LANDY TO LONDON: Roads are meant for walking

Malawi has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. The colours here are incredibly rich in everything that you see. The only thing more colourful than the land is the people. And they are everywhere you go because even the biggest highways belong to foot traffic and cycles. Its very hard to take your eyes off the road for all the people, potholes, bicycles and bad motorists coming from the opposite direction.

Everybody in Malawi is friendly. No business is done without introducing yourself and asking after each others health. We got a taste of true Malawian friendship last night when we got incredibly stuck in mud...

Our day started by leaving Cape Maclear for Nkata Bay. A good days drive up the shores of Lake Malawi. A setback occurred when one of the roads was closed due to a bridge being washed away. This meant a diversion back to Lilongwe, then North to drive round the bridge. This adds a good couple of hours onto an already long day.

So back to Lilongwe and North on the M1. This is a lovely piece of tarred road (still full of villagers walking everywhere). We decided to leave the civilised road for the M7. A road that hasn't been travelled by another car for a long time (we only found this out en-route). This we hoped was a short cut. In many ways it was, just not in the time saving way. We travelled through 35miles of the most amazing countryside. Through tiny villages with people who were amazed to see a car drive past.

The journey ended onto the road we were looking for which was well tarred for about 4 meters before we went back onto dirt and mud.

10 minutes of mud brought us to a huge truck stuck in the mud. It blocked the entire road. No way to get passed... Maybe. A Land Cruiser found a way through so we decided to follow. We rounded the huge truck (still stuck in the mud) and slid off the dirt road into knee deep mud. We were stuck in a bad way.

4 hours later we were still stuck, now with a couple of other cars and the big truck. It was dark, oh and we were in a national park crossing with lion amongst other big animals around.

Just when we thought it was hopeless 25 people pulled the huge truck out of the mud in tug-of-war style. 5 people and a Land Cruiser pulled us out of the mud. We then towed a pickup out of the mud. Another 4x4 and our Landy tried to tow a Cruiser out of the mud before our (3 ton) tow rope snapped. Another Landy pulled a Mazda out of the mud with a running start into the tow (crazy way to lose the back half of your Landy but it worked!). After that we called it a night for the graders and trackers to come collect the cars we couldn't get out.

We were looked after that night by Carsten and Lucy. They very generously put us up for the night, fed us and sent us on our way the next morning feeling ready for the road ahead. A very big thank you to them.

The stunning scenery of the Ntchisi Mountain pass. The calm before the storm raging around the corner >>>

Our landy working hard to pull a Land Cruiser out of the ditch. This was our last tow for the night. The ditch and mud we were stuck in was much deeper than this >>>