The Route and Its Branches
Crossing the steep terrain of the lower Luangwa valley was a major challenge. The 1929 track was usually closed in the rainy season, and so the first Luangwa Bridge was built in 1932 with funding from the Beit Trust. On the eastern side, once the road had climbed up the difficult terrain onto the Luangwa-Zambezi watershed at Nyimba, Petauke, and Katete, the going is easier. Chipata is reached 605 km from Lusaka and the road goes on to the Malawian border 20 km further on, where it connects via Mchinji to the Malawian capital of Lilongwe, just 90 km from Chipata.
In addition to its east-west Lusaka-Malawi axis, the Great East Road links north to Lundazi, north-west to the South Luangwa National Park, south-east to Mozambique, and, in Lusaka Province, south to the Lower Zambezi National Park and the town of Luangwa at the Luangwa-Zambezi river confluence. In the 1960s the Great East road was paved, opening up the Luangwa Valley (and to some extent, Lake Malawi) to tourism. At times the surface has deteriorated considerably. The section between Katete and the Luangwa Bridge was repaired and reconstructed around 2002/3.
Read more about this topic: Great East Road
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