Notes from a long bus trip...

We live in a BIG country, a big country that changes hugely from part to part! Take for example just our 'little' journey from here to Dar which we'll be embarking on next Tuesday...

We drive for 12 hours and the landscape changes so dramatically.... it’s a long way (about 900km) but it does keep it interesting. We start from Mbeya by immediately losing altitude (maybe a couple of thousand feet!) into the Sangu plains where it is very hot and dry. We travel for 2 hours through that before climbing slowly and going through the Mufindi pine forests (planted by the British I think and still used for forestation) where its higher, colder and greener. After 4 hours travel from Mbeya you reach Iringa which people describe as 'God's rubbish tip' (from my rough Swahili-English translation!) as it is strewn with many HUGE boulders! Quite amazing really.

After levelling out and driving through that for an hour or so (its a little lower and therefore drier and warmer but still green) you reach an escarpment that drops you into Baobab valley! This is a remarkable winding bit of road that drops another three or four thousand feet in less than 10km and leads you into a valley full of baobab trees! Here it is VERY hot and dry. After another hour or so you then climb back out of the valley and through the Uzungwa mountains (following the Great Ruaha River!). One our later you arrive at the entrance to Mikumi national park. Here the road is flat and due to your driving through a national park the speed limit is very low with lots of bumps... so you just sit back and try to spot some wildlife. You are very unlucky if you don't see at least a few elephants, giraffe, wilderbeast and gazelle. On our way back from Dar in December we saw all these, baboons (though they are common place!) and lots of vultures! After leaving Mikumi there is another couple of hours of generally flat green grassland driving until you reach the town of Morogoro. Here the road splits, north and back west to Dodoma (where we were for Christmas) and onwards east to Dar es Salaam. The rest of the road to Dar is a little dull. Flat, more cars, and row upon row of sisal! It carries on like this for a couple of hours until you get about an hour from Dar when it becomes much more tropical with banana, mango and pineapple trees. Finally you arrive on the outskirts of Dar and prepare to queue for the next hour or so to arrive at your destination!

The day after this trip we will be boarding our first of two planes and should be back in England in time for breakfast on Thursday! Here's hoping it all goes that smoothly in practice! To see a brief (and poor quality) video of one particularly beautiful section of the bus journey click here.