food – Clancy Abroad

Woodlands camp Francistown to Tantebane Game Ranch

Another cold morning, it got to 5C inside the camper. I was reluctant to start the diesel heater too early because its a bit noisy. I packed up and headed back to Francistown. I visited the Spar and one of the -a least three- shopping centres in Francistown. I got even more supplies, convinced, probably wrongly, that I will not be able to get anything in Zimbabwe. I then visited another Builders to get some contact cement and this aluminum angle I am seeking. When I walked in I was offered free popcorn, and interesting incentive to get customers to shop on a Sunday morning. I managed this time to get my Aluminum angle and proceeded to cut it in half with a hacksaw so I could fit it in the roof.

Then off to the Puma service station where I filled Clancy and four jerry cans, 146 litres, as fuel is cheap in Botswana, and expensive, or hard to get in Zimbabwe.

Then it was up the road towards Tantebane, and after that the Zimbabwe border. I got to Tantebane, and was directed to my campsite. A few campers already here (South Africa school holidays…), and it does seem they have crammed as many in as possible. However I am here for three nights, and I have got a good campsite well separated from other campers. No mains power so I set up the solar panels to keep me powered. I am now 45km from the Zimbabwe border.

Tropic of Capricorn wild camp to Woodlands camp Francistown

Cold morning, it got down to 4C. I used the diesel heater again. This morning it was time for some maintenance. I spent a couple of hours doing a long delayed oil change. About 9am a man rode past bareback on a donkey. Once I had done the oil change and filter replacement, I headed the 12km back to the A1 highway. A quick photo of the Tropic of Capricorn sign, and it was heading north to Francistown. I stopped at the Foodlovers supermarket at Palapye to see if they had any better apples, but decided they didn’t. Palapye is another Botswana town that has undergone huge growth, and looks nothing like it did when I first visited it 9 years ago.

The day was getting on. My late start because of the oil change in the morning meant I was running out of time to get to Woodlands north of Francistown before dark. I hit afternoon peak hour going through Francistown. A quick Police stop just north of Francistown, and I was at the turnoff to Woodlands. I got into Woodlands about 5 minutes before sunset. Woodlands was packed out with South Africans with lots of kids, which got me to find out that it was the start of the South African school holidays. Woodlands is a pretty nice campsite, lots of grass, and its probably my third stay there.

Back on the highway at the Tropic of Capricorn

Heading north amongst the trucks on the A1

Mokolodi Backpackers to the Tropic of Capricorn wild camp

I headed off from Mokolodi into Gaberone. It had been quite a few years, in fact 9 years, since I had last been in Gaberone. As in lots of Botswana, it has grown immensely. I stopped at the first large shopping centre and got some things, including some lighter shoes, I am sick of driving in boots. I then drove to the northern end of Gaberone to a Builders store to see if I could get some aluminum angle to replace some that I had lost in the damage to the storage box. However no luck, they didn’t have the right size. I also visited a Super Spar supermarket in an adjoining large shopping centre, for even more supplies.

Then I headed north, along the A1, about 160km, turning off at the marker for the Tropic of Capricorn. It was then 12km in to a track running along a powerline, and then a track running off that to another iOverlander suggested wild camp. There are not a lot of camping options on the A1 heading north.

Negotiating the traffic through Gaberone

A roadside stop for lunch next to the A1 highway

Camped in my wild camp 12km in from the A1 highway

Kameel South Africa to wild camp North of Kokotsha, Botswana

Two nights stay in Kameel. I walked up to the NW co-op store to get some more bits and pieces. I added outside lights and checked a few more things. Patrick provided his customary loaf of freshly baked bread.

I left Tuesday morning for the 205km drive to Bray the border crossing to Botswana. Bray is out of the way, but its small size and remoteness mean I have less hassles crossing the border. I drove first to Stella, then headed north-west. The road was pretty good at the start. About 100km in, it deteriorated down to a single sandy track, but still was not too difficult. I passed two trucks and six cars, so it wasn’t exactly busy.

I got to the border, to be slightly surprised there were two police there. Last crossing there was no-one but the immigration person. The police looked at the vehicle, but were mostly interested in whether I had any “drinks”. I didn’t have any drinks, but I have had on previous border crossings, so I must remember to be more organised next time. I eventually felt sorry for them and gave them 100Rand to buy “drinks”.

