Day 18 | Kasungu to Lilongwe | End of the road Distance: 97.8 km | Terrain: M1 tar highway, rolling, return to Lilongwe End point: Vasbyt Campsite, Lilongwe | Listed on iOverlander | Prior booking essential — private property | Hosts: Stella and Fred No ceremony to the start. Just wheels on tar, head down, and the road home. The whole day was M1 all the way south into Lilongwe. Smooth tar, traffic picking up as I got closer to the city. I pushed hard. The kind of riding where you stop thinking about the scenery and just watch the kilometres tick down. The end point was Vasbyt, a privately run campsite on the outskirts of Lilongwe. Set in a large, well-kept garden that feels more like a small botanical space than a campsite. Clean toilets, a hot shower, a garage on site for basic bike repairs. Stella, German, and her partner Fred, South African, run the place. Big, friendly dogs that come to meet you at the gate, and bird aviaries housing parrots and exotic birds that you hear before you see. I had my bike box delivered here from my Airbnb host in Lilongwe, which made it an ideal finish point. Everything in one place: somewhere to camp, somewhere to strip and pack the bike, and people around who actually cared whether you were sorted. Vasbyt works just as well as a starting point as it does a finish. The escarpment was behind me. The lake was behind me. Gorode Pass, the tsetse flies, Marco and his single-speed, John and the school classroom, the hippos at Vwaza, the goat that overtook me on the climb. All of it behind me now. Just me, the bike box, and a cold drink in a garden full of birds.