Malawi holidays

There's plenty to see. Effectively a 364-mile (585km) long aquarium, Lake Malawi contains more fish species than Europe and America combined, many of which have evolved in Darwinian fashion according to local conditions around the specific groups of rocks they inhabit.

But you don't have to be a fish fanatic to appreciate the beauty of this place. Within a couple of hours of the minibus-with-earrings experience, the bows of my kayak were biting into the sand of what could have been an exclusive private island in the Seychelles, albeit with limpid fresh water and associated bird life.

My arrival was greeted from the trees by sea eagles that looked like demon headmasters. On a rock around the corner, a group of whitebreasted cormorants lined up to face the evening sun, their beaks open and wings wide, and wherever I walked on the island I seemed to be preceded by the same rainbow skink with a jauntily skew whiff blue tail.

Although the island of Mumbo is uninhabited, this was no hardship experience. A walkway of planks led out to an offshore islet which was home to a luxury tented camp in true upmarket safari style, with fresh Malawi coffee and home-made cinnamon biscuits waiting on the table.

Adamson, who introduced himself as an "island man", chided me gently for having pulled up my own kayak - he would do that - and added that ice had just arrived from the mainland to "chill the greens" - green- labelled bottles of Carlsberg.

Mumbo is one of two islands in the Lake Malawi National Park with camps run by Kayak Africa, a company set up by a group of thirtysomethings from South Africa who've managed to blend the ingenuity of man with the creativity of nature.

The tents are on wooden platforms overlooking the water; you can lie in your hammock in the moonlight, listening to wavelets beneath you.

Kayak Africa's concept is for an all-inclusive island exile, with your own canoe, snorkel equipment and dive gear, and if you don't have a PADI certificate (as I didn't), this is one of the cheapest places in the world to learn to dive.

You don't need to dive, though, to swim with the fish. The majority are ciclids, striped yellow or blue, and they are so unfazed by snorkellers that you could almost reach out and touch them. Many species have developed curious personal habits, which include playing dead, holding their offspring in their mouths, and reproducing in a way which would have Sir David Attenborough struggling for a non-salacious euphemism.

(The Times, London, 15 Feb 2003)

Times reviewing Kayak the deserted islands of Lake Malawi