Our first attempt at finding Ponta Malongane was an unmitigated failure! We followed the directions (or at least were convinced we were following the directions) given in our guide book and found the road running parallel to the beach through the residential area. After a short period of congratulations on being so clever (our GPS had no idea where we were) we zooted off towards our first stop.

About 2km into this sand track it started getting fairly overgrown and difficult to navigate. Bushes and thorn trees scratched down the Beast’s sides, steep inclines and declines with some acute turns became the norm and all this on increasingly softer sand. We strongly began to suspect we were on the wrong road but with no way to turn around, on we went. We knew the roads were going to be bad, but this was rather heavy going for our first day. Time was a ticking and the nerves were racing as we began to envisage the potential problem of getting stuck out there without any assistance and the prospect of hauling out all of our shiny new 4x4 recovery equipment (and then standing around waiting for somebody to come and show us how to use it).

Finally topping a hill we came to a dead-end at an abandoned property with inconsiderately narrow gateposts that narrowly allowed us to perform a tricky 27 point turn into and head back the way we had come.

Back in Ponta do Oura we quickly found the right road (one street up and quite obviously looking like a main road, largely as it had a big sign pointing the way to Ponta Malongane). Although we had finally found the ‘main’ road, it was only moderately better than driving directly on a sandy beach! Being so hot and dry only made the sand that much more difficult to get through and we were witness to our first vehicle recovery – thankfully it wasn’t us! After all the horror stories and predictions of the Beast getting stuck before we even reached Mozambique due to our not so slender frame, we were ecstatic to get safely to Ponta Malongane another 8km or so down the coast. There was no town to speak of, but rather a small curio market and a few huts bunched together which made us realise just how big Ponta do Oura was in comparison.