South Africa
Southern Africa
UK
Campsites (Africa)
The campsite at Kasungu (S13 05.238 E33 08.276) is is a beautiful location overlooking a dam - and we had the place to ourselves!. It's a pity that the ablutions, kitchen and lounge areas are so run down but the nearby Lodge has recently been refurbished so perhaps they'll do the camping area soon. This was the beautiful view of the sunrise from our site. Our campsite overlooking the dam. A ranger brought us wood every day. This hammock was a good buy - we both made good use of it on this trip. Pat and Colin had visited this Park about 30 years ago and said that it was full of game however we'd read that there had been problems with poaching and that certainly appeared to be true. Beside the dam there were usually a few puku (similar to impala), a group of hippo and several birds including a pair of fish eagles. We went for a drive around the park and found that the tracks were very overgrown and didn't see any animals. These are tetse fly traps. Apparently they are attracted to blue and black and there is a bottle hanging from a pole with animal urine. The material is impregnated with poison so the flies will die if they land on it. Our map showed that there was an old iron kiln (S12 55.453 E33 02.161) a couple of hundred metres from the track but we couldn't see a trail at all but by following our GPS device managed to locate the furnace. Occasionally we saw oxen and donkeys pulling carts but they don't seem to be used that much in Malawi - bicycles are more popular. These oxen are pulling bales of tobacco. We saw lots of tobacco being grown and harvested as many subsistence farmers have been persuaded to grow it as a cash crop. However this year there's a big problem because the price of tobacco has dropped Guys carrying tobacco leaves - it's not just the women here who carry stuff on their heads. Tobacco leaves being dried. They are then put into bales, collected by lorries and taken to the tobacco auction rooms which are in several of the main towns in Malawi. Dedza Pottery & Mphunzi Mountain. Southern Lakeside - Monkey Bay, Cape Maclear & Senga Bay. Zomba Plateau & Mulanje Massif. Nyika National Park & Vzawa Marsh Wildlife Reserve. Northern Lakeside - Chintheche & Mkondowe. Diary (Word document). Bales of tobacco waiting to be collected and taken to the huge tobacco auction warehouses.
Malawi 2011 - Kasungu National Park
