This 3100-km adventure is one of the world’s great rail journeys

All the way from Zimbabwe to Angola, music drifts up from the railway tracks in a steady rhythm. “Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh,” goes the metronome, then “throb” as wheels strike the track’s fishplated joints. Station names flash past the windows like lyrics from a song: “Kafue, Fubero, Kafulafuta,” they sing in tune with the train’s drumbeat. “Kipula, Tshinsenda, Lubumbashi.”

At night, I lie in the dark, sedated by movement; wondrous place names flicker before my closed eyes. Disembarking 3100 kilometres later, I’m like a sailor stepping onto the wharf; my body sways with the train’s percussion.

But a journey of this magnitude is never plain travelling. Pretoria-based luxury rail company Rovos Rail’s 15-day Copper Trail itinerary traverses the world’s second-largest copper reserve, which straddles Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The journey begins in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, and rumbles north through Zambia to the copper mining hub of Ndola. From here, it traces the Lobito Corridor freight line through the southern DRC, bears west along Angola’s Benguela Railway and terminates at its Atlantic port city of Lobito.

Funded by the EU, the Lobito Corridor has the potential to become Africa’s first transcontinental transport link, ferrying resources from the copper belt to Lobito. But it’s a work in progress: while the Benguela Railway has been rebuilt with Chinese funding after it was destroyed during the Angolan civil war, the line running through the DRC remains in a desperate state of repair. If anyone could tackle this stretch, it is Rovos Rail’s trailblazing founder, Rohan Vos, 80.

“In 2015 I came here, and I said, ‘Right, this is the one line that we’re not doing, let’s have a look’,” he says. “So I trolleyed it from Sakania on the border [with Zambia] all the way to Dilolo [on the Angolan border]. And it was pretty bad. But, at the end of the day, not that bad that we couldn’t travel it.”

It took nearly five years to get the necessary permissions; in 2019, Rovos travelled along the corridor on its journey from Dar es Salaam to Lobito. That itinerary has since been replaced by the Copper Trail, which took its maiden trip in 2022; now, for just the second time, it is retracing the route.

A splash of good luck

Victoria Falls Bridge is cradled in vapour on the day of our departure. From the patio of The Victoria Falls Hotel, my sister Jennifer and I can hear its namesake waterfalls catapulting into Batoka Gorge. It’s a fitting prelude to our journey: the hotel was built in 1904 to house workers on the proposed Cape to Cairo Railway. That route was never completed, but this part of the line is still in use; it skirts the hotel’s perimeter, crosses the bridge into Zambia and branches out like capillaries into the sub-Saharan reaches.

It’s late afternoon when we board the Pride of Africa at the station near the hotel entrance. The train glides out of Victoria Falls and pauses on the bridge we’d admired from afar. We disembark and walk to a lookout point for a panoramic perspective: the train, gleaming forest-green, stretches like a steel cable between two countries; behind it, Victoria Falls delivers its splashy benediction.

“There’s another train coming, so they’ve put a little pressure on me,” says train manager Darren van der Merwe. We hustle back onboard and slide into Livingstone for the completion of immigration procedures.

With many guests travelling solo, it’s a full house of 57 passengers from Europe, the US, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Among them are slow-travellers, railway buffs and people with deep personal connections to the places we’ll visit.

One man is embarking on his 16th Rovos Rail journey; he diligently tracks gradients, the fluctuations pulsing like a heartbeat on his chart: rise and fall, rise and climb, freefall down to the coast, flatline as we pull into Lobito.

The elephant in the room

Zambia is an infinite strip of celluloid spooling past the windows, our wood-panelled deluxe suite is a private cinema. We have twin beds, a desk and chairs, a minibar, an en suite. Entertainment-on-demand streams in through panes of glass: bickering baboons, fever trees the colour of polished brass, a tide of wild sugarcane in flower.

The Kafue River rolls beneath us for nearly half a kilometre as we cross the 120-year-old Kafue Railway Bridge. It’s Heroes’ Day, which commemorates Zambia’s struggle for independence from Britain, and the river is frothy with pleasure boats. But the cheerfulness belies environmental threats: drought, thirsty sugarcane plantations and, last year, toxic infiltration from a collapsed tailings dam at a Chinese state-owned copper mine 400 kilometres north of here.