I met a woman at the border who worked at the medical centre and was just crossing the border into Botswana to get fuel. She did it sometimes as often as once a week.

I got to the Botswana side and got my road tax and passport stamped. I applied what I had learnt from a guide at a previous Botswana border crossing. When they ask how long you are going to be in Botswana tell them much longer than you intend to be. if something goes wrong and you need to stay in Botswana longer, it is very difficult and time consuming to get an extension.

I got a Mascom sim at the general store on the Botswana side. They used a special scanner to scan my passport to register my sim, but it failed after three attempts. So I headed off with no internet towards Werda. The road from the border to Werda is fairly corrugated. I stopped once, but when I got to Werda I kept going hoping to make a wild camp on a cutline about 50km north. I turned off at the cutline, which is a sort of boundary firebreak between districts. I drove about a kilometre along the cutline until I met another cutline heading north, and I went up that. I stopped to have a look at the surrounding scrub when I suddenly found that part of the camper had broken. The rear box had separated from the camper and was hanging on by only one side. I knew I would have to be doing some fibreglass repairs that night. I pulled of the cutline into the scrub and made camp.

I emptied the box, and it seemed like I had not lost any equipment. I suspect I had driven at least 50km with this break. I used two jacks to jack the box back in line, then proceeded to fibreglass it back together. It took me a couple of hours sanding and applying glass tape and epoxy in the dark. I hoped it would be enough to hold the box in place, so that I could fibreglass it more next day. I knew it wouldn’t hold any weight initially.

It was a quiet night after that. Just the sound of cattle wandering past, and occasional cars on the highway a km away.

The road from Stella to Bray in South Africa

I never noticed it in my side mirror it was too low

Camped at sunset getting to work on fixing things

Jacking up the box ready to fibreglass it back in place

Johannesburg to Kameel – North West

I arrived at Johannesburg on the 31st May 2024. I had -as usual- things to fix. However the big problem was my broken solar panel on the roof. About a week before I had left Australia, I put in an order to Takealot, the big online retailer in South Africa. One of those items was a replacement solar panel of the correct size to replace the one on the roof. Takealot was the only place I could see a solar panel of the same size. Unfortunately Takealot wasn’t going to deliver until later in the week.

So I installed an inverter I had brought from Australia. This was my second attempt at installing an inverter. My previous attempt brought only smoke. I went shopping gathering up food that would be difficult to get in Botswana and Zimbabwe (like Barley).

One day I drove out to a bike shop to get a couple of inner tubes for my bike. I got pulled over by the police for ten minutes or so. The cop was OK, but my previous experiences with police in Joberg make me wary.

It was warm the first couple of days in Joberg, but then it got cold. Several days there was ice outside in the morning. Some days it was only 14C with a biting wind. Eventually on Friday I got my delivery from Takealot, however missing the solar panel. On Saturday I finally got the solar panel, but it was not the size panel as per the description, and would not fit. So I decided it was time to give up on the solar panel and head off. I left Sunday morning at 7:30am. It was another icy morning, with me trying to get the ice of the windscreen, so I could see.

The 410km drive to Kaleem, was uneventful. I left on Sunday morning to minimise the number of Police roadblocks I might go through. I did drive through two, but they were both engaged with other vehicles.

Arriving at Kemeel is so relaxing. Its rural. Patrick is such a great host, and Kemeel is a friendly rural town.

Starting up Clancy after about 10 months of storage.

Parked in my usual spot. It gets sun in the morning.

Several icy morning with ice on the camper and storage boxes outside

The solar panel arrives, but is the wrong size

Ready to leave for Kameel Sunday morning.

Unyamwanga to Kisolanza to Mikumi

The long haul to Dar es Salaam

It was cold cold cold in the morning it was 12C! Unyamwanga is at 1300m. I even tried to start the diesel heater, but alas it would not start and I couldn’t bother to stuff around with it. I had a quiet night even though I was close to the village. I headed back to the main road, and then stated to climb. It was overcast, cold, I was wearing gloves while driving (no heater), and eventually I got to 2300m, where there were pine trees growing.

