Today was spent in lakeside paradise doing the grand sum of bugger all, ahhhhhh perfect!  I mean there is lots I COULD do such as dive, rent a kayak, take a boat trip, snorkel, pick the litter out of the lake, but I could also sit on my lazy and now incredibly bony arse and do nothing instead so it’s the latter that wins the vote unanimously for today.  Yaaayyyy!!

It absolutely poured down last night but it was very short lived and really strange.  I remember waking up to a few raindrops hitting the tent that was swiftly followed by a weird noise that made me sit up involuntarily, my body reacting to something that my brain could not yet compute. 

I was up and raring to go today, not of course that this has changed on any day during my adventure so far (the hour I mean rather than the raringness), but this morning I knew that there was a high chance of a headwind filled day so I wanted to get stuck in as early as possible. 

A day spent relaxing in the beautiful Nkhata Bay today filled with lovely Mzuzu coffee, paddle boarding, swimming, lots of sitting down, and some funny conversations with my new Dutch friend Eric who had been a member of Gary’s drinking party from the night before.  Eric had been riding his scooter through several parts of east Africa and was headed down as far as Namibia before his return to Holland, and during our conversation I realised that he had been virtually everywhere!  It was actually really helpful to talk with him about Malawi and the countries ahead of me and as a result I have now decided to alter my course slightly choosing to ride slightly further south in Malawi via Cape Mclear, Zomba, and Blantyre before heading to Zimbabwe via a brief 2-3 days dash across Mosambique’s north western corner.  Much more logical and no need to retrace my steps which would have been inevitable had I chosen to pass into Zambia after exploring the southern regions of Malawi.