We decided to break our journey down to Lower Zambezi with a night in Lusaka. With a fairly easy and short trip along tarred roads, we were in no rush. This being said we also had no desire to hang around a crappy camp site, so we decided to treat ourselves to a breakfast in the restaurant. This was another experience, the owners must be the most miserable couple we have come across, they don’t have a civil word to say to each other. As we were the only people there, this made us feel somewhat uncomfortable. The real issue came when we heard the husband shouting and swearing at the kitchen staff, I thought Robs, who is always so sensitive to the plight of others, especially the underdog, was going to walk in and tell the guy off. She got rather verbal and we had to calm her down. A pity about the atmosphere, because the food and the view were rather nice.
While packing up, Gareth found a whip scorpion in the basin I was about to brush my teeth in, so while the girls packed up the tent, he rescued it and put it back in the bush. Robs was so happy about him saving ‘one of God’s creatures’, Kirst would rather have had the help packing up.
After strapping up our trailer, we were on our way. I thought Gray might try and get the trailer fixed in Lusaka but he thinks we will need a whole new top and it’s not possible to weld sheet metal – how am I supposed to know that.
We had a pleasant and uneventful trip into Lusaka. The scenery along the way was beautiful; the miombo forests are in full autumn colours. We stayed at Pioneer Camp, about 17km before the main town. It is a pleasant camp site and we set up camp quickly as the girls had heard from us that there were shopping centres in Lusaka. Ga was in two minds about joining us – he hates shopping with a passion but loves to visit museums and such like when in a ‘new’ town. I assured him this was purely a shopping trip, so he elected to stay in camp and play with the 2 jack russels there, he is missing his beloved jack russel, Spud, at home and watch DVD’s on a laptop ( unfortunately there was a power outage).
On the way into town, we had about 5km of bumpy roads to negotiate and along the way we heard a clunk – we had lost a shock absorber mounting bolt, I’m surprised we haven’t lost a whole lot more. So Gray dropped us off at Manda Hill Shopping Centre and for the next hour or two, the girls shopped up a storm, not sure where all the stuff will go but they were soooo excited.
Gray picked us up, having sourced the bolts, that now needed to be fitted. The fitment centre was opposite the other shopping centre in town, so after running the gauntlet of crossing the main road we went for milkshakes – the first the girls have had since leaving S.A.
We decided to have a late lunch at Mikes Kitchen, the waitress must have thought the girls had never seen a menu before, they were so excited about findings fancy steak toppings and sauces and ice cream deserts.
We returned with a take-away for Ga to a very chilly evening, possibly the coldest on the trip so far. We spent some time in the open living area at the camp site, around some coal burning heaters.
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