Cape Maclear
A fishing village on a west-facing beach at the south end of Lake Malawi, inside a national park listed by UNESCO for its cichlids, with boulder islands a paddle away.
- Arrival
- Kamuzu International, Lilongwe · LLW
- To the lake
- About 45 minutes by light aircraft to Club Makokola
- Private jets
- Lilongwe or Blantyre, then a light aircraft
- Best time
- April to November
The city
Chembe, the cape and the islands.
Most people say Cape Maclear when they mean Chembe, the village on the Nankumba Peninsula near the southern end of the lake. Livingstone named the cape in 1859 after his friend Thomas Maclear, astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope. Scottish missionaries arrived in 1875 and gave up in 1882, worn down by poor soil and tsetse fly; a few of their graves are still on the slope above the bay.
In 1980 the peninsula, its islands and the water round them became Lake Malawi National Park, and UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List in 1984 for its fish. Over 350 species of mbuna, the rock-dwelling cichlids, live here, and all but five occur nowhere else. Five villages remain inside the park and live from fishing. Because the beach looks west, the sun sets behind the islands.
- Otter Point Rocks about two kilometres south-west of the village, where snorkellers swim among cichlids and spotted-necked otters sometimes appear.
- Mumbo Island A small rocky island of the park, about ten kilometres out by kayak, with otters living along its shore.
- The mission graves The resting place of members of the Livingstonia mission of 1875, above the bay where they tried to settle.
Arriving
Lilongwe, then down to the lake.
Lilongwe's airport lies about 117 km from Cape Maclear in a straight line, Blantyre's about 185 km. The final road into Chembe is a bumpy dirt track.
- Nairobi 2 h 10
- Kigali 2 h 10
- Luanda 3 h 30
- Mauritius 3 h 35
- Hong Kong 12 h 35 long-range jet
When to go
April to November.
From April to November the southern shore is dry, and between May and September it barely rains at all. The heat climbs through that season, to 32 °C in October and November. December brings the rains, more than 230 mm in each month until February is out.
- 29° J 256
- 29° F 243
- 30° M 127
- 29° A 29
- 28° M 6
- 26° J 0
- 26° J 0
- 28° A 1
- 30° S 1
- 32° O 9
- 32° N 43
- 30° D 238
Flying to Cape Maclear?
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