Monday 8 october

In the morning the sleeping matras is flat again, that’s a mission for in the afternoon!

The promised shower is not working, a bucket of hot water will do.

emmer

Today we have to drive about 200km’s , that’s quite a distance with these hills.

After a few km´s Dirk-jan is stopped by the police, 14km’s too fast. That’s gonna cost you 30.000 shilling.. @*((^$#)(

bon

With these hills the Ford needs to cool down, so we stop for a while.

In front of us is a big loaded truck in troubles, the have quite a big job to get it running again.

vrachtwagen

After a few kilometers it gets less steep and is more easy to ride for the Ford.

glooiend

A man on a bicycle runs downhill with 4 full cans of water. He goes 45km per hour, amazing!

fietser

When we stop under a tree to get some lunch, a few children come to us, Inge gets a Frisbee and we throw some with them. Real fun.

frisbee

After lunch Inge takes the wheel of the LandRover, and we are stopped by a roadblock.

Lots of business here, we buy some fruits

roadblock

bananen

Since Inge is behind the wheel, we ride a lot offroad, she runs it like she never did something else before.

ingeoffroad

Around five we arrive at ‘The old farm house’.

Time for a cold beer, since this journey Trudy drinks it also!

Cheers ma!

T-(ford)bone steak for meal, what more do you want..

biertrudy

steaktrudy

177k´s today, tomorrow we have a rest day.

DJ en Inge

Sunday 7 october

The sleepingbed, with no hole in it yesterday eve, was flat again this morning, damn…
Even though was a nice quite night. After breakfast we putted the tents down, Inge suddenly sees a piece of wood jumping… she has him on camera.

wandelende tak

Before we leave Dirk-jan cuts a couple of Mangos out of the tree we slept under.

mangoboom

We spotted the new coffee machine of the campsite owner so we had to take a cappuccino before we left. It was very nice and it almost looks like holiday.

cappuchino

Today is not going to be a long trip, but the Swiss man tells us it is a very steep road to go. After a couple of flat kilometres the mountains start. Dirk enjoyed the ride.

dirk

Along the riverside Dirk sees a nice place for a cup of coffee. Dirk-jan tried to catch the fish for the dinner. It will be a hungry eve.

fuik

bakkie

After about 70 kilometers we arrive at the Crocodile Camp.

baobab met auto’s

We can put our tents between two lodges and can use the showers. That is luxury.

foto tenten

foto geiten

In front of us is a big tree with fruits. The monkeys enjoy them.

Aap

blauwe ballen

eten

Today we drove 68 kilometres, tomorrow we go to Inringa

DJ en Inge

Saturday 06 October

Today we head for Mikumi, about 120km

Inge’s bead seams to be flat this night, with adding 3 sleepingbags it was ‘almost’ soft enough to sleep.

Before breakfast we break up the camp.

Tent

LandRover

In the village we fill the gastanks an go to an ATM for getting some shilling.

We assume that the truckdrivers get some extra pay for speeding up.

Kortgeredentruck

Aside the road they present a lot of beautiful stuff.

Sisal 01

Sisal Etalage

Tomatoes

After the coffeebrake Inge decided to ride the LandRover, its going perfect, Dirk-jan don’t like sitting on the right side without a steering wheel.

LandRoverTeam

Right before we enter a National Park, the Ford gets very noisy. Dirk can repair this with a piece of wire. Good job.

MikumiNP

No shooting

In the park we see buffaloes and monkeys, the monkey doesn’t like to be photographed.

Buffels

Aapmiddelvinger

For lunch we find a tree for a little shade.

Lunch

At TanSwiss campsite we have a very nice place under a Mango tree.

Dirk and Inge checks the sleeping bed for a leak, but they do not find a hole in it. Dirk-jan writes some text for the website and Inge and Trudy do the laundry.

After diner we light the campfire and Trudy gets her guitar.

Matjeplakken

Mangotree

We’ve driven 122km today,

Tomorrow we go for the ‘Crocodile campsite’

Kampfire

DJ

We get up early today,6:30. Now that’s vacation..

The mascotte ‘Kees’ from the Beijing to Paris trip in 2007, is mounted at the dashboard. He’s ready for it!

