South, among the hippos and crocodiles!

After a couple of days lounging about in Monkey Bay, I carried on southwards to Liwonde National Park - staying in a Lodge in the middle of the park, an hour upriver in a small boat. Though it was big enough to weave in and out of families of hippos and steer clear of the crocodiles.

The park is also home to zebras and impalas and bushbuck - soon to be lion-breakfast, as there are plans to reintroduce the big cats. (Apparently warthog is a favourite food of lions, partly, maybe, as they are relatively easy to catch! Which might leave the impalas for the crocodiles.) It is also home to thousands of migrant birds - tiny yellow weaver birds, swallows, and multi-coloured kingfishers. And magnificent fish eagles. It is the best-building season, so I watched as male weavers construct three hanging nests and then strut their stuff in the hope that a passing female will take a fancy to one of them.

I picked so much useless (in the UK) but unforgettable information! For instance, adolescent male elephants display their manhoods by extending their penises till they are dragging along the ground. And I've seen armies of ants on the ground ...

More worryingly, the local health centre (with no running water) is seeing up to 50 cases of malaria a day at the moment, most of them children under 5.

I tore myself away from Liwonde to spend four days on the Zomba Plateau, where it's lush and green, with unpredictable mountain weather. So I've had serious wind and rain. And no electricity.

Sorry, but I can't give you a photo this time. I've got an iPad-charging problem, and am having to eek out my battery. I promise pictures when I get home.