The Clyde-built MV Ilalia is a legend, but don’t expect trouble-free passage.

Around noon on the third day of our voyage on the MV Ilala I realise I have something in common with the illustrious Scottish explorer who, indirectly, gave the ferry its name. Like David Livingstone, I’m not going to make it to the north end of Lake Malawi. Does it ­matter? Surely it’s more important that all the giant cartons of dried fish reach the market at Nkhata Bay?

Beyond the bay towering mountains compress the lake between their cliffs and waterfalls plummet from giddy heights. There, I’m told, Lake Malawi offers some of the most magnificent scenery in Africa, but I see nothing of this splendour. Scuppered by a fault in its steering system the Ilala abandons the northern leg of its weekly circuit and potters back to its home port of Monkey Bay. But my disappointment is as nothing to Dr Livingstone’s frustration: “This is the first time I have ever returned without accomplishing all I set out to do,” he recorded testily.

The lake lifeline and local legend which is the Ilala, the sturdy, travel-stained, Clyde-built workhorse which has been serving Malawians for 60 years, is not the most precise of timekeepers. No tourist on a tight schedule should dream of booking a passage, and not many do. But this year is the 150th anniversary of Livingstone’s first glimpse of the inland sea which the locals called Nyasa, “great water”. It’s my ambition to celebrate the occasion with four nights on the famous ferry, before dropping in at Likoma Island to enjoy Kaya Mawa, one of Lake Malawi’s resort hot spots.

When, in 1859, the missionary-explorer sailed and tramped up the valley of the Shire River from its confluence with the Zambezi he found a “lake of stars” brimming with misery. The third largest of the Rift Valley lakes was a desperate place – a staging post on the slave trails from the headwaters of the Congo to the Indian Ocean. Its villages were ravaged by the trade, its most bellicose tribes, the Yao and Ngoni, were enthusiastic collaborators with Arab slavemasters, and the town of Nkhotakota had the largest slave emporium west of Zanzibar.

Livingstone was so dispirited by the cowed population and the presence of slave caravans that it was almost two years before he returned to chart the lake. From the high southern promontory of Cape Maclear, which he named for his geographer friend Thomas Maclear, he sailed as far as Nkhata Bay, where he and his company were threatened by war parties of Ngoni. In fear of their lives they saw the lake narrow between the mountains and persuaded themselves they were near its northern end. Livingstone turned back, underestimating its length by some 100 miles. He never discovered that the “calendar lake” is about 365 miles long and 52 wide.

For all the obstacles the driven doctor had come back with a plan. Nyasa would become his promised land – a beachhead for the twin forces of Christianity and commerce which would outlaw slavery for ever. He died in 1873 in the district of Ilala, in present-day Zambia, without seeing see this vision fulfilled, but two years later a ship steamed into the lake carrying men who would honour Livingstone’s name throughout “Nyasaland”, founding missions called Livingstonia and Blantyre, and forging links with Scotland which persist today. This ship was the first Ilala.

There have been successors ever since. Today’s ferry was built in 1949 at Scotstoun, dispatched in pieces by ship, road and rail and reassembled. Since then the British colony of Nyasaland has become independent Malawi, freed itself from the oppressive regime of Dr Hastings Banda, survived the dubious attentions of Madonna and recently enjoyed stable government and modest economic growth. In a low-key way it has also turned itself into one of the most appealing tourist destinations in sub-Saharan Africa, where Livingstone’s lake of stars, now at peace with its people, shares most of its eastern shore with Mozambique and Tanzania.

Cape Maclear is about four hours’ drive from the capital, Lilongwe, and we spend the night near Monkey Bay at Club Makokolo, one of the leading resorts, arriving in time to enjoy its sumptuous avenues of bougainvillea and watch the sun set. With me is my daughter Catherine, who is between jobs in Zambia and South Africa and is a source of inside information: she has already sailed on the Ilala and has warned me not to expect luxury, even for its “cabin-class” passengers.

We have been grandly booked into the Owner’s Cabin, which is the only one of six double cabins which has windows and en suite facilities. The Ilala weighs 620 tons and carries 100 tons of cargo and 428 passengers, most of them crammed into the lowest of the three decks with a rich assortment of baggage: everything from polythene-wrapped mattresses – a sign of the times, as prospering Malawians exchange their sleeping mats for beds – to chickens.