“A great number of fish died, lots of birds disappeared,” says Rovos’ onboard historian, Nicholas Schofield. “There are schemes to try to clean things, but it is an area of immense tension.”

All along the trail, this tension between progress and preservation is evident. But a more elemental friction besets the villagers we see tending their crops beyond the railway: human-wildlife conflict. Some of the elephants orphaned in such conflicts are cared for by Game Rangers International (GRI) at Lusaka National Park, on the outskirts of Zambian capital Lusaka. Halting in the city, we take a bus to the park, where elephant keeper Matthews Shachishu is preparing a milky broth for his charges. From the camouflaged viewing deck we watch the calves tottering along for their feed. At about three years old they’ll be translocated to Kafue National Park, and eventually reintroduced to the wild.

“We also work with communities that are around these wild spaces because they are the custodians of the natural resources,” says GRI education co-ordinator Christine Malake. “Introducing them to alternative livelihoods, [teaching] young people about conservation … and basically helping them grow with that conservation mindset.”

Sabres of pink light tear the clouds to ribbons as we slither onwards. Beneath us, “the band” plays on: “Kapiri Mposhi, Filato, Chondwe, Ndola,” chants the train. The city of Ndola marks a junction on the Copper Trail: a detour by charter flight to South Luangwa National Park, where we scatter in small groups to lodges and bush camps for a four-day safari replete with those vulnerable elephants. Back in Ndola, a guest from the UK squeezes in a side trip to see the hospital he was born in, and the house in which he lived as a boy. His eyes brim as he thanks staff for arranging the nostalgic detour.

Water, wine and hardware supplies

The tracks quiver like slug trails as we cross into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For many, this is a forbidden frontier, a nation beset with war and disease. But the DRC is a behemoth of a country; the conflict zones and current Ebola outbreak are closer to East Africa’s tourism hotspots than they are to the province through which we’re travelling.

Still, I’m worried sick: my visa is yet to be approved. Bribery is rife here, but Rovos refuses to grease palms; instead, it’s working with immigration and tourism officials to resolve the fraught immigration process. And staff have worked miracles behind the scenes; pulling into the border post at Sakania, I receive the exhilarating news: my visa has been granted. Bonjour, DRC.

The Congolese are jubilant too: they cheer at this rare visitation crawling through the tea-coloured twilight. The sun sinks fast; the windows turn black, like a TV switched off, and the dining room tinkles to life. Superb four-course meals are whisked from the galley kitchen and delivered with orchestral precision by impeccable waitstaff. Cape wines flow as stations dawdle by: Kabemba, Kalenka, Kasumbalesa. In some places, trees mantle the tracks; Jennifer and I fall asleep to the staccato rasp of branches on metal carriages.

It’s Sunday morning when we shuffle into Lubumbashi. Vos is on the platform, fiddling with the pump used to fill the train’s water tanks. Water is a major challenge, he says. To ensure its supply, Rovos has sponsored three tanks further down the line, at Kolwezi.

“I told them, ‘It’s your equipment, but when we get here it had better be working!’” he says.

At Lubumbashi’s Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, incense mingles with the faithful’s rousing a cappella. Catholicism took root here during the Belgian colonial era; the city was founded as Elisabethville in 1910, when “people discovered there was plenty of copper in this area”, says local guide Michel Nyembo. The earth’s riches are laid out at the Malachite Market: copper bangles, malachite pendants. At the national museum, exhibits detail the region’s rich mining history. But not everyone can work in mining, Nyembo says. He gestures to bright-painted shops with hand-lettered names like Glory to Glory, The One, and Quincaillerie Nouveau Depart Avec Jesus (New Beginning with Jesus Hardware). They sell soap, beer and hardware supplies.

Copper mines, local media and a military escort

We’re behind schedule when the train halts near an open-pit copper and cobalt mine on the outskirts of Kolwezi. The drivers and their local pilots have inched across tracks that appear to be floating. The locomotive’s weight irons out the kinks, but the railroad is pitted with holes dug by opportunists hoping to find copper dust spilled from haulage trains in decades past.

