Greetings from Malawi! We are all alive and intact (bearly) after two long and gruelling days on the bike... although the experience made it all worthwhile. Dave suggested that I entitle this blog: “The road never travelled” because it truely was a far out experience! Our first long day was relatively straight forward, we left Vilonculos a tad later than our anticipated 6am plan but still managed to put 300km under our belts before lunch. The roads north of Vilonculos were relatively good with only the occasional stretch of potholes and there were few other vehicles on the road. At one stage we travelled 80km without seeing another car heading in either direction. The landscasped transformed from coconut trees spanning as far as the eye could see, to a hilly bushveld and eventually becoming mountainous as we approached the Gorongosa National Park. Our plan had been to try and ride through the Gorongosa, stopping inside to camp for the night but we were turned away at the gate an account of our two wheeled nature. This turned out to be alright as we were shown to a brilliant campsite set within the forests just outside the Park’s fenceless borders. The camp formed part of an “Envirotrade” project which helps local people to create income through sustainable practices of farming, building and tourism. It was a very well run camp and tempting to stay a few extra nights but we were on a mission to get to Malawi and decided to push on at first light the next day.
The ride from Gorongosa to Blantyre was epic to say the least. We circumnavigated the western border of the park along a fairly good dirt road but not good enough to prevent a few topples and a few more close calls! After 3 hours and 80km behind us we realised that it was going to be tough to get through 550 odd k’s on these roads, let alone crossing the Zambezi and border into Malawi en route. We opted to take the slighty longer option up to the Zambezi in an effort to stay on more tar and avoid further time consuming spills. This worked for us albeit with a hellish last 60km stretch on lose washboard gravel to the Dona Anna railway bridge. Crossing the railway bridge on motorcycles was a unique adventure motorcycling experience that I will not forget in a hurry. We were ushered in the direction of the pedestrian gangway by all the townspeople, the walkway was barely wider than the laden motocycles and Paul proceeded first with understandable concern. We made our way across the colossal steel structure 3.4km to the other side, dodging the oncoming people, bikes, goats and chickens in the process arriving safely on the northern bank of the Zambezi and starting a new chapter of Southern Africa.
From the river it was bad dirt roads all the way to the excuse for a border crossing into Marka in the extreme south of Malawi. The border on both Mozambique and Malawi sides consisted of little more than immigration/customs/health office and a rusty boom in the middle of nowhere. We got across in just under an hour, even though the officials seemed a little peeved to have their game of cards interrupted, and started the last 100km stretch of dirt in fading light. We gunned our way through the endless string of villages, hoping to hit tar before dark. This was easier said than done and our frustration grew when short stretches of tar teased us all the way. The smooth blacktop eventually arrived and stayed, just as the gradient increased exponentially and twists and turns through the mountains started. Towards the end we were counting done the kilometre one by one until we entered the bright lights of Blantyre and dismounted the bikes in our broken states and hit our pillows with a rhythmical bang.
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