The ferry is their lake “bus”, and in the case of the islands of Likoma and Chizumulu their only link to the mainland. At most ports of call there is no harbour, and the transfer of people and goods between ferry and beach, sometimes in the dark, is carried out by two small lighters; a perfected exercise in organised chaos conducted to a cacophony of Chichewa, the national language.

“The last time I was in Malawi,” I tell Catherine, “I met a backpacker who fell between the lighter and the hull while she was disembarking. She was plucked out of the water by three pairs of arms before she had time to feel frightened.”

The social hub of the Ilala is its spacious top deck and bar, to which everyone is allowed access when she’s in port. Under sail, the deck is reserved for first-class ticket holders, including those who plan to sleep under the stars. We meet them as soon as we board: four English medical students who have been working at hospitals in Malawi and Zanzibar, and are heading for Nkhata Bay, the lake’s nightlife capital. They have hired waterproof mattresses: just 200 kwacha, under £2, for 24 hours. Their neighbours, Malawian women on a family visit to Likoma Island, have built a little stockade of suitcases and camp inside it. We all adopt Kim, a shy young Korean travelling alone, and cosseted by Wallace the steward we make a jolly crew.

Cheers go up when the ship’s horn blasts on its scheduled departure time, 10am. Ropes splash, dockside spectators wave, the Ilala inches from her berth … then inches back again. Seven hours later we are still in Monkey Bay, where the young medics have passed the time jumping from the second deck to swim with the locals and the rest of us have snoozed, read and watched fish eagles and cormorants dive for lunch.

The hydraulic steering system awaits a spare part, which fails to arrive. In the 1990s the Ilala was given a major refit, acquiring new engines; she has ridden out decades of storms on the volatile lake but can still throw a wobbly when the mood takes her. The captain, Daniel Ngwira, has a card up his sleeve though: a helmsman appears at the stern and takes possession of the old mechanical steering wheel, the Ilala hoots once more and to a full moon climbing out of the lake we are under way.

The next day we lose sight of the lofty Dedza Mountains and reach the flat coast at Nkhotakota, where we are a full 16 hours behind schedule. I give Catherine and the medics a short ­lecture on the grim history of the town, and we marvel at the transformation of the lake from hideous slave route to productive workplace and happy playground. Three days into our ­voyage, though, we hear news that the Ilala intends to wait at Nkhata Bay for the elusive spare part. Fearful for our lodge reservations, we jump ship at Likoma Island, where we had planned to disembark on the return journey from the north.

I feel like a rat deserting the limping ship, although my last-minute scramble onto the tender is an entertainment highlight for our shipmates, whom we’ll probably never meet again but with whom we’ve shared something special. Catherine is already in castaway mode, looking forward to seeing old friends at Kaya Mawa, a place of exceptional charm; not least because you can leave your villa door unlocked and your camera on the beach on an island of 7000 honest, God-fearing people. As I watch the Ilala shrink on the shining surface of the lake there’s a silly tear in my eye.

The ferry may not last much longer. For all its wilful temperament, anarchic time-keeping and blithe approach to health and safety, it is a glorious relic of the Clyde. And she is her own life force – a quirky, chaotic testament to all that is big-hearted and resourceful about Malawi.

Before the Ilala surrenders its itinerary to any high-speed catamaran – the Malawian government has just bought the Robben Island ferry from South Africa – I make a vow to complete her northern circuit and raise a glass to Dr Livingstone.

Getting there:

While there are no direct flights from the UK to Lilongwe, Kenya Airways has return flights from Glasgow to Nairobi via Amsterdam Schiphol with onward connections to the Malawian capital from £687pp. Visit www.kenya-airways.com or call 020 8283 1818.

Where to stay:

Lake Malawi has a range of resort accommodation from budget to luxury. High-end lodges include Kaya Mawa (www.kayamawa.com) and Club Makokolo (www.clubmak.com). Africa Travel, who arrange tailor-made holidays to east and southern Africa, offer one night at Club Makokolo, one night aboard the MV Ilala and three nights at Kaya Mawa from £2095pp, based on two sharing. This includes all transfers and flights from Edinburgh or Glasgow via Heathrow. For more information on Malawi holidays visit www.malawitourism.com.