Lord and Lady Muck

---

Geo: -10.5956, 33.8587

Not only did we have a ship stop especially for us (see A very African Day) but we also have our own game park and a valet!
We spent a night in Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve which is a transfrontier park, a very fashionable concept, where the borders between countries have been removed to allow the animals to migrate.
This reserve borders Malawi and Zambia although we stayed firmly on the Malawian side. We were the only people in the reserve, 960 square kilometres just for us. Unfortunately most of the animals decided to holiday in Zambia so apart from a lot of hippos (who find migration and holidays in general stressful) we did not see much else although it was great just sitting out at night listening to the frogs and the odd strange, and possibly frightening noises in the night from our little chalet overlooking the lake.

We have now moved onto a second park called the Nyika National Park which is on a plateau at over 7000ft above sea level which means it is much colder, i.e. just right for us Brits although anything energetic and you notice the lack of oxygen. The scenery on the plateau is most un African, it looks like the North Yorkshire moors but with zebra rather than sheep.

We arrived at lunchtime and were shown to our chalet which is very homely, it is a 1960's bungalow in a wood, it has a sitting room, two bedrooms, a kitchen with an old fashioned solid fuel range and a proper bath (yippee) and a lovely man called Dominic who looks after us. There was a fire lit for our arrival, plenty of hot water from a wood fired boiler and he even presented Gill with a bouquet of flowers on her arrival. Even better he cooks all the food, because the place is so remote you bring in the food with you and he prepares it, he is a very good cook. He even does our washing so a proper Jeeves just for us.

Just down the road is a main building with a bar and Internet access which we were not expecting to have, I am not sure we will walk back and forth to much at night as the area is supposed to have a very high concentration of leopards which is why we were keen to come.
We are off on a walk in a moment and then a game drive tonight so I hope by the next entry we will have pictures of leopards in the dark a long way off.

---

Photos

The view from our chalet in Vwaza park
A lovely spot, just us and about 200 hippos

Zebra in the North Yorkshire Moors
The countryside on the plateau is just like the North York moors, it is even as cold at comfortable 15c.

Our House
Our 1960's bungalow in the woods complete with man servant