Monday 7 October - Drive to Changa Safari Camp, Mutusadona National Park

We had a much better night's sleep - elephants and hyenas wandered through the camp but the lions stayed further away (we still heard them roaring but they didn't visit our camp) and the wind thankfully did not get up again.  We packed up and were ready to leave by 7.30 but decided to have a quick last look at the baobabs and the spring as we will almost certainly never return to this campsite.

We passed a large herd of buffalo at the end of the Chitake track, were through the gate with the ladies that we had the heated discussion with by 8.30 am and exited the main gate by 10 am.  We had 2 hours to get to Kariba town.  Before we could get going though we had to go through the tsetse fly control - as the car was absolutely full of the horrid biting flies we were relieved to stop and have the car sprayed.

The drive to Kariba was beautiful though the mountains.

We arrived at Marineland at 11.45am and were aboard the boat by 12.15 having done all the paperwork, paid the transfer and concession fees and parked the vehicle in a shady spot.  There was just one other couple on the boat, a Zimbabwean couple on their honeymoon, Steve and Emma from Hidden Rock campsite in the Eastern Highlands.  The transfer took about 45 minutes and we arrived in time for lunch of beef burgers and chips which was seriously good.

We had time to unpack, shower and a quick dip in the pool and then off for an evening game drive at 4 pm.  Finally we saw a pride of lions close by.  There were 10 lions in total.  The pride had been 12 and they thought the missing two lions were probably females expecting cubs.

We also saw a huge herd of buffalo, about 400 in total plus lots of elephants, hippos and impala.  Due to the drought the lake was much lower but this actually meant the herds of animals were taking advantage of the grass by the lakeside which would normally be under water. We saw as much wildlife this evening as we had seen since we arrived in Zimbabwe.

Dinner was served by candlelight on the lake shore.  It was a traditional Zimbabwean buffet but it was actually difficult to see what we were eating - it was delicious though.  We had a really interesting chat with our fellow diners, Sarah, the lodge manager, Steve and Emma and one of the guides.  We all disappeared off to bed at 9.30 as we had another early start planned.