Loaded with food, beer, wine, water, ice and road snacks we headed north from Livingstone to our first stop, the Dumdunwezi Gate entrance to Kafue NP located in the southern end of the park.
The drive to Kolomo was easy and the road was good but once we hit the town things did get confusing.
Our understanding was to turn left once you came into the market area of town. There were crowds and confusion and gravel dusty roads leading in every direction. What did “take a left turn at the market?” mean? So we asked people. Thats what you have to do when you don’t have a clue and we were directed to the Dumdunwezi Road. We hoped.
We really didn’t know what to expect but I don’t think we expected a fairly bad gravel road that would take us another 60+ Kms to the gate.
Not completely convinced we were on the right road and our Garmin not really helping us as it gave us some bogus turn here turn there directions, we stopped frequently to ask any locals we came upon to confirm if we were still on the Dumdunwezi Road to Kafue.
We were always on the right road and we arrived with “ hoorays!” when we arrived at the park entrance sign.
Up to this point everything I read about driving north into the park indicated the spinal road north was really good all the way to Itezhi Tezhi however we were instructed otherwise to follow the road north from the gate as the spinal road was not in good repair.
The interesting thing here is the road we followed north is not named on any maps. It is apparently called the unnamed road. I researched this portion of the drive quite heavily and I was bewildered by the difference in what I read and what was actually true.
That said the drive was effortless and after about less than two hours we arrived at our Lodge for our pit stop evening, Musungwa Safari Lodge.
We checked in, ordered our dinner for the evening, organized ourselves. K and L went to the pool J and I proceeded to the bar where it was us and nobody else. A cool breeze blowing over the swimming pool. The bar, cold and empty, serve yourself I guess. Quiet. Strange. Nice view over the lake but what is lurking underneath? It was a weird scene.
Dinner was very good. Just us four in the restaurant, alone, the theme of the Exorcist playing in the background. The bream fish filet was delicious.
The next morning we had breakfast, met another person who was actually staying here on business, and then got the heck out and headed south around the lake and then north along the spinal road to our eventual destination, Mayukyuku Camp.
