Trip Report # 12 (28 – 29 June 2009) : Veronica’s Camp

The recommended road from Lichinga to the Niassa reserve main gate takes roughly 7 hours on relatively good roads – so quite a stretch.  Alternatively from Lichinga you can enter the reserve on the western side along a shorter route with only about 40km of poor road conditions, but then getting across the reserve to the main gate will optimistically require 2 and a half days of slow 4WD and quite possibly bridge construction in one or two instances (an exciting prospect for the six adventurers and particularly the five engineers representing almost every possible discipline in the group ;-)). 

Neville (again coming to our rescue) offered us petrol available from a forestry station at  Chiconono on this alternative route making this option even more enticing.  But no matter how we looked at the calendar and how we routed the looong return trip from Northern Mozambique (have you ever noticed the size of the Mozambiquan coastline?) for Adri, Anita, Nerina and Hennie who were due in South Africa again mid July, an extra 2 or 3 days spent building infrastructure in Mozambique was a luxury we simply could not afford.

Furthermore, having by now been warned from several sources that the road from Marrupa to Montepuez (on route to Pemba) is a extended nightmare best avoided, but knowing that we will in all likelihood have to make that crossing therefore satisfying the adventurers amongst us, we opted for the safer and quicker Plan A. 

Plan A entailed Adri and Anita with the Dokka and its fixed second fuel tank to make a detour to Chiconono with all empty tanks, canisters, jerry cans and vessels we could spare to collect fuel whilst the rest of us, in the interest of saving petrol, would travel to a campsite on route (Mt Mosale) just developed and not yet commercially operational offered to us by Veronica (YES again!).

A leisurely drive for us  [Bytheway, we did stop at the little rumoured-to have-fuel station on the way: dry]. A bit of a stretch for Adri and Anita who had to cover an extra 160km, locate the local forester and fill fuel tanks.  But, at least this meant making progress towards Niassa and saving us a day of waiting for fuel in the black hole.  

The tented camp is roughly 50km off the road on a beautiful section of the Lugenda river bank and exquisitely integrated and sensitive to the environment offering all the critical luxuries such as hot water showers, porcelain and flushing toilets and unbelievably friendly staff (Benson, Kaptein and their crew) who welcomed us like VIPs after their very brief initial surprise at our unexpected arrival.

Covering the 50km is best accomplished with closed windows, as we discovered.  Tsetse flies infested our vehicle and proceeded to literally slip stream the vehicle in what was a very bizarre scene better suited to a Stephen King horror movie. At one time a particular fly was hovering outside the driver window at about 30km/h!  Scary, to say the least.  These things bite you through your clothes and generally are only killed by separating limbs, a skill we mastered on the way to the camp.  Surprisingly almost completely absent from the camp itself – fortunately!

Adri and Anita would arrive only after dark. The entrance to the access trail (4WD necessary) leaving the main road is somewhat obscure and Adri unfamiliar with Hennie’s borrowed GPS (containing important indicative way points provided (again) by Neville).

So, in spite of our best efforts for sign posting, ‘Worry’ followed shortly after our arrival. 

The lot of us suitably impressed with ourselves after erecting an authentic Odyssey sign post, using one of the left over stickers.

 

Probable timelines where calculated and recalculated, possible scenarios in a variety of permutations and combinations considered, but nothing prepared us for Adri and Anita walking into camp (only just having survived a tsetse fly bombardment) at 20:30 that evening. 

The Dokka died (loaded to the brim with fuel) 7 km outside of camp and refused to restart in spite of Adri’s best efforts.  It miraculously started when a rescue party was dispatched after dinner (rump steak, the last of our Danish feta and English cucumber in a huge salad, garlic bread and bottled red wine that had survived the trip with Hennie and Nerina).  But it necessitated a thorough inspection and routine maintenance session the next day costing us another day, further abusing the generosity of our hostess, but affording us the privilege of another night in the spectacular bliss of Veronica’s camp amidst the grumbling of hippos mere meters away. A VAST improvement to spending a day waiting for fuel in Lichinga!

M-L