I had set a target of The Old Farmhouse at Kisolanza, which was 295km away. I had read, and been told, horror stories by other overlanders about how corrupt the Tanzanian Police were. The many stories of them faking your speed on a speed camera and trying to get a bribe out of you. All the village speeds are 50kmh, and there is no lee-way, the Police will fine you if you get to 51kmh. So every Village I am slowing down to 45kmh as soon as I see the sign. I would stay at that speed until there was an end sign, and if there was not (often) I would stay at that speed until I was sure I was out of the village. So it was a slow trip. The fast sections I am flat out at 75kmh.

The T1 highway eventually got really good. There was probably 200km of excellent highway, to South African standards. It was probably the best highway I had driven on since South Africa. So there were many many Police stops. I probably got stopped 5 times up to Kisolanza, and was waved through another ten. However the Police were fine. No asking for bribes. I try to be very friendly, and generally they are friendly back. I make a big thing of being Australian, and I think they appreciate that as being a bit different.

About 50km out of Kisolanza I went through tens of kilometers of pine plantations. It was about 1600m, but it was surreal being 8 degrees from the equator and driving through pine plantations.

I got to Kisolanza about 5:30pm. I was the only guest, but it was a nice campsite, it had power and hot showers. The English owner came over later after dark to see how I was. This campsite used to have 80 people some nights, including overland trucks, and now they were down to the odd person like me. They had reverted to being farmers, and opening a couple of roadside shops. They were surviving, but they wondered whether tourism would ever come back to what it was before. It hasn’t in Australia, and it hasn’t in Africa.

I haven’t quite got used to the timezone and sunrise in Tanzania. In Malawi it was getting light at 5:30am, and the sun was up by 6am. Here in Tanzania a timezone further east, the sun gets up at 7am. So I wake up at 5:30am like I did in Malawi, but its still very dark. I really need to go to bed later.

I got going by 8am, I didn’t have any working internet. Internet is not very good in Tanzania. Its either non-existent, Edge (the old GPRS) or overloaded 3G. Its only in the large towns does it seem to work. I was headed to Iringa, a town about 50km north. iOverlander said it had a western style supermarket. So I got into Iringa, which was a bit crazy, as they had multi story buildings. Outside the supermarket were a couple of Australian lads loading a Troopy, headed for a National park west of here. I think they had not planned for the paucity of choice of food in Africa. They had loaded all sorts of stuff including a couple of dozen eggs that I told them would probably not survive the roads. The problem was they had only driven on the good road from Dar es Salaam, and they had yet to experience true African road horror. So I got some supplies at the supermarket, including a small bar of cadbury chocolate. I have not seen cadbury chocolate for quite a while.

I left Iringa and headed east. Eventually I started descending down the escarpment down a winding road. This road had, monkeys running around on it, broken down trucks, very slow moving trucks, and buses doing suicidal overtaking of slow trucks. It was 8km of African entertainment.

I got to Camp Bastian at Mikumi about 4pm. I debated going further, but I was tired, and I had done 240km. Camp Bastian is pretty good, and has 3 safari tents set up, with people staying in two of them. They offer “full board” for $US25 a day which is accommodation and breakfast , lunch and dinner. So I am guessing the people staying in the Safari tents are backpackers. I am a cheapskate paying 23,000 TSH (Tanzania Shillings) about $A15 a night.

Tanzania is much, much richer than Malawi. Tanzania is the richest African country I have been in since South Africa. Its not South African standards, but peoples houses are bigger than Malawi, people have cars, motorbikes. The buses transporting people are actually buses. In the high altitude regions there is lots of intense agriculture.

So cold I needed gloves to drive with, its not that I am a wimp, I have no heater

A picture of the houses and street at 2300m

The fruit and Veg market in Iringa, where I got potatoes, carrots, peas and bananas

Broken down trucks on the 8km descent down the escarpment

Monkeys playing on the road between the trucks on the 8km descent

Forests of Baobab trees on the lower ground

Kings Highway, to the Mushroom Farm to Beach Chamber Lodge

I packed up but not completely at Kings Highway, because I had to get started, and I had problems at Ngala Beach. So I tried to start, and the cranking battery is flat. I think this is because I use the battery charger to charge the cranking battery, and then use the DC-DC converter to charge the storage batteries. I think the charger just doesn’t charge often enough and the DC-DC charger eventually flattens the cranking battery. So I try charging the cranking battery, but the charger keeps cutting out at too low a voltage. I try connecting to the storage battery, but that doesn’t work. So I drag out the folding solar panel, drag it out to the least shady section and run a long cable back. Its cloudy so I will not get much power. The solar panel puts 18V at about 3amps and in about 20 minutes I am started.

