My friends!! Too long it has been since you last heard from us at The River. For this I apologise!! Things have been beyond insane for the last month or so. Rather than start at the beginning, I think my mind would better recall things if we worked backwards....so from the end to beginning, here's the last month and a bit of news!
We've finally made it up the Leopard's Hill road all the way to Lusaka. Man what a drive!! Absolutley awesome! The graders have been up and down at least once now so although one doesn't feel as pioneering as before, it is still a 4X4er's paradise and the first 40 odd km from our side is just breathtaking as far as scenery goes. Completely unspoilt. Pure magic!!
As for the River Lure Competition we were looking forward to so much..haha!! The Wildchaps stumbled upon some rotten luck...It's not that we didn't catch fish, we didn't even make to the competition! This, thanks to a 30tonne truck which managed to take me out on the road to Luskaka!! Yup...to cut a long story as short as it can be cut, a stalled truck with no trailer-brakes, a jacknifed trailer, a landcruiser & boat and a rather steep hill will never end happily. Luckily though, by the end of the sliding, graunching of metal, shattering of fibreglass and just general mayhem, Colonel Mustard and I were still able to scramble out of the passenger window, over the boat to safety. 
The accident is only the beginning!! When you live in a country where the police have no transport and you have an accident 50km from nowhere, good samaritans is all you have. Luckily, Zambia/The Machinga escarpment isn't short of these. I think the isolation is what does it. Kind of like the fact that when you go on holiday you feel obliged to say hello or wave to everyone! Every car that passes stops to make sure everyone is ok. Some frantic 'I'm okay, send help!!' message sending and then hitch-hiking later, we made it to Chirundu to give statements and find my too generous neighbour to help with the next step of investigation.
The saga is ongoing but 'Lucky-strike' is 
now just a shadow of her former self, a skeleton stuck somewhere on the Machinga escarpment. We managed to salvage pretty much everything we could from the boat and what we left has since been scavenged. The cruiser on the otherhand is fixable...at a cost!! Ultimately, walking away was first prize. Makes you wonder if someone really is watching?? How we recoupe the material losses from the other party's involved is a novel unto itself!!I've driven past the 'scene' at least twice on my own since it happened and sweaty palms still haunt me. But each trip is getting little easier.
now just a shadow of her former self, a skeleton stuck somewhere on the Machinga escarpment. We managed to salvage pretty much everything we could from the boat and what we left has since been scavenged. The cruiser on the otherhand is fixable...at a cost!! Ultimately, walking away was first prize. Makes you wonder if someone really is watching?? How we recoupe the material losses from the other party's involved is a novel unto itself!!I've driven past the 'scene' at least twice on my own since it happened and sweaty palms still haunt me. But each trip is getting little easier.In comparison, the weeks of children prior to 'the incident' were easy and very successful. The weekenders have also picked up which is always a good sign. Since the last time I blogged there's been little time for anything else except 'customer relations'.
The fishing front..haha..since the Easter drop in water, things have suffered (even the locals are suffalling). A rapid temperature change has also affected things. The moon's first quarter 10days ago did however bring some promise. I'm hoping once we get past the full moon this week we'll get into the 'Big' winter bite. The super-high water at the moment is also a good sign as the big tiger will hopefully move up into the shallows during the day for the warmer water. Better access on the good 'ole Effzet yeah!!
Willy WaliT, for all his slacking, is the one person whose been bugging me to blog for the last month. He claims he has a few 'goodies' for us?? I have decided that with the mental schedule at the moment we are going to abandon Article Tuesday and I'll just post whatever Willy brings me.
Untill tomorrow....Keep Keepin on...The Commodore;)
