Zambia World Wide

We did finally arrive in Cape Town, it was about Easter as they were getting ready for the Carnival and that really is worth seeing, I won’t attempt to describe the atmosphere and scenery as to do so would be impossible. The weather in Cape Town was not kind as the mist just would not go away. We waited four days as Jan wanted to take the cable car up Table Mountain and there was finally a window in the weather so she could go, I stayed with the lads and she finally made it, I hope it was worth the wait, we can now move on , but where to. We had thought about taking the garden route from Cape Town through to Durban and could see no reason to change our plans, so here we go. We had at some time bought the lads digital watches which played a tune, “The Yellow Rose of Texas” well trust me by the time the batteries went flat we had enough, they really played them to the limit and I mean the limit. We carried on driving round the coast. I think the lads were bored it was a long trip, perhaps too much for them to handle. We had decided to too take the garden route which although a long way would be nice. Our route would take us through Port Elizabeth, it was a lovely drive and really worth seeing. We carried on through East London towards Durban. Having arrived in Durban we were not disappointed what a lovely place. We spent some time on the beach and swimming in the sea, the conditions were ideal and we made the most of it. We did find it really hard to come to terms with the racial issues as we had never come across them before but we coped and had a great time. It was perhaps the best time the lads had on the whole trip as it really was sun, sea and sand. We stayed in Durban for some days, then it was time to move on much to the boys dismay but it had to be. We then drove up into the Drakensburg Park which was really nice but cold. We went pony trekking and played bowls, boring I know but nice. It was cold at night but the days were good, the temperature change was unbelievable. We spent some days there and it was time to travel back. Here we go again on our way home. We didn’t want to return by the route we had taken to get there so had to think how we would return. We decide to travel back through the Transkie. We drove through SA and into Zimbabwe and this time crossed the border into Zambia at Kariba just a slight change of route but nice. We did at the end of the day love the country we had taken as our own and were glad to be back, we carried on to Kitwe and were back home. It was a great trip and opened our eyes but we knew it was not for us or our children, so we have decided when we leave here we will return to the UK.

We have just signed a new contract and so have two years before leaving Zambia. Gary however will be starting boarding school in 12 months, which is why we had to know what we would do when we left. The next 12 months were a little hectic as there were a number of places we wanted to visit. One of which was Sumbu on lake Tanganyika. We went via Lusaka as there was a sailing regatta which we wanted to take part in. We then drove from there to Umpulungu where we launched the boat.

Unfortunately it was quite late when we got there but we thought we had time to get to Sumbu before dark. We had only travelled a few miles across the lake when a storm blew up. It got later and later and then it was dark. We carried on and kept a lookout for lights on the shore (nothing). After a time we knew that we had travelled to far and had missed it in the dark. We just kept going and looking, then we had some luck. On the shoreline we could just see in the distance a fire. We headed towards it, by this time we were tired and the lake was still very rough. We edged into land as we did not want to damage the boat. We were lucky, we had found a fishing village.