Malawi 2016: Day 25 - 7 June 2016 Zambezi Waterfront to Ngepi Camp, Divundu

Day's trip schedule

Livingstone -> Sesheke -> Katimo Mulilo -> Kongola -> Divundu -> Ngepi Camp

Distance & time taken

52 km
7 hrs

Accommodation

Ngepi Camp, Divundu (www.ngepicamp.net)
+/- 20 kms from Divundu on the C48 (7kms on a dirt road once you have turned left off the C48)

Trip Notes

While the breakfast was cooking this morning, I googled how to reset the filter light. Managed to get info from the 4x4 Community website indicating the process to follow. I followed the instructions & it worked. We ate, washed up & packed leaving Livingstone before 09h00 - anticipated a relatively easy day's travel. WOW, was I mistaken.

Eish, if only this was dirt!!!!!

The Garmin had suggested going through Botswana & then across the border at Katimo Mulilo. We decided against this as we didn't want to have to deal with the ferry issues & 2 border posts. All went well up to the turn-off to Kazangula border post & then the tar road all but disappeared into a number of potholes of various sizes. At one stage, we came upon a pothole with its own flagpole. Someone had used there initiative here as the hole was pretty deep .

Charcoal sellers on the potholed road

The next 60kms was a slow, intensive struggle to keep the vehicle in one piece with all 4 tyres in tact. We spent most of the time driving on the shoulder of the road as the dirt was probably the safest place to be. There is no way you can drive this at night without doing some serious damage to the vehicle - even the trucks that travelled along this stretch were battling. The locals have made use of the state of the road to drive their businesses - situating them where the road is at its worst. I now understand why T4A suggested the leg through Botswana & then back across to Katimo. After much struggling & cursing, we came out the other side at Sesheke border post.

A pothole on the for depth Livingstone Sesheke with a branch planted to indicate danger for depth

The Sesheke / Katimo border post buildings look relatively new but the processing of travellers is still stuck in the dark ages - very little signage of process to follow & a scrum of people around the passport cubicles. Most of the travellers never had passports but rather bits of paper that gets stamped to allow them through. We entered the Zambian post & decided to first cancel the TIP before we got in the queue to get stamped out. The TIP process was quick once the guy had moved from the incoming to outgoing side. We then went across to queue for stamping but fortunately, they had a counter to deal with passports only - we only found this out when the clerk indicated for us to come forward & chased away the folk needing papers to be stamped. All in, we were through the Zambian side in about 15 minutes.

Typical village between Livingstone & Sesheke

The Namibian side proved to be more confusing. Fortunately, they had a queuing process but the queue stretched out of the building for passport control. Again we decided to sort the vehicle out first & deal with the passport stamping later only to find out once we had got everything that we needed the passport stamped first. The clerk managing TIP's informed us that we first needed to be stamped in & then he could process the TIP. He asked us to join the queue in the building rather than go outside but this was much to the ire of the guard controlling affairs. The queue moved reasonably quickly so we were processed in next to no time & then out through the gate into Namibia. The entire border crossing took just over an hour but wasn't as bad as it looked. I guess that if we had had to have queued like those with the papers, we would probably still be there. First stop, was to get diesel which I managed to get at the Shell garage - 50ppm nogal.

View of the Kavango river from Ngepi campsite #14

I had imagined a more scenic drive along the Caprivi strip but this was a very boring 300kms. Fortunately, it didn't take too long to cover the distance & by mid afternoon, we were in Divundu looking for Ngepi Camp. We arrived at Ngepi around 16h00 & proceeded to reception to get a site. Once we mentioned that we were intending to stay for 3 nights, we got a pretty good site (#14) on the farther end of the campsite that overlooked the river with a braai area right next to the river.

Ngepi Camp is spread along a few hundred metres of river frontage with a combination of campsites, bush huts & treehouses lining the shoreline. There are a few campsites that are not on the riverbank but these are filled last - no-one was staying on any of them during our stay. They have funky reception area with a pub & restaurant with wifi in the pub area. The ablution facilities are quirky along the entire length of the campsite & all have a roof of stars.

We braaied more of the fillet for dinner & were looking forward to a nice hot shower - it was recommended we shower in the evenings as the geysers are solar powered so there is no guarantee for hot water in the morning. Unfortunately, there was to be no showering this night as a pipe had burst on campsite #22 & all of us between 14 & 22 were impacted for the night. Hopefully it would be remedied early in the morning.