So its about 2km down the road to the turn-off. Initially I thinks its not right, the road is so narrow, but its right, its a narrow zig-zag road up the escarpment. It probably takes me more than an hour in first gear to get the 10km up the road. It is precipitous at times, cliffs above the road and cliffs below. I get to the Mushroom farm at around 1pm. The Mushroom Farm would look perfect in Willunga South Australia. Its hippy central. Yoga on the cliff, hot massages, Veggie burgers, and several backpackers. I decide its another excuse to eat out, so I order myself a Veggie Burger for lunch. It is an excellent burger. I camp on one of the camping areas right on the top of the escarpment.

After lunch I walk 3km to the Waterfall. I get close and a guy who just happens to be walking down the road offers to guide me. We settle on 2,000Kw ($3), and we turns of a little track that runs between the houses and in 2 minutes we are at the waterfall. Its pretty good waterfall considering its the dry season. I thank him and head back to camp.

Next day I wake up at 5:30am (I go to bed too early..). I have a really good sunrise looking over Lake Malawi way below me. I get packed up but I am ready for another starting problem. However Clancy starts first time, probably because I have not been using the DC-DC charger (no power). Then its down the hill, hoping again I don’t meet anyone coming the other way, because there is no room to pass.

I get to the M1 and head north. A couple of police stops and one military stop, and I get to Karonga. I find a supermarket, but the only thing worth buying is a loaf of bread. I then walk around and find the central market, and get all sorts of vegetable delights. I get some potatoes, peas (!) and bananas. Then its 5km up the road to Beach Chamber Lodge. Its a bit run down. They allow me to plug into one of the rooms (which has non-working plumbing) for power and I park on the beach in front of the Lodge. Its costs me 5,000Kw (about $A5).

Crawling up the zig-zag 4wd track to the Mushroom Farm

Camped on the cliff edge at the Mushroom Farm

Hippy Heaven, the Mushroom Farm, perched on the edge of a cliff

Ngala Beach to Mzuzu to Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve

I got packed up at Ngala Beach by 9:00am, which I thought was impressive considering I had been there 8 days and had completely spread everything out. So I started Clancy, drove up to the restaurant to pay Dan and Trish what I owed, said my goodbyes, and went to drive off. The car wouldn’t start. It took two hours and a jump-start from Dan to finally get going. My suspicion after all this, is that the battery terminal has not tight and clean enough. The next few days while show whether I am correct.

So at 11am I headed north towards Mzuzu, getting there at around 3:00pm. I went to the Shoprite, the first one since Chimoio in Mozambique. Somehow Dan and bought me more Pearl Barley in Mzuzu, but I could not see it for sale anywhere. A bit more searching and it was 4:30pm so I headed to Macondo Camp, about 5km north-west of central Mzuzu.

It was cool overnight. Mzuzu is at 1300m so it has much milder weather than near Lake Malawi. In the morning it was 16C, which for Africa weather adapted me is freezing….. I headed of to a couple more supermarkets looking for the elusive pearly barley, but no luck. So I tried a couple of servos to see if they would take a credit card, finally on the way out of town I found a third one that would. I got a minimal 30l. When I was at Ngala Beach talking to my neighbors, they told me fuel is cheaper in Tanzania, so I only want enough to get out of Malawi. I have to leave Malawi by Sunday 24th July, as that is when my insurance and TIP expires.

So north out of Mzuzu, three police stops, where gradually they taught me how to pronounce Vwaza. The I turned west of the M1 and made it to Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve. It cost me 27,000Kw, camping and entrance. They are not really set up for camping, you just camp in front of a Chalet, and use the toilet and shower. I can see hippos already.

