17 Feb 2011

17 February 2011
Woke up this morning to the sound of heavy rain, just the sound we wanted to hear. It is really lovely riding in heavy tropical rain!! We went down for breakfast at our very smart hotel and had a choice of spaghetti, pancakes, beans or stew and could order eggs, tea, coffee and juice. Wasn’t bad so we had a good breakfast knowing that we probably wouldn’t be stopping for lunch. By the time we had finished breakfast the rain had just about stopped and so we decided to get going. While we were loading and packing the bikes the woman from the hotel were all there to have a look at me and a good giggle, when I asked what they were laughing at they told me I looked very smart! In very muddy riding boots and dirty riding pants, I think it is so far removed from anything that they could think of doing that I must seem as though I come from a different planet.
So we left Singida with a light drizzle heading towards Lake Victoria and a camping site called Old Fort, near the town Biharamulo, near the south west corner of Lake Victoria. The roads were good for most of the way (Chinese have been very busy building and upgrading roads) but there were long sections of detour where they are busy with the new roads, but the gravel roads were not bad at all. We have now passed out of Maasi Land and into an area where the cattle look to be in much better condition and have the biggest horns we have ever seen. (Hopefully we will be able to post some pics at some stage soon) We also found that the last 100km or so we passed through some very nice natural forest, this for the first time since we have in Tanzania out of a national park.
We arrived at the Old Fort, an old German fort built in the 1800. They have added little rondavels and a network of rooms to try and get it to generate and income. Unfortunately they have spoilt the historical value of original fort. We have hired one of the rondavels, en suite, for about R50 for the night. The lady running the accommodation went into town for us and bought vetkoek and Cokes and that is what we had for our supper – all the vitamins that we need! Unfortunately the locals don’t know any of the history about the fort or the surrounds.
We had a long day, left at 9.30am and arrived here at about 5.30pm and did about 570km. Tomorrow we hope to travel about 70km to a small island in the south western corner of Lake Victoria, called Rubondo, which is a national park in the lake. Just depends on what the facilities and if we like it we may spend a few days there. Not sure of what our comms will be like, maybe non-existant. From there we will go to Bukoba higher up the lake and then into Uganda, hopefully to Queen Elizabeth National Park and Lake Edward.
L & S