges.

While watching the SA rugby match at Mama Rulas we started chatting with people around us and introduced ourselves to a “young” lady aged 74, Diana from London. Diana had a tiny yellow 1300cc vehicle shipped to Cape Town and is driving solo back through Africa to London with no real plan but will work it out as she goes along. We have met up with many travellers doing what we do but she is definitely the most inspiring so far.