Packing the suitcases on the roof of the LandRover is like a puzzle, but in the end there is room left for 1 suitcase, good job!

At the parking of the Hotel there is a guard, who likes to talk a lot and is a big fan of the model-T. We make him a picture and Dirk print it immediately with the mobile printer. The guard is flabbergasted when he gives him the picture, magic. He puts it in his pocket and shows it to everybody.

Getting out of the city is a hell of a job, lots of traffic and all kinds of sailsmen around the cars. They sell really everything.


The reactions of the people who see the Ford driving is real fun to see. Big waving and smiles. When you drive behind the ford it’s nice to see this.

Outside the city we can put up the speed, ist around 65km per hour.
Inge has a shocking moment when a big truck comes right in front of her, he is on our side of the road with high speed. At the last moment we can go on the side of the road and we have to relax a bit.
Crazy African truck drivers…

When we stop for a cup of coffee, a couple of children come to us. When Dirk does a little dance they join him with big smiles.

When we arrive at Morogoro, a guy stops and offers to show us a campsite, when we follow him to the office, we have a nice 3km offroad trip. The Ford runs a little hot, and Dirk removes the hood for more cooling.

De T-ford krijgt het er warm van en Dirk haalt de motorkap er af om meer koeling te geven aan het blok.

When we arrive at the office, it seems that there is not really a campsite, but we can place our tent around the building, the folder says its only for full self supporting campers. The price is 30USD per person per night. That’s too much.

The guy brings us to a Hotel, run by a Canadian lady, 65UDS per room per night, but we can camp for free in the garden. So we put up the tent there.

There we had a nice dinner,
It was a beautiful day, we driven about 200km,
Tomorrow a new day.

Tonight at 2 o’clock the new team is arrived at the airport of Dar Es Salam.
The plane arrived 45minutes early and after a call to Dirk and Trudy, 5min later they show up at the airport.
Trudy is very very happy to meet again with her son and Inge, we also!

After a few big hugs and toasts with red wine we go to bed about 4 o’clock.
In the morning we (Dirk-jan and Inge) meet also with Jon and Renzo and we decide to sit in the shade of the hotel and hear and tell all the ‘strong’ stories of the previous weeks. This takes a couple of hours off course. During this hours Jon is busy with writing the previous days for the website.

After hearing a lot of beautiful stories it is time to put the new teamsticker on the LandRover.
There is no room at the hood on the ‘African side’ so Dirk finds a good place at the fender.

After the sticker is fixed, we can do the ‘official’ key handover, that’s worth a picture!

Jon had contact with his niece, she has a lodge at the beach nearby Dar Es Salam, and Renzo and Jon decided to go there for a couple of days.
After the lunch the taxi is there, so we need to say goodbye. This is not an easy thing, but after big hugs and kisses they take the cab.

After a meal with chicken that is not really ok, and a bottle of 18% wine we go to bed.

Tomorrow we go to Morogoro.

October 3

Today is the last day of the team Renzo en Jon, we drive towardsDar es Salaamto pick up Dirk jan and Inge (who will arrive early in the morning) of the airport. It is a short trip from Bagamoyo on a good road. After a while we arrive at the suburbs ofDar es Salaamit is very chaotic lots of cars, mopeds and lots of people along side of the road. For lunch we spot a quiet place, it turns out to be a military area. A soldier says we can stay but that we are not allowed to take any pictures.

After a short while 3 other soldiers arrive of which one is in his civilian clothes this turns out to be a lieutenant he demands us to leave at once. Dirk is protesting, Jon and Renzo advise to get away as soon as possible, otherwise we could get into problems, we quickly drive away. At road next to the main road we stop to have lunch. After getting on the main road we see that we were sitting only 500 metres from a SOS children village, that’s a pitty.

After several times asking the way to the airport we arrive at 15:00 the hotel.

This was the last report of the team Renzo en Jon, it was fun to write them.