So languorous is our progress, no one has noticed the diesel tanker dislodging from the tracks. An engineering headache, but opportune timing: the mine we’re due to visit is just up the road. Waiting buses ferry us to its lookout; the yawning pit is a counter-relief sculpture, its terraces stepping elegantly into the void. It’s framed by leafy hills and the blue strip of the Lualaba River.

The world is hungry for DRC’s resources, and mining companies are rapacious for its profits. But our mine guide is coy in the face of guests’ persistent questions: human rights abuses and environmental degradation have been documented in this region.

In a display of pomp, we’re accompanied on our tour of Kolwezi city by an armed military escort and a film crew from the provincial governor’s office. Convivial youths hustle us to the busts of Congolese leaders circling the pool at Rond-Point Malu. Even Belgium’s dastardly King Leopold II and Mobutu Sese Seko, a former president of the then Zaire, are memorialised with polished sculptures. The film crew asks to interview Jennifer and me: “What is your opinion of Congo?” they ask. “Are you enjoying your visit?” Visa woes notwithstanding, we’ve been met with warmth and hospitality, we reply; it’s a privilege to see this disparaged country from the inside out. We don’t tell them we’d been warned not to come.

Beyond Kolwezi, labourers are repairing a railway line alongside our own – evidence of the commitment by foreign and local governments to improve infrastructure. Garrulous children and standoffish adults pursue us as we slow down at Kasaji; from our perch in the observation car, we communicate with them in our incompatible languages. A man in a black beret and epaulettes addresses us in strident French. “He asks why we don’t get off the train and spend time in the community,” translates a French guest.

Despite our comments to the film crew, not everyone has welcomed this incursion: some have made offensive gestures, and a few youths and children hurled stones, despite the presence of Congolese security guards on this stretch. But it’s a fair question: to this man, we’re foreigners waving imperiously from the comfort of our sumptuous lodgings. I’m sorry we can’t disembark here, I say. We enjoyed our visits to Lubumbashi and Kolwezi, and hope to return one day. The man’s face softens, and he follows in a slow, communal procession behind the train.

‘Tourism is thriving in Angola’

The final stretch of DRC goes drowsily by and Angola comes into focus. The tempo shifts from languid to zippy: doubling its speed, the Pride of Africa makes up for lost time as it bullets across tracks sharp as blades. Traditional dancers greet us on the platform at Luau, terminus of the Benguela Railway. PPE-clad officials conduct Ebola health checks, and guides offer Angolan snacks of groundnuts, gingered coconut, dried banana dusted with chilli.

Once riddled with landmines and ravaged by civil war, the former Portuguese colony’s fortunes are rapidly changing. Since 1994, the HALO Trust has cleared more than 123,000 landmines. Investment in the Lobito Corridor promises economic advantages for regional communities; oil, gas and diamonds are widely exported, and tourism is growing apace.

“You’ve arrived in the best country!” says tour operator Elda Chilembo Haubner. “Yes, we went through a war, but it’s a very safe place, and tourism is thriving in Angola.”

Chilembo Haubner and her sister, Elizet Chilembo Kilombo, co-founders of Linken Tours, bring flair and joie de vivre to every stop. But while they’re clearly ready for Angola’s tourism renaissance, so few tourists make it this far east our arrival is newsworthy. The streets are cordoned off for our walking tour of Luau. The next day, at Luena, we’re trailed along tree-lined boulevards by journalists from Radio Nacional de Angola. The civil war officially came to an end in 2002, when UNITA and the ruling MPLA signed a peace deal: the Monumento da Paz (Peace Monument) soars heavenwards from a city park with two outstretched hands cradling a dove.

Wild mango trees are flowering, their flushed panicles echoing the streaked sky and dusty-pink station houses flashing by: Caifuche, Cachipoque, Camacupa, raps the train. The plains buckle and roll as we ascend Bie Plateau to Kuito; jaunty with bright art deco buildings, it’s the most elevated stop on our journey at 1720 metres. The strategic outpost was besieged during the civil war; 7000 of those who died were reburied at the hilltop Memorial Batalha do Kwitu.

