Day 17: Community Campsite North Luangwa to Kapishya Hot Springs.

We had an early start after confirming our route on the maps.

First up was the river crossing on a pontoon about 2.5 km from camp. Our first bit of slightly unpleasant interaction happened here. The official was adamant that we had to pay $205 for us to transit the park. We soon realised that no amount of talking was going to budge him.

The pontoon was a risky affair. One vehicle at a time on a home-made contraption across the river with crocs and hippos. With some difficulty we got to the other side, the problem being the pontoon was catching on one of the supports in the river. The car had to be offloaded, the offending support wacked with a heavy tool and then we could get under way. On to the other side, along a home-built stick section, onto the thick sand and up the other side. We made it.

The drive through the North Luangwa National Park was pleasant enough, but the road was very poor at times. In their wisdom, the Park Authorities had laid tons and tons of stone on the perfectly good track. The stones were cricket ball size and made very slow going. The noise produced also blotted out all the natural sounds. In time the stones disappeared and we started the climb out of the Luangwa Valley situated at about 500m altitude up the escarpment which is about 1700m altitude. We struggled a bit with the road as they are changed after each rain season making the GPS confused at times.

We just kept going along the track interspersed with the odd river crossing until we came to the exit gate. Initially the road was good, but soon got worse when we had to climb more. Huge wash-aways made the going very slow and needed to be negotiated carefully to avoid vehicle damage.

As usual time goes faster then the kilometres. We eventually made it through to Kapishya Hot Springs at about 16h30 in the afternoon.

The pontoon approach, quite scary as the Landcruiser swayed nicely on the pont.

More pont

The sand was thick.