Majete magic

Day 57 & 58  13^th and 14^th November

Despite the weather in Harare in the morning, we managed to squeeze out low level from Charles Prince Airport and dodge the thunderstorms in Mozambique and arrived in Malawi in the pouring rain. Just as well since the situation in Zimbabwe the next day may have delayed us considerably! After clearing Customs and Immigration at Chileka Airport (Blantyre), we flew into a little airstrip at Majete National Park, in southern Malawi, where African Parks have been working at renovating and re-stocking since 2003, with remarkable success.  Read more at https://www.african-parks.org/the-parks/majete.

We stayed at another Robin Pope lodge, Mukulumadzi, on the banks of the Shire River, which starts in Lake Malawi and eventually joins the great Zambezi.  To get to the lodge one has to cross a swing bridge - and of course go back and forth every time one goes for a game drive - I don't like wobbles and Jeremy doesn't like heights.....!

A family of warthogs that live under the dining platform greeted us on arrival, and we found two elephants having a soak in the river outside our chalet, who later wandered past us.

The game viewing in the park was not exactly abundant since the rains had begun, but there were lots of Impala with new babies, fluffy Waterbuck, and some beautiful Nyala, similar to Kudu but smaller, which we had not seen before.  We loved their 'yellow socks' and the fur ridge on the backs of the males, which stands up when they are being aggressive.

The birds were lovely too, and we had one African Emerald Cuckoo that sat in the tree above our chalet each afternoon.  There were plenty of Bohm’s, Swallow-tail and Little Bee-eaters swooping around, a couple of nice Nightjars on a night drive (Fiery-necked and Square-tailed I think), a gorgeous Racket-tailed Roller, and I finally managed to get a photo of a Purple-crested Turaco, having tried at various camps and gardens in Zim and failed.

The park itself is a real gem – lovely trees and stunning views of the river and the mountains in the background.   In amongst the green were startlingly white tree trunks, locally called ghost trees but a form of African Chestnut.

On our first night, we had a big rain storm, which cooled and cleared the air, but also brought out the bugs in force the following night – beetles and spiders galore!  Whilst enjoying a drink before dinner, we were visited by a couple of very cute bushbabies, who dropped in for a quick peanut butter treat – the mum had been an orphan and hand-reared, and had taught her offspring to like it too.

On our final evening we did a sundowner cruise on the river.  Gorgeous sunset as usual!!