Cape MacClear to Nkhotakota to Ngala Beach Camp

Finally after 7 nights at Fat Monkeys at Cape MacClear I got moving again. It was 259km to the next decent campsite, so I was on the road before 9am. I managed to get out of Fat Monkeys’, but the village tracks are confusing, and I have no idea if I went the right way. It was 20km down to Monkey Bay where I picked up some supplies I knew I could get at one of the shops. Then it was of along the semi potholed road to meet up with the M5 heading north.

I was aiming for Salima, which had supermarkets, from which I hoped to top up my supplies. I found the supermarket, from the vast array (not) I got some canned baked beans, canned tuna and very surprisingly canned blueberries, plus a 5l container of water. Outside I found a seller selling some very nice apples, and from someone else I got a big bunch of bananas from. I also found the ATM and got another enormous wad of money out of, being about $A150. I tried about 3 service stations to buy diesel with a credit card, with no luck, but at the 4th I managed to buy 30l with a credit card.

Then onwards north. At around 4pm I got to Nkhotakota pottery, highly rated on iOverlander, but their camping was full. Now its 4:15pm and dark is less than an hour away. I head back to the highway looking for Fish Bay, I come across a sign to Nkhotakota Safari lodge, that also might be Fish Bay, so I head down. My GPS sends me down a side track, but local kids tell me I am wrong. I decide to take their advice. I get about 200m from Nkhotakota Safari, and there are 100’s people milling about the road into the Lodge. This concerns me, because I think it is some sort of protest or demonstration, that I don’t want to be involved in. I speak to a couple of people standing around, and they sort of convey that they will let me in. The guy at some sort of temporary gate waves me over and lowers the gate. I gingerly squeeze amongst all these people, and I emerge into – a football game. The guy at the gate was probably charging people.

I arrive at Nkhotakota Safari lodge, and I get a campsite in their small camping area on the beach. They have no other guests. Next morning I leave at 7:30am, and go to pay the 6,600 Kw for camping (about $A10) . I give them 8,000Kw, but they have no change. I point out that they have this huge lodge but they cannot give me 1,400Kw change (about $A2). Eventually even though there are about 8 people working at this lodge they manage to scrape together 1,000Kw change.

I head into Nkhotakota town and stop at the local supermarket but they don’t have much to choose from. Then up the road I find a bakery and get some bread rolls for 900Kw ($A1.50)

More shops should combine bakery and fishing….

Then it was on the road heading north again. The road was narrow with broken edges. I often had to leave the bitumen to let trucks pass, carefully picking the spot to get off the road. It rained as well for a few minutes. I got to the turnoff to Ngala Beach and made myself at home, and one of the best campsites I have stayed at in Africa.

There are lots and lots of bicycles in Malawi

There are mobile phone airtime sales booths in every village

At the beach

We’ve spent the last few days at a couple of ‘resorts’ on the coast a couple of hundred kms from Maputo, the capital of Mozambiqe. The first one, Montego Resort at Xai Xai, was … okay and a very welcome break after the long dusty drive down from Pafuri border. The campsites were all deep sand up a steep hill, with power but no water. Washing up sinks and taps were located a fair way up the hill, and there was one tap the gardener used down the hill. The shared ablutions were fine, the beach across the track was okay at low tide and we had a nice meal at the restaurant.

We paid $40 per night which seemed on the expensive side, but then, on our last trip we paid USD$100/night for a site at Third Bridge campground in Botswana. A week or so ago, we paid AUD$70 to camp at Kubu Island in Bots. Our free wild camps help to dollar-cost average it all.

Now we’re just a bit further up the coast at the Sunset Beach Resort at Chidenguele and it’s lovely. I do laugh at the choice of name, though. The sun will never, ever set on this beach! Our campsite is grassy sand and each site is powered, has its own shelter that has a washing up sink with hot and cold water, and a bathroom with a really good shower (plus toilet and handbasin). There’s a lovely pool, the beach is good and the restaurant is excellent. We ate there last night – Greg had ‘line caught fish’, I had grilled crayfish. The fish was less than $10, the crayfish was $17 and our site is $20/night. We’ve already extended our stay here by an extra night. Might be hard to leave!

We’re planning on going to Inhambane, which is about 200kms further north along the coast, and that’s as far north as we’ll go on this trip. Then we’ll head south to the border at Komatipoort and re-enter South Africa. We have to be back in Joburg in a couple of weeks.