Whyteleafe, Surrey UK to Cape Town

I took the short ride last Saturday from Kabale to a campsite on the lake. It's billed in the tourist leaflets as 'the prettiest lake in Uganda'.

There are a lot of lakes in Uganda so I suppose you'd have to ride round the whole of the country to judge that, but it certainly is a picture.
So here are some pictures.

First sighting of the lake. It's long and not very wide and its shoreline zigzags around a myriad little bays.

It's not very far from Lake Bunyonyi to Kigali, capital of Rwanda.
So here I am.

I've received many recommendations to visit the Kigali Memorial. But I was sure that it wouldn't be for me.
But again, even local people here say I should go. It's in nice grounds they say, which sounded worth visiting without going into the museum.

So today, not only did I discover that there's internet here at the Solace Guest House, I also went to the Memorial for the Rwandan Genocide.
It was still my intention not to go in the museum - I'd already heard what's in there - I'd just go around the grounds and gardens.

From Nyakasanza the next morning I set off south to the T junction at Nyakanazi fifty miles away. This would be decision time.
Right for the two hundred mile dirt 'main road' to Kigoma, or left for the tarmac to Kahama, Dodoma and thence Malawi.

Yes, we're back on the right side of the road again. That is, the left-hand side, where traffic should be, after the fastest border crossing so far.

It's not surprising this lake was one of the centres of 19th century African exploration. It's almost like an inland sea. So I visited Ujiji and the David Livingstone monument.

Some photos from the site:

Livingstone monument. Small museum behind.

The inscription above the outline of Africa says "David Livingstone."

Or - Scenes From the Road, Kigoma to Nyakanazi Return Journey.
(I've been a while without internet, and am now in Singida, roughly in the middle of the country. But we'll continue where we left off).

By the time I reached Kahama I was pretty tired. That is, very tired. But I found decent oil at a garage and inside the hotel compound was a suitable place to do an oil change, which was due. I've been living on this bike for ten months now, maybe four or more to go, so I realise more and more that discipline with servicing is the key, and when I find myself in a suitable location to do it then I should. Or must.

After Anthony departed, Christopher returned to say cheerio. I said I hoped to see Anthony in the morning at the music shop.
"Ah, I know where that is, it's in the centre of town. I'll come by here in the morning, if you're still here I'll show you."

Another thing I'm learning about Tanzania is that it's an 'early to rise' country. As soon as the sun is above the horizon, TVs and radios come on full volume, loud conversations start and the town is alive. So you tend to be ready to leave fairly early.

Just as I was leaving the hotel car park in Singida a Tanzanian visitor came to chat about my journey, and it turned out he was another civil engineer building roads.
"We're building a lot of new roads here, where are you going?"
I told him.

That roundabout in Nzega was truly a remarkable sight and I wish I'd taken a photo.
It was like emerging from dusty bushes and dirt tracks into a smart European town, a "through the wardrobe" experience. And really, my first thought was, "Well! What sort of town is Nzega?"

Some scenes from the Rubeho mountain range. There was plenty of dirt and gravel road to be negotiated, where the tarmac had been removed to place huge great drainage pipes underneath. This road follows a tiny high pass between the Rubeho and Udzungwa ranges.

After staying in pleasant and compact Dodoma a couple of days it was time to head off and explore the road to Morogoro. As far as I can tell, it's tarmac all the way to Cape Town now, unless I get sidetracked down dead-ends again.

A little before the Nguru Mountains there's a lot of volcanic scenery:

Then we climb up into the Nguru range:

I suppose the sun is uncharted territory, so here's another sunset, near Iringa, across the farms of the rural Southern Highlands.

I was hoping for an early departure from the campsite near Iringa, to reach Tukuyu in good time. But two visitors had arrived the day before, who passed by while I was loading the bike that morning.

Another simple border crossing, and here we are, in Rumphi, Malawi. And zero cost, no visa, no road tax etc. There was even an ATM next to the Malawian immigration window.

Very European in nature, Lilongwe is a fairly compact capital city with the sort of traffic jams that come as quite a surprise after following the lakeside road all the way from Rumphi and the beach-resort town of Nkhata Bay to the north. That road was all tarmac, with hardly another vehicle for miles and miles and miles between the villages.

Well, he said his name was Matthew. But as he was Dutch, he's unlikely to be Matthew Bradshaw I suppose.

I stayed a week in Lilongwe. There was no work to do on the bike so I did very little, except research the route ahead to Harare in Zimbabwe via Tete in Mozambique, and thence to the Great Zimbabwe Monument. I gathered a list of places to stay from the internet and details of the route, all main tarmac roads.

You see, I have no guide book now. The last one I had was for "East Africa" that Caroline left me in Nairobi. It lasted until Tanzania. Now I'm relying on the internet where it's available, word of mouth, and my maps. And maps of Africa are a movable feast to say the least.

To make sense of these last three postings, I'll mention that I'm compiling them as I go along, more or less, but have no means of putting them on this website.

I'm still in Chimoio, for three days probably, leaving tomorrow (Sunday 15th).
And like Tete, there's no internet.
But it's a nice place, different to other smallish towns, and a bit ragged in a well-worn sort of way. The best I can manage is to say it's like a place that lives its life out on the streets. And it has some atmosphere.