Sunday 8th March
Mbeya to Ruaha National Park via Iringa: Up
at 7.30, we had tea & toast in the restaurant. John ordered
eggs but they never appeared and we were on our way by 9am. The journey
is about 470 kms and looks fairly straightforward. Four hours later, we
stopped at Kisolanza Farm, www.kisolanza.com
a working farm with accommodation ranging from camping to the more
comfortable chalets. We hoped we’d be able to get lunch but the best we
could do was coffee & chocolate brownies. It was delicious
& we were on our way again in less than one hour. Next stop was
Iringa, only 50 kms away. We filled up with diesel there and then
continued on to Ruaha. That’s about 110kms further on. Just after we
left the town of Iringa,
we hit a gravelled road, badly corrugated. The driving was painful, the
disco rattled like crazy and we felt like we were being shaken to
pieces. It took nearly 3 hours to get to the Ruaha Hilltop Lodge, about
85 kms from town. When we did arrive, there was no sign of anyone. It
looked closed, and we did not have a booking. Then a young man appeared
and after a couple of phone calls, we got ourselves two chalets for two
nights. We talked to the manager on the phone and negotiated an amazing
deal of $45 per chalet, including breakfast. The views from the chalets
and lodge itself were fantastic, just looking down on the African bush.
We
cooked ourselves dinner, using the facilities of their kitchen, once
they’d lit a fire for us. We had our emergency dinner, Pasta &
Tuna. We’ve got lots of both and it’s perfect for these situations. The
generator was switched on just as it got dark & it was switched
off at 9.30 pm. We headed off to our chalets before then and as we also
carry excellent camping lights that we charge up in the disco, we had no
worries about lack of electricity. The rooms were perfect, a double bed
with a big mosquito net, an en suite shower room and a lovely deck to
sit on and look out to the bush below.
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| From Dust and Diesel Overland Trip Part 1 |
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