MOZAMBIQUE
A NOTE ON THE ROADS
You don’t always need to use the ferry to cross the Limpopo – it’s possible to drive across depending on the water level and time of year. On another tour in September 2023, Pete and the convoy drove across the river and camped wild at a different location further down the N222, which shortened the driving time on the second day considerably.
You need to be prepared for anything, though. And that’s the appeal of travelling in a group with an expert guide who knows the route and can make contingency plans. Help will also be at hand if something goes wrong with your vehicle, or if you get stuck.
It’s getting late and Pete Collins is thighdeep in the Limpopo River, checking for a way through. Never mind the crocodiles. We’re at a crossing point near the village of Mapai in southern Mozambique and the ferry that is meant to take us across is unattended and parked on a sandbank.
If tour guide Pete is flustered, he doesn’t show it. He tells us to wait and jumps into his Mahindra bakkie to scout a second crossing downstream. Eventually his voice comes through waves of static on the radio: “There’s another ferry here…”
I’m travelling in a Toyota Fortuner with my wife Jess and our two boys Elliot (10) and Francis (8), in a small convoy with Bhejane 4×4 Adventures. We came through the Pafuri border at 9am and we’ve been bouncing along sandy tracks next to the river for the better part of the day. We bounce downstream for another few kilometres and find Pete at the new crossing point.
On this side of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, it’s like someone has turned on the stage lights and exposed the magic trick of the Kruger. The landscape is similar to what you see in the far north of the park – the wide river flanked by beautiful trees – but here in Mozambique it’s goats that drink furtively, not impala. A CV joint from a stricken vehicle lies rusting in the sand. Kids the age of my own blow on ash to get a fire going and start roasting what might have once been an emerald-spotted wood-dove. And out in the middle of the
