We woke up to cold, windy, grey, wet, horrible, nasty weather and decided that the inertia of waiting around was not doing us any good so we decided to set off south.  No matter how good the diving was, waiting around for weather to clear whilst family and friends were just 1000kms away seemed crazy.  Although we hadn't unpacked the roof tent, we had still exploded out of Sully into the chalet, so it still took as as long to pack and it was 09:30am by the time we had finished and had showered.  Trevor went over to the office to pay and with no admin staff around was told to come back later.  By 10am there was still no-one to pay so we sent a text message to Nina (the manager) to send us bank account details so that we could pay by bank transfer and set off. 

It was still raining, wet, cold and miserable but the journey passed by quite easily.  Until we got to Quissico, that is, and from there the going got tough.  Potholes were eventually replaced by non-existent road caked with sludgy red mud and we spent the next 3 hours, dodging cars, buses and trucks as we all slithered our way along to Xai-Xai.  Crossing the Limpopo River marked the end of the awful road as we hit dual carriageway tar again and picked up to a reasonable speed to head for Maputo.

Normally at this juncture I would say "and the sun was setting as we drive up to reception to check in", but as it was still raining, wet and blustery I would have to say, as it began to get a darker, sludgier grey we drove up to the Blue Anchor reception.  Unfortunately though they were full so we opted for 2nd best : Casa Lisa.  We had decided with 1 long day under our belts and another one to come tomorrow, that we would check into a chalet.  Quite frankly the Casa Lisa chalets for US$50 left much to be desired although for a shower before dinner, we did get a little hot water between the 2 of us.

In the restaurant we met up with a group on a blokes week of fishing - well at least on their way home to Escourt from a week of fishing in Zavora.  Greg, Jacques, Angelo and Robbie invited us to join them for supper and we spent a relaxed couple of hours chatting.  Suddenly the lights went out.  Greg saved the day when he went and got the gennie going after it had been allowed to run out of fuel....I promised you, Greg, what I told you is true!!!! Anyway, we hope you all got home safe and sound.

With another long day ahead of us the next day as well, we turned in for the night.