Finally the day had arrived 22 September 2022 we met up at the Petro port on the n14. We were in our Land Rover Discovery 3 and met Hendrick in Laverne Johan and Jocelyn and Kayla all in For Rangers and we headed out. Final destination was Paindane Beach via Maputo in Mozambique.
The plan was to spend a week out there. No hectic overlanding just a bit of beach and sand driving to get up to the place that we were staying. I had my kites with so was looking forward to doing a bit of kitesurfing, snorkeling relaxing and exploring. Then the plan was to go back through the Limpopo National Park through the Giriyondo Border post. Then drive down through Kruger and then and then back that way again. I haven’t been through that side so that’ll be a nice first so looking forward to that.
Coming out of Komatipoort we took a little shortcut to avoid the N4 with all the trucks on it. So you go around the back of Komatipoort and go over the Komati river and you come out right at the border post on the N4.
Going through the Border was really simple. We had arrived just before midday. There were two or three people ahead of us in the queue. With no issues, we got through the South African side and Mozambique side easily. I’d already had my third-party insurance for my car done via DriveMoz so I didn’t need to do that. We just had to do immigration and then and then just fill in the customs importation documents for the vehicle. That was it and so it was really quick and easy and we were through literally in about half an hour
Avoid stopping just inside Mozambique in Recenao Garcia as it is very busy with a lot of hustlers. Rather travel out of town to where it is quieter. Just after the Border about 10 or 20 K’s there’s this little shop where you can stop and get SIM cards. There is also a new fuel station with and ATM where you can fill up and draw money.
We took a short detour through Maputo because we needed to get some meat. There’s a restriction with a foot and mouth so the importing of meat is banned. We needed to buy some meat and so we knew there was a spot called Moz meat in Maputo. There are also many other places in Maputo including recognised SA retail chains like SPAR, Shoprite and Woolworths.
On the way out of Maputo we went around the Waterfront side of Maputo and not through the middle of the busy section. We got a chance to see the Katembe bridge and drive right under it. We also went through some of the older parts of Maputo where we saw some of the beautiful old buildings.
We made our way to Macaneta Island which is where we were going to spend our first night as a stopover. It was quite nice because I’d never been there before so I was really looking forward to it. We stayed at a popular stop Tan-n-biki.
The next morning I was woken by the tweeting birds which was lovely but I could also hear some voices in the distance. I wondered what it was and so I headed down to the beach to have a look.
All along the beach as far as you could see they were just lines of people walking up and down the beach pulling on the rope for their nets. They were fishing as the sun was coming up it was such a spectacular sight and just listening to them chatting and talking it was amazing
We hit the road by seven heading for Inhambane. This is a mostly busy section up to Xai Xai. There were many bridges and toll gates that we crossed where you pay a toll. The cost is usually quite small around 50 Metacais. So it’s a good idea to keep cash on hand for those tolls.
As you enter the towns usually the speed limit is around 60 that’s when you find most of the traffic police stops. They usually just checking licenses and insurance papers. There were a few speed traps that we found along the way as well but most of them were in 60 kilometer hour zones.
As we got further from Maputo and closer to Inhambane the road got worse and worse and landed up with sections with some pretty serious potholes. So you do need to take care there. But it was great to see that there was a lot of road works going on as well. With time those potholes will be fixed because they were busy actually filling some of those potholes and getting ready to relay some new tar.
It was late afternoon when we finally arrived in Jangamo which is where we were going to be turning off. Here we decided to fill up so that we could go into the areas we were going with full tanks of fuel.
We had another short section of narrow tar and then we finally got to the turn off onto the dirt. We were racing against the sun and the clock because we still need to buy a couple of things at a shop in the little village just outside the lodge where we were staying.
After a long days drive we finally arrived. The next morning we were greeted by an absolutely amazing view. We were so looking forward to a nice couple of days just relaxing.
That morning we were greeted with the amazing sight of breaching whales. We couldn’t believe our eyes. They were Southern right whales as they are around Mozambique Coast at this time of the year and it was amazing to see them but also to see so many of them and we saw them for the whole week it was a real treat.
