Inglis in Africa: ZIM-ZAM and Great White Hunters

The Lion's House, Lusaka- Zambia. Spot the Easter Egg!

Africa is a continent of extremes and so too has our life become. We have been camping for about 7 weeks but today find ourselves in opulent luxury staying in a bizarre Dali-type 1970’s mansion with multiple stories and staircases and adorned on every wall with animal head trophies of buffalo, kudu, eland, zebra, warthogs and elephant tusks. Added to this, in the main foyer of the house is a tropical forest with numerous fish ponds, a stuffed crocodile and at the front door, and in various corridors, stuffed lion and leopard. The piece-de-resistance, however, is Winston….a real live lion who lives in a cage adjoining the house with his cage extending into and under the house so that you can watch him while you sip your G&T at one of the many bars and listen to his gut-wrenching roar which echoes through the mansion. It is all quite surreal but heaps of fun and the girls think that this is African heaven with Margot asking if we can stay here forever. This amazing reprieve from the rigors of camping and life on the road is all thanks to Carl Irwin, who is a school mate who now runs Zambeef recently floated on the London stock market and a shining example of commitment and hard work. Carl now flits between Australia where he lives and Zambia where he does his business. We have been hosted by Ginny and Carl’s Dad Oliver who definitely deserves the title of “The last of the great white hunters” having hunted everything possible and with trophies to prove it. He is also an aviator in the grand old tradition having flown multiple times around the globe in the days before GPS made it all so easy and who has held multiple speed and distance records. Thanks so much Carl and family……this has been wonderful.

Having read a bit about how Zimbabwe was recovering we were keen to see a bit more and travelled from Vic falls to Hwange national park, the biggest in Zimbabwe. Admittedly we didn’t hit it at the best time of year with game well spread thanks to abundant water supply, but we saw a reasonable amount. The park in general is looking a bit tired and the camps dilapidated with bar, shop and restaurant closed and empty. Prices are outrageous given the sorry state of the camps and we negotiated a 2 bed chalet which was cheaper than camping. They are in a catch-22, I presume, where facilities are shoddy but they are charging extortionate rates to try and survive (there was only one other group at Robins camp) and hopefully to improve things. Locals told me that it gets very busy in the dry season so maybe things are improving but it definitely looked a bit bleak. From there we headed east to Milibizi and the eastern tip of Lake Kariba.

This was a great spot, camping next to the Lake where the Zambezi enters. We had heard that the drive around to Kariba was a rough 2 day challenge so that the thought of 22 hours relaxing on board the ferry with meals included and sipping G&T watching the sunset, made the decision easy. The ferry takes 15 vehicles but only 3 like ours with gear on roof racks and offered a fabulous personal service, with short talks on the Lake, excellent food and mattresses and blankets. Passengers were all tourists from Belgium, Holland, Germany, RSA, Zim and UK. We disembarked at Kariba town and enjoyed a walk down to the dam wall and the Zambian border. None of the sluice gates were open and a croc patrolled menacingly below. The wall is an engineering marvel built by an Italian company in the 50’s and provides hydroelectric power to Zim and Zam, but one can’t help wandering at man’s interference with nature and imagining what this valley might have been like without a wall and a dam.

In contrast our next stop was Mana Pools national park, a Unesco World Heritage Site, and a unique wilderness experience on the banks of the Zambezi River. We arrived just before Easter so the camp was quiet and set up our tents near the river. We were immediately entertained by very vocal hippo and a number of sun tanning crocs on the sandbank nearby. A massive bull elephant did his rounds of the campsite skirting our tents and systematically breaking massive branches and munching the succulent top leaves. He provided a welcome relief from school for the girls and in the middle of the night, in the silver moonlight, I watched him from the flimsy protection of my nylon tent as he grazed 20metres away. Mana Pools is unique in the wilderness freedom it affords one. You may walk unguided in the Park and of course there are no fences so game moves freely. We saw no cats but plenty of Buffalo, Kudu, Zebra, Elephant, Hippo and even a fabulous encounter with a pack of Wild (Painted) dogs. A Hyena skulked around our camp at night and howled incessantly so that sorties out for a pee were brief and fast! I hauled out my fly rod and tried my luck and was rewarded with a couple of Tiger fish which fought like marlin and amazingly my fragile nylon leader survived their razor teeth. We grilled them on the braai and the meat was delicious but had to contend with mouthfuls of fine bones. As the crowds rolled in for Easter we set off for the Zambian border and after a lengthy process, multiple ‘taxes’ including toll fee, carbon tax and council tax as well as Ilda’s visa (thankfully I am exempt on SA passport and children don’t pay) we arrived in Zambia.

We immediately felt like we were really in Africa proper with massive potholes, multiple roadblocks and roadside markets selling delicious fresh veggies and fruit as well as delicious fresh Bream from the Kafue River, which we feasted on. And so we laze in this colonial splendour and plan our next leg through Zambia and (hopefully) across Lake Tanganyika and on to Rwanda.