Wednesday 2 October - Drive to Nyamepi Campsite, Mana Pools National Park

Up at 6am, quick cuppa and on the road by 6.45 with a short detour to see the lake and all the fishermen.  We decided to stick to the main roads for the sake of time for once. Ian's highlight of the journey was finally getting to see a train - he even made us stop and wait for it to come past us so that he could get a photo!

First stop was Chinhoyi Caves which I had been looking forward to visiting and had been concerned we would have to miss due to time constraints.  As we were the only visitors we got our own personal guide who took us to the Dark Cave first.  The light making the water appear bright blue and crystal clear - stunning!  The Light Pool showed that there really are fish living in there and we saw where the divers enter the water - our guide looked horrified when I asked if she had ever dived.

Had a quick breakfast of sandwiches (had actually been organised last night) before heading onwards towards Mana.  Just North of Chinhoyi at Lions Den we saw a self drive safari vehicle at a garage.  A quick U-turn and a chat with the guys in the vehicle - we were in luck the garage would take $US so we took the opportunity to fill the tanks again which meant we wouldn't spend the whole time in Mana checking the fuel gauge.  Ian even managed to buy some bread and in doing so changed some $US to get some $Zim - better late than never.

Arrived at Marongora at 1.20pm, well ahead of the 3.30pm cut off which was a huge relief. We checked in and got our permit and headed down the escarpment to the main Mana gate.  Views from the escarpment were impressive albeit a bit hazy but the road was very busy with large trucks heading to the border.  The road is also being upgraded with money from Japan to add to the mayhem.

The road from the main gate to the campsite was long and very bumpy, it took 2.5 hours to reach the camp which certainly explains the cut off time to reach Marongoro.  We did get to see a few animals including eland and zebras.  We had an interesting encounter at the second gate where Ian spoke to the driver of an African Bush Safari vehicle Kenneth - he had bought Safari Drive Botswana from Charles and Meregan years ago.

The Nyamepi Campsite Number 11 had great views over the Zambezi.  The campsite had 36 sites but we could only see 2 other camping vehicles although when it went dark we realised there were another couple further away.  Elephants constantly walked through the camp and as it went dark we could see hyenas within 20 yards - no midnight trips to the loo and everything luckily had been packed away!  Really nice dinner of pork chops, baked spuds and squash - the advantage of having been shopping yesterday.