A quick zip through Zambia.

Border crossings seem to leave us shattered! The road from Chirundu to Lusaka did not start off well and we were a bit concerned about the conditions and the other drivers. Slowly, slowly does it. 

We holed up for two days at Eureka campsite on the outskirts of Lusaka with giraffe and Zebra grazing nightly right next to us, and Necia was able to run, at last! 

Traffic in Lusaka is crazy but we tackled it slowly and left on 19 August on the Great East road. Km's of road works made travel really slow but we loved the trees and Zambian countryside. A bit perturbed by the pall of smoke that hangs everywhere from the charcoal makers.

We never did find out why they have to fill the bag so much?!

We stopped off at The Bridge River Camp on the Luangwa River.

One South African Subaru, two Swiss overland motorbikes and 7 bicycles (Germans) cycling from Arusha to Livingstone. Hard core company for the night!

Hunting for 'Mosis' at the local shebeens - dying of thirst and way over the top prices at the Bridge.

Rod befriended these two little guys and bought supper off them. They were so chuffed!

Attempt to keep moisture drinking miggies/Mopane flies out of eyes. 

That is a Mosi in my hand, for those of you that don't know! 

After a one night stop at Mama-Rulers in Chipata to restock, we headed for the Wildlife Camp just outside South Luangwa National Park. We were so chuffed to bump into John Munroe at Mama - Rulers who we had met at the Ranch in Polokwane. It was also with great sadness that we heard of the passing of a dear family friend, Ted Mallon, in Harare. We had been very fortunate to have at least had one visit with him in Harare.

Wildlife Camp next to the Luangwa River.

We camped overlooking the Luangwa River and took two drives into the actual Park. We loved staying here . The facilities were great and all so peaceful.

One of Rod's highlights of this stay was four individual sightings of leopard in one day!!

A very full hyaena - she did not even move off the road!

 Necia's "high" of this stay was watching an elephant from the roof top tent at about 4am, casually working his way through some trees meters from us, eating his fill. I was so sure he was going to stand on one of the overlander ground tents! 

We actually ran out of food and decided we had to stop buying from the road markets and start moving towards Malawi. Zambians are lovely friendly people and we would have liked to explore a bit more, but the driving distances are vast from one area to another. Besides which, we decided that we had actually had enough of "being on safari" and Malawi was calling!