Monday, 4 August 2014

Day 15 – En route to Shiwa Ngandu

I have decided to combine two days as one day was just traveling and there was not much to report.

A few things I forgot to mention when writing yesterdays blog while staying at Kasanka, so here goes...I never emphasized why the Sitatonga are such unique animals. They live for a great deal of their lives in water, it is their way of protecting themselves from predators and because of this adaptation they have web hooves so that they can move efficiently in water. In fact they are known as the underwater buck. Our young scout kept telling us that you can see the Sitatonga 0405. None of us could work out what the hell he was talking about till we realized he meant from 4am -5am in the morning. He was obviously trained in army language. Rouvierre was saying that she thought he meant that you could see them at 4 minutes past 5 in the morning and she thought wow this guy I is obviously very accurate with his daily sightings. She got the BB prize of the day!

We set off fairly early as the road out of the reserve is long and quite narrow and even though we were very careful about the missing the trees on the side, we did hit an overhanging branch and bent the protecting bars that run at the top of the roof. Thank goodness they were there or we could have done some serious damage to the body of the truck.

Again we made the mistake of thinking we only had about 220 Km to go. As it turned out it was 380  Km of great North road which is not the most pleasant experience. On the way up we must have passed at least 7 of the most terrible accidents mostly involving the trucks. Most of them are huge petrol tankers and are traveling at about 100/120 Kms and hour which it is very fast for these narrow roads. We are so used to double highways in SA so the trucks don't seem quite so daunting. They certainly have improved the road since we were here last, the verges have been fixed and widened but it is still pretty harrowing to try and get past them.

We were trying to get to Shiwa Ngandu, which means the lake of the crocodile, before it got dark and wanted to see the old Manor House as we have twice before been at Shiwa Ngandu but never managed to actually get in and see the inside of the old homestead. It was built in the 1930s and is a real landmark in Zambia in fact there is a book that has been written on it which tells the story of the farm and the family that built it called "Africa House." Ernest is always so fascinated by these stories and so this time he was determined to learn more about it and the family. Last time we were here it was closed to the public but we had heard that it was re-opened for viewing as the grandson had returned and was allowing visitors, in fact we heard the house was now being run as a B&B.

Just to tell you something about the farm. It was bought in the early 1900s by a the Cor-Brown family and in 1914 Stewart Cor-Brown started building the house with money that he had borrowed from his Aunt Ethel and he finished it in 1934. The property was 12,000 hectares in size and was farmed as a cattle and game farm by Steward and his wife, a girl who was 27 years younger than him. They had two daughters who both were married. The one daughter had 4 children one of whom is Charles, the present owner who is now living on the farm and running the place as a beef and game farm.

When we arrived there was the usual notice on the gate to say view by appointment only. This time Ernest was so determined to see the house that he stopped at the farm managers office and managed to make an appointment to have a tour of the house the next day at 9am. This rather threw our plans into disarray as we were supposed to be leaving to go to Lake Tanganyika the next day. Oh well that is the beauty of being vagabonds and we decided to just stay another night.

We drove on to the hot springs which are 20 km further and got settled into the campsite. It is always such a surprise for anybody arriving for the first time at the hot springs, they are absolutely beautiful and you feel like you are sinking into a warm bath.
As soon as we had set up camp, fed the men which is always a priority, we went to have a dip in  the hot springs. I love seeing the faces of the guys when they first sink into the warm water, firstly the surprise and then a sigh of "oh my gosh, I can live with this" type look.
We had that same reaction when we visited here for the 1st time many years ago. In fact Paul and Marguerite were with us before and now again we just soaked in the water for hours.

We were very fortunate that the campsite was nearly empty so we got the prize position right near the river which is about 20 meters wide and very fast flowing. It reminds me of the rivers in the midlands, the big difference being this one is full of crocs which can eat you!!  (as our friend Lovemore Sibanda explained it to us)

 Another lovely evening under the stars with the sound of the river, lots of stories on what we look like from the back when we are passing one of those huge trucks and how nervous I get, even the soles of my feet start to sweat never mind my hands.

Part two of our visit to Shiwa Ngandu will come in a few days.


Until then!

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