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MULANJE EXPATRIATES THREEPEAKS SOCIETY

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ANNUAL REUNION - Mulanje, Malawi. August 27-31, 2007

Participants: Dave (Shooting Stick) Leishman, Mike (Mad) Petzold, Verena (Muesli) Petzold, Chris (Pinocchio) Read, Rupert (West Face) Roschnik, Sally Roschnik, Natan Cointet

The Roschniks and their grandson (15) met Dave at John and Anne Killick’s place in Limbe on Sunday 26th. We were able to borrow the Killicks’ sleeping bags and arranged get food at Shoprite with Dave the next day and take him down to Mulanje. We also heard that the Petzolds – although already in Blantyre - would only be coming later, and desperately tried to contact Brian Lewis for the Mulanje Mountain Club hut key. No news from Chris Read (but we couldn’t check our e-mails), so possibly just four of us.

Monday 27th: Brian appeared at our hotel in the morning, updated us on the hut situation and gave us a hut key. No local participants! Also, the huts had not been booked, but it was considered unlikely that they would be full of backpackers. (Indeed, we had all three huts to ourselves.) Later, we met Dave at the supermarket and filled up a trolley with food and drink. Down the beautifully tarred Midima road to Mulanje. Here we dropped in at the Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust office to say we wouldn’t be needing a key. In fact the person Verena had phoned the day before was not there and nobody knew anything. But we had Brian’s key! We stocked up on some more Carlsberg Greens, then drove on to the Lodge in Lujeri tea estate. No other vehicle there, but Chris was! He’d organised a lift down from the airport with Wilderness Safaris. Dinner, repack, order porters (4) – the lead porter came to make contact.

Tuesday 28th: Breakfast at 6.30, off at 7.30 and picked up our 4 porters – 2 for our food, one each for Sally and Dave’s private packs. Drove on to Hydro. The porters rushed off; we said we knew the way. But 1½ hours later we took a left turn too early, ending up on a newish loggers’ path that took us past one pit-saw site after another and ended up at a logging “camp”. Natan was way ahead by this time, the rest of us just managed to stay together. We were told the hut was on the next ridge, about half a mile away as a crow might fly but through virgin forest and undergrowth. We were given a guide to show us the way. He soon asked us to stop and wait (it was in any case lunchtime), and after a lot of long-distance shouting and we learned that our porters were coming to meet us. Indeed, they emerged a little later from the forest, led by another logger who had escorted Natan to the hut. We paid off the porters (and the first guide), then followed the second guide on a very rough trail through the forest to the hut. Total time just over 6 hours instead of the expected 4-5.

How did we go wrong? Well, the path turn-off was quite well marked and somebody had put a msima arrow on the ground; we thought it was meant for us. I soon realised it was not the path I had done some 10 years before, but thought it was a shortcut that would lead us up at a more gentle angle. Alas, it did not follow a good line, with steep bits alternating with flat and even downhill bits and many scrambles over boulders, large stones or water courses, all mossy and slippery. There was a continuous stream of porters coming down carrying large cedar planks on their heads; most had no footwear at all. In all we passed about a dozen sawing sites, arranged where the trees had been felled (see comment at the end).

Porters apart, we must have been the worst shod party to have climbed the mountain for a long time. Only Chris and Rupert had “proper” mountain boots. Dave wore felt-topped veld shoes (“veldskoene”) all the time and managed even on smooth rock. Natan wore a cross between ordinary shoes and sandals, with no ankle support; he also managed very well. Sally started with old boots. One sole started coming off the first day and had to be tied up with string and/or rubber bands. These tended to break or get lost and the sole came off completely by the end of the second day, leaving a layer of soft blue foam under her sock. The third day, Sally marked our trail with little bits of blue material and she finished the meet with about half the inner sole worn through and feeling every piece of gravel through her socks. Fortunately, conditions were dry all the time.

We spent a nice evening in the Minunu hut. One or two of us tried to wash in the freezing stream.
We found that the Lujeri cook had put the tea, the marmalade and the porridge in a different pile,
so they did not get into our packs. We managed to find a few tea-bags at Minunu; they had to
last us for the rest of the trip. The solar lighting was not working (the lamp was unplugged), but
there were no instructions for this piece of new technology none of us had ever seen before.
Unfortunately I put a comment in the hut book, to the amusement of Mike, who saw the entry a
couple of days later.

Wednesday 29th: We left at 7.50, very early for a METHS party! An easy 1½ to 2 hours walk
to Chinzama hut. We had redistributed the food, Dave carried his own pack and I started with
two rucksacks. Later, Natan offered to take one, so he finished the walk with two packs.

After a tea break, the 4 men went up Chinzama peak, following the normal route as described
in the guide-book. All went well and 2 of us climbed the final boulder. Natan, ahead on the way
up, saw a klipspringer. We had good views all round but it was very hazy, which was normal for
the season.

Thursday 30th: A new record: we were able to leave at 7.40! Maybe it was getting cold at night and our sleeping bags weren’t quite warm enough? We headed for the Madzeka hut, taking the short-cut to avoid descending right down to the Sombani plateau. There had been a grass fire beyond the first col leading to this plateau; what was left was a huge swathe of burned landscape. Natan again carried 2 packs and said he quite enjoyed being able to rest his arms and chin on the one he carried on his chest. We reached the hut in a peaceful 3 hours and spent the rest of the day washing, resting, sunbathing and drinking beer – yes, the malonda had learned the essential economic concept of supply and demand and was selling beer and soft drinks at the hut!

Later Verena Petzold appeared and much later, Mike, who had done Naikoto peak on the way. They were a day behind us and had come from Minunu hut that day, having done the Big Ruo path – without taking any wrong turns (“Always take the older looking path”) the day before.

Friday 31st: Dave, Sally and Rupert set off down the mountain in a leisurely manner (Rupert carrying the extra pack, but with almost no food in it now). Chris and Natan went up the Nyawani shelf and did the south peak before coming back. Natan ran up and down the north peak as well and so became the only participant to “do” three peaks and save the Club’s honour. They then came down with Mike and Verena. Both parties recuperated their vehicles and drove down to the Lodge. Here we had a celebratory supper and then migrated to the lounge for the METHS AGM. Mike in fact missed the AGM due to feeling unwell, while Brian Lewis and Maggie O’Toole of the MMC joined us a little later.

Comment: It was great to visit Malaŵi again and we found the mountain as beautiful as ever but were appalled and disgusted by the intensity of the logging – about 30-40 planks a day coming down both the Big Ruo and the Little Ruo paths (and we heard it is the same to the north and east of the mountain). Also, there were large tracts of burned grassland, some very close to Madzeka hut; there was a lot of smoke from a fire burning high up on Manene; and the firebreaks were generally overgrown and unmaintained, often even invisible. What is going on?