Wildlife Trip to Lake Malawi National Park at Cape Maclear – by Bernd Möllmann

One of our wonderful (current) volunteers, Bernd Möllmann, shares a fantastic adventure he had in his first week with MOET:

“Hello,

My name is Bernd and this February/March, I’m doing a practical training for about four weeks at MOET-School in Malawi. I would like to give you a short overview of the wildlife-trip to Lake Malawi National Park at Cape Maclear during my first week at MOET.

Wildlife Trip to Lake Malawi National Park at Cape Maclear

On Friday morning, the mixed group of about 16 children in different age, guided by three teachers and me, went to the lake shore and visited the Lake Malawi National Park at Cape Maclear. After an introduction by the park ranger about the history of the park, he was giving us a tour through the museum of the park.   

He talked about the plenty of endemic fish species living in Lake Malawi and the other animals living animals there. He asked a lot of things and let the children explain what they already knew and he added the missing information. The highlight of the tour in the museum was a door with a sign on it, which says: BEWARE! The most destructive animal alive is inside: proceed with caution. After guessing about what could be there behind it, the kids opened the door. There was a mirror behind it – Hope, you get it as well.

The ranger added that it is, nowadays, very important to protect the nature and take care of our environment. We went on to the forest, where we got shown the typical trees, like Baobab, and we should try to surround the biggest tree. The result you can see below:

At the end of our tour we got to the lake shore and could observe some of the endemic fish species and the astonishing rock formations at the Otter’s Point. Our tour ended there. For myself, I guess it was full of fun and very interesting for the children to see the all the sites. So lovely to see them asking questions and trying to get the right answers. I think they have learned quite a lot and will not forget this trip. Finally, I was happy to be part of it and got the chance to accompany them.

Below you can find some more impressions of that trip:

Running up the hill: Who will be the fastest?

Remains of animals found in the park. Part of it: a 4.5 Meter long skin from a python.

The kids are watching the rare and endemic fishes in Lake Malawi.

View at Otter’s point.

Group picture at Otter’s Point.

Another group picture at Otter’s Point.