Saturday 23 August 2014.

During the week end all participants of Congregational Conference FIC are given chance to relax and enjoy the beautiful part of Malawi, this is lake Malawi and Liwonde National Park. We left Blantyre at 08.00 , by bus of St. Patrick’s Secondary School. It was a journey of 215 km. Most of the roads are in good condition and it was not much traffic . After covering the distance of 70 km we reached Zomba , former capital city of Republic of Malawi that situated on the slope of Zomba Mountain. After 45 km we reached the second town, Liwonde. Here we turned from the main road to Lilongwe to the direction of Mangochi town, the capital of Mangochi district.

We arrived at the lake house at 12.30. The cottage of the Brothers has only 8 rooms, so some of us were accommodated at the Bizzaro’s cottage, next to our cottage. From these two cottages there were long enough sand beach and green park where we could enjoy the beauty of lake Malawi. It was the day of the Birthday of Bro. Raphale Besignegree, the Ghanaian Brother. We celebrated his birthday at our lake house. Brother Henry has arrived in the cottage the day before so by the time of our arrivals, the meals and drinks were ready . After Lunch there was time to rest or just walking around. The birthday celebration continued in the evening.

Lake Malawi is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the third largest and second deepest lake in Africa, it is also the ninth largest in the world. Area: 11,429 sq miles (29,600 km²), Length: 360.4 miles (580 km) Width: 46.6 miles (75 km). It reaches the depth of over 730 metres.  Because of its depth, the lake produces less fish.  Next the lake Malawi there is lake Chirwa which with the qwidth of 35 km by 27 km. The average is only about 2 to 5 metres depth. As such this lake produces more fish. In the middle of the lake there are two main Islands: Likoma and Chizumulu Islands. The outlet of Lake Malawi form a river called Shire River.

Along the lake shore there are some ports that give the lake service  using big boats that connect from town to another.  There are weekly service, that transport goods and people. The round trips can take six days from port to port of:  Chipoka, Salima, Nhotakota, Likoma Island, Nkhatabay, Monkeybay etc. To handle the i9ncrease volume of traffic at lake Malawi, several lake ports such Chipoka have been enlarged and re-developed.

Sunday 24 August 2014

We had our Sunday English Mass at the parish Church nearby, 10 kilometres from our lake cottage. It is a small but beautiful church. Behind the altar it was painted with the background of lake Malawi. After Lunch we left the lake cottage and continued our trip to visit Liwonde national Park. It is big national park covering the area of 548 km square, situated 150 km from Blantyre. On this park we could see different kinds of animals such as bucks, impala, buffaloes, elephants, deers, monkeys, and others. It was a good day, a lot of experiences but also tiring as we travelled through out, even inside the park. We arrived in Blantyre at 20.00.

National Parks in Malawi.

Malawi is a small country in Africa, the area is about 118,000 km2, the length from North to South is 900 km with varying width of 80 to 160 km. Some kilometer squares are preserved as National Parks. There are four major National Parks in Malawi. 1. Nyika Plateu National Park that covers 3,134 km squares. 90 percent of the area are above 1,800 metres and is open short grassland. The most common animals are: zebra, roan and eland, leopard and lion. 2. Kasungu National Park, covering 2,316 km2. There are large numbers of large animals such as elephants, buffaloes, rhinos , sable, zebra, waterbucks etc.3. Lengwe National Park covers area of 887 km2 situated in the North of the Country. 4. Lake Malawi National Park.  This park is established primary to protect the important communities of certain fish which inhabit the rocky shorelines around parts of lake Malawi. This park has a total area of 94 km2, and is centred in what we called Cape Maclear.

Visiting Liwonde National Parks.

Sunday 24 August 2014

We had our Sunday English Mass at the parish Church nearby, 10 kilometres from our lake cottage. It is a small but beautiful church. Behind the altar it was painted with the background of lake Malawi. After Lunch we left the lake cottage and continued our trip to visit Liwonde national Park. It is big national park covering the area of 548 km square, situated 150 km from Blantyre.

The major feature of the park is the Shire River which is protected on both sides and provides a natural water highway. There is a lodge along the Sire River. Ideally in order to see more we have to stay in the lodge, and can make a trip by both along Shire river so that we can see hippos and crocodiles and also some elephants who come to the river every evening. Our coming was for a short period, about two hours. As such we see less animals such as:

Elephants: In Malawi there are estimated 2500 African elephants. There are about 300 elephants in Liwonde National Park, about 1000 in Kasungu National Park. The rests are scattered in various game reserves and forests reserves throughout Malawi.

Hippo:  hippos are widely distributed in the lake and major rivers such as Shire rivers, especially in Liwonde National Park. Much of the hippo’s day is spent in the water, though they do spend some hours laying in the river banks. By night they came out from the river to eat grass on the field near the water.

Sometimes we could see them at Lake Malawi near lake cottage.

Waterbucks: This species is common along the Shire River in the Liwonde National Park. Others can be seen at Kasungu National Park,  Nkotakota and Majete Game Reserves.

Crocodiles: mostly found along Shire River in the Liwonde National Park.

Antelopes: There are three different families of antelopes. These are nyala antelopes, sable entelopes and roan antelopes. These are the common animals we see during our tour inside Liwonde National Park.

After touring part of Liwonde National Park left the place at 17.30 and arrived in Blantyre at 20.00. Dead tired after sitting on the bus for almost the whole day.

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Recorded by Bro. Martin Dariyo.