We get away from Selous River Camp at close on 08h00am and
say farewell to Belinda and Jason the Camp Managers who have looked after us
very well. We have to go through the Selous Reserve to get to our next
destination and we are told that there is a short cut and at the gate I get
some directions from a driver who is making the same trip and tells us to
follow him, but we want to go and find the elusive perhaps mythical wild dogs
so decline.
Well we do not get to see any type of dog, but Claudia spots
a female lion right in front of the car, we found it unusual for this female to
be on her own and within minutes Denise spots the male, both animals
magnificent specimens. We see a fair amount of game but still below
expectations, perhaps we are spoilt.
I am telling Denise which road to take using the compass as
a guide when suddenly we run out of road and have to return down our tracks and
we eventually exit the Reserve at 2h00pm, but with my shortcut in mind I do not
see a problem in getting to Mikumi by around 5h00pm.
On arriving at the village where our shortcut starts and
after asking several people, giving panado to a lady who looked very sick,
giving jelly sweets to a dozen kids we get on a track that could not be termed
a road, but we are assured that the track does indeed take us to Mikumi. After
a few kilometres we find that we are running next to the Tanzam railway line so
we bash on, the road track becomes a cattle track, sometimes almost disappears
and we think we see what are another car tracks, then we think they may just be
the couple of motor cycles that have past us going in the other direction, it
is too late to turn back and the railway must go somewhere.
3 hours later we drive into a ranger post, now for the last
hour we have not seen man or beast, just tse tse fllies that invade the car
whenever we open a window or a door and these little creatures have a very
stingy bite. The Ranger in charge wants us to register our details and in the
usual Swahili fashion tells us it is only 35kms to the gate, 60kms later we
drive into another rangers post and have to register again and he also tells us
that another 30kms on a good road we will see the park HQ and a hotel were we
exit the park and pay for the day.
Another hour passes and it is getting dark and we see no
sign of human habitation and we hit the mountains, Denise tells me there is a
hell of a drop on her side and we are going up and down steep inclines and
declines and it is getting darker, suddenly we spot some lights and it is just
before 07h00pm then the lights start moving and we think there are cars coming
towards us and out of the dark appears a boom that is unmanned and we go
through and there is the main road and we are a few kms out of Mikumi town and
we have not seen the HQ or the Hotel.
The drive into Mikumi through the Mikumi National Park is a
little hair raising with the heavy vehicles, speed bumps designed to slow
trucks down and save animal life, we have a truck coming towards us with lights
on full beam and there right on the side of the road is a couple of zebra and
we miss their backsides by a whisker.
Are we glad to reach Tan Swiss Lodge where we are greeted
and asked if we want to order dinner and it will be ready when we have had a
shower and freshened up. It is definitely double brandy time, but we made it in
5 hours and although we saved 200kms it probably took us the same time; the
difference in going the longer route is at least we would know where we are. So
if nothing else we set a record for being lost in two parks the Selous and
Mikumi in one day. We think the misunderstanding was that the persons who told
us about the shortcut thought we were going to Mikumi
National Park and not Mikumi Town
The outcome is that Denise has boycotted all further
shortcuts.
Have some great photo's will post at a venue which has a faster connection.
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