“A lot of people were lost during the war,” says Chilembo Haubner. “These are some of the souls that they could catch hold of and bring into the cemetery.”

Baobabs and apartment blocks

A man stands hand on hip in a field on the way to Huambo. On second glance, the figure is a scarecrow. But the women idling on a plot staked with survey pickets are real: dressed in protective equipment, they’re sweeping for landmines. While the railway has been thoroughly de-mined, some minefields remain nearby.

But Huambo, lined with trees and pastel-coloured buildings, hums with optimism. “Eu amo Huambo” (I love Huambo) proclaims the 3D lettering at the Garden of Culture. A monument to Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first president and the leader of the MPLA, arises from the city’s centre. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi’s shelled manse, Casa Blanca, slumps on a street corner. The divisive figure was killed by the MPLA in 2002, “and the civil war came to a quite rapid end after that”, Schofield says.

The tracks glow copper as they twist between baobabs and sandstone monoliths at dawn on the final day of our journey. Palm trees fill this blanched tableau as we approach the coastal plains.

Clothing and sugarcane are laid out to dry between the tracks; the Angolan flag flaps above a mud-brick compound. It’s a poignant moment for the Portuguese guest whose mother was born in Lobito, and the Angolan-born German whose father is buried on the country’s seaboard.

Tick-tock, drums the train as the last of the station names flick by: Mina, Negrao, Catumbela, Santa Cruz. Our windows fill with apartment blocks, waving people, the heart of the city. The tempo subsides, the music fades out; 3100 kilometres later, we’ve reached the end of the line.

THE DETAILS

MORE
The Classic Safari Company’s 14-night Copper Trail journey on Rovos Rail, costs from $25,900 twin-share. See classicsafaricompany.com.au

FLY
Qantas flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Johannesburg, with connecting flights to Victoria Falls on Airlink. See qantas.com and flyairlink.com. Taag Angola Airlines flies from Lobito to Luanda, and onwards to Johannesburg. See flytaag.com

STAY
Rooms from $1110 at The Victoria Falls Hotel and $400 at the Intercontinental Hotel Luanda. See classicsafaricompany.com.au

VISAS
Australians don’t need visas for Zambia and Angola. eVisas should be obtained well ahead of time for Zimbabwe (evisa.gov.zw) and the DRC (evisa.gouv.cd).

HEALTH AND SAFETY
While the Copper Trail traverses the country’s comparatively peaceful, Ebola-free south, the Australian government’s Smartraveller website continues to advise against travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to the volatile security situation and the threat of conflict, violent protests, terrorism and kidnapping. The DRC is also experiencing an Ebola public health emergency. A yellow fever vaccination is required for travel to the DRC. Check with your doctor for advice on antimalarials.

FIVE OTHER EPIC RAIL JOURNEYS

Beijing to Tashkent
A vast section of the fabled Silk Road is traversed on Golden Eagle Luxury Trains’ 22-day Grand Silk Road journey. In the historic trading city of Kashgar, guests disembark for a flight to Almaty, where they board the next train for the onward journey. See goldeneagleluxurytrains.com

Paris to Istanbul
Fall asleep in Paris and wake up in Budapest on the first leg of Belmond’s five-night journey aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. The route winds through France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria before easing into Istanbul. See belmond.com/en

Sydney to Perth
Two oceans, three state capitals and myriad landscapes are stitched together on Journey Beyond’s three-night Indian Pacific voyage, a 4352-kilometre continental crossing via Adelaide. See journeybeyondrail.com.au

Vancouver to Toronto
The Canadian Rockies gives way to forests, prairies and bright-lighted cities on this four-night journey aboard VIA Rail’s The Canadian. Travel upright or book a private sleeper berth; head to the glass-dome Skyline car for wrap-around views. See viarail.ca/en

Pretoria to Lilongwe
This circuitous route twists for 3600 kilometres through South Africa, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi on Rovos Rail’s new, 16-night Malawi Meander. The trip includes stops at Kruger National Park and the Mozambican capital, Maputo. See rovos.com

The writer was a guest of The Classic Safari Company and Rovos Rail.