Participants: Joni Chambliss, Rosa from Kazakstan, Peter Metzger and Peter Vibede.
Period: March 25 - 28, 2005. We travel Patrol with two spare tires, a full tank,
and a lot of food and drinks.
| Time | Log | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 08:53 | 823 | Lumley Roundabout, finally leaving after stowing our stuff and picking up Rosa and Peter. |
| 10:50 | Toke beach for breakfast and a swim. The beach is empty. It is Good Friday. | |
| 11:23 | 888 | Waterloo, where the Peninsula road meets the main highway up-country. We turn right(NE). |
| 11:51 | 932 | Masiaka. After smooth cruising we bear right in the roundabout towards Bo. |
| 13:33 | 001 | Mile 91. As the attentive reader have guessed we are now 91 miles from Freetown. The town is build around the junction where traffic from Freetown splits towards the North and North East or the South and South East. Today traffic has been almost nonexistent. After a quick stop we bear right for Bo. |
| 15:24 | 097 | Bo, the Tiwai Island Administration Office. The office is on the main road on the left just before the intersection with the road to Pujehun. It is clearly marked. The staff is friendly and was helpful with arranging accommodations in town. We fill up the tank to be sure to have enough to make it all the way home after Tiwai. It later showed that we could have made the trip without the top up. |
| 16:16 | 101 | Hotel Sir Milton downtown Bo. Le 50.000 for a double room with hot and cold
shower, fan, electricity almost 24 hours a day breakfast for 1 included. They
also have better rooms. We had dinner at BB George out on the main road. Food was a little boring. Found coming back that Sir Milton had a lot of business, and the food seemed good. A nightclub next door was a bit loud until 05:00 only interrupted by a quite heavy rain for the season. We had a room to the other side, so no problem. |
| 08:35 | 105 | Leaving Bo after breakfast. It was cleaning Saturday, so had to get a young police officer to escort us out of town. The thorough Police force had to stop us one more time before finally letting us go. We made a short shopping stop at the market in Koribundu. |
| 10:50 | 153 | Bandajuma + 3km. Left turn from the road to Pujehun, just after the asphalt stops. There is a blue sign saying Potoru on the right. |
| 11:08 | 176 | After turning left in Potoru (following the sign for Tiwai) and following the good bush road, we turn right at the water tower. |
| ? | 192 | At the ferry crossing for Tiwai (road ends). We were expected. The guys went to fetch the rubber dinghy. The luggage gets carried to the river. We chit-chat with the people and inspect their clay brick manufacturing and vegetable garden. |
After a break and getting ourselves organized in tents. We go for a walk in the jungle. Another group decides to walk to the beach. It is very quiet and almost raining. We do see a few monkeys, but have to turn back not to get too wet.
Dinner after dark is Joni's kebabs marinated all the way from Freetown. Very good. The evening goes with socializing with a group of young people from IRC(Red Cross) and other NGO's.
After breakfast with Italian coffee (Our small gas cooker comes in really handy. The one small blue container made a lot of coffee), a boat trip to the northern tip of the Island. We saw birds, monkeys and some interesting fish traps. Passed through a few friendly rapids.
Back for locally prepared lunch (actually in the village across the river).
Went to swim in the river late afternoon. A wonderful way to cool off.
Easter dinner: grilled leg of lamb, very tasty with plantains. The young people finish the meat later, they had the local dish. Camp fire with stories. A few went swimming later.
Monday morning, coffee and packing. We want to be early, as we have a flat tire to be fixed in Bo before the trip home. We make it across at 9 o'clock.
| Time | Log | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 09:10 | 192 | The vehicle is fine: no flats, all the fuel and tools are there and engine starts on first revolution. |
| 10:23 | 232 | We turn left for Potoru at the water tower. |
| 12:46 | 286 | Lunch at Sir Milton while the punctured spare is being repaired by my friends with the Coca-Cola container. |
| 13:42 | 296 | The bad road starts. We get pictures of interesting mushroom looking termite mounds. |
| 14:16 | 365 | Moyamba Junction. Bargains on fruit and vegetables. |
| 15:50 | 452 | Masiaka. No more potholes. We turn SW for Freetown. |
| 17:31 | 530 | Home. Went over the mountain, dropped off Rosa and Peter, unpacked the car, showered etc. and relaxed a bit on the terrace. Dinner showed up to be difficult. Faisal's was very loud, Nadia closed and the beach full of at least 100.000 people celebrating Easter. Mamba Point was open. |
Pictures for this trip is a small problem. Bird and butterfly pictures were shot with my analog camera and awaits development - next trip to Europe. I have a few digies for you though.
We will do this trip again, should anybody be interested in going. Compared to Kilimi-Outamba in the North West Tiwai is a much more pleasant experience - and what is important there is more wild life!