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Published: June 17th 2017
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01 Main Road
This the main 'road' between Victoria Falls and Matusadona National Park. Geo: -16.8703, 28.5864
This morning Paul woke me up at 4:30. We had planned to leave at 5am, but by the time everyone was ready, we ended up leaving at 6am. We had a big day of driving ahead of us, not because of the distance, but the road conditions.
Our destination for the next few nights was Matusadona National Park. Along the way, we had to stop at a few police road blocks. They just wanted to check our licences, no dramas or bribes necessary.
Along the way we drove through small villages of thatched huts, some huts with solar panels, saw lots of baobab trees, men riding on bicycles, children at school sitting under large trees, dry river beds, women carrying thatch hay on their heads, baboons, donkeys, goats, cows, lots of people happily waved at us and as soon as they saw us coming they would step off the roads - people and livestock! We only saw a few vehicles today, as we were on a very minor, un-tarred road.
As we rounded a corner there were two donkeys tied together in the middle of the road- they panicked when they saw us. This caused the rope to break,
02 Boabab
A young boabab tree. in the end there was one donkey on each side of the road. We nearly hit a donkey - we had a few centimetres to spare- it could have been holiday over. But luckily Paul quickly reacted and slammed on the brakes.
We entered the national park at 1:30pm. I was glad to have arrived and was looking forward to setting up camp and relaxing. My legs were ready for a stretch and had enough of being in the car for one day. We checked in and were given directions to the camp site on the shore of Lake Kariba. That is when I found out that it is another 2 and a half hour drive to camp! It was only 67km, but the road was very rough and bumpy– full of rocks and had to be driven in 4x4 mode. It seemed to take us so long to drive to the camp. The scenery along the way was very beautiful. The wildlife sightings was very disappointing – 2 skittish elephants, 2 kudus, 3 impalas and a white tailed mongoose.
We finally arrived at the camp site at 5:30pm, just in time to see the sunset, which was beautiful. There was
03 Boabab
Another boabab tree along the track. no-one else here, so we had the campsite to ourselves. We could see and hear hippos in the lake. The campsite is unfenced and there was a lot of elephant poo around. There were also some fish eagles in the area. We set up camp and had an easy, quick dinner.
It was an early night for us and we were all pretty tired from the long day of driving. It was a windy night, which was nice as there was a cool breeze going through the tent which helped us sleep and not overheat.In the end I may not have needed that really warm blanket I purchased in Victoria Falls....
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