October 2

After a final breakfast at Peponi we say goodby from the family Roberts. There is a small photo shoot of the old land rover of Denys and the tford. We thank Denys for his hospitality and we head off towards Bagamoyo, Simone and Sandra drive along in the land rover.
The road goes through the Sadaani national park we see monkeys and several roebucks, unfortunately no Elephants or Giraffes. The road is not very well but the tford manages without any problems, the last obstacle is a bridge which was just opened.
The last part of the journey Jon drives along in the tford 1 of the worst roads since the start of our journey, it was a nice experience.
We arrive in Bagamoyo, Denys had made a reservation in the travellers lodge. Because Jon and Renzo absolutely don’t want to make camp Renzo arranges that we can sleep in the spare room of the lodge of Simone and Sandra.
We drink several Tuskers and together we have a very nice dinner. Tomorrow we go to Dar es Salaam.

Friday, 05 October 2012

This morning at 08:00 Dirk and Jon can drive towards Tanga with a staff member of Denys. The wishbone, bracket and tire of the range rover go into the range rover of Denys. Arriving in Tanga we first go to a tire centre they say no problems to fix it. We drive towards the garage and we meet the owner of the place we give the the wishbone and bracket aswell no problem to fix it, it would take about 1 hour. We are dropped off at a local bar for a coffee the staffmember had to do some groceries aswell.
After picking up about 1000 kilos of stones we drive towards the garage to pick up the wishbone and bracket. The bracket is finished; the wishbone needs some extra work to be done, Dirk shows how the wishbone needs to be prepared so it can be welded without any problems. The welder welds the wishbone with copper it looks good. On our way we picked up the tire, Dirk asks how much bar the tire has it turns out it is not enough, the people of the tire centre say they don’t have any pressed air???? Strange story we put the tire on the roof of the range rover and head on. On our way we need to put some extra air in the range rover, Dirk climbs on top of the roof to put some air in the tire of our range rover after a while he reaches the 4,6 bar, an employee is getting on the roof as well he manages to get all the air out of the tire Dirk tries to prevent it, but unfortunately the tire is back on 2 bar, strange people those Tanzanians.
After an hour drive we arrive at Peponi all together we spent 4 hours. Dirk places the wishbone and bracket after 2 hours the tford is back in business.
We decide to stay an other day we don’t want to haste. Renzo and Jon are again at the swimming pool Dirk and Trudy get a few more tips and addresses from Denys they can use on their journey.
In the evening a last meal and a few drinks the German girls are very eager to drive along towards Bagamoyo we go to bed early.

A day of nothing, pure luxury. In the morning a nice breakfast, the rest of the day we are sitting at the swimming pool. Dirk is doing some maintenance on the tford he finds out that a wishbone and a bracket for a filter are broken. This needs to be welded; Denys arranges that we can go to Tanga tomorrow morning. We meet 2 ladies from Germany Simone and Sandra they travel through Tanzania we exchange our experiences of the Serengeti, their next lodge is Bagamoyo.
We enjoy of our day doing nothing.

After a good night rest, we are enjoying a breakfast and shower. We are ready to go snorkelling, after fitting the equipment we walk towards the boat named Pepi. We are the only 4 passengers together with 3 staff members. The equipment, food and drinks are brought aboard, it is nice sunny weather, because there is no wind the outboard motor is being used. After a small hour of sailing we arrive at the reef, the Anker is dropped and after a short instruction for Dirk and Trudy we go overboard the water is clear and warm. After several dives it turns out that the equipment isn’t working the way it should be the snorkels are leaking, that is a pity. Dirk has an old fashioned snorkel and this one works perfectly he sees some nice fish. After a short dive at the other side of the reef it is time for lunch. The wind begun picking up speed ad the sail is hoisted, this makes it a lot more fun, no noisy motor, the staff sets sail towards a small sandy island next to the reef. After they have created a tent which gives some shade on the island they carry the cool boxes with food and drinks towards the tent, it’s a real bounty island. We are laying on the beach and Jon is turning into the colour of last nights lobster. After an hour we sail back to the lodge its Tusker time.

Renzo and Jon are going to lay at the swimming pool and take an other dive. Dirk is doing some maintenance to the tford and Trudy is fixing the parasol which was torn apart.

At night again lobster for the men at the table, Trudy is taking the pizza again a great dinner.

After a lesson in jokeren from Dirk everybody is tired, quiet tiring a day of doing absolutely nothing