Africa - BRIDGET THE MIDGET

The Difficult Bit

11th November 201115th March 2020 By roychinnorNo Comments

The drive from Addis Ababa to Awassa is only one hundred and ninety miles. The road is generally good and the hotel I was hoping to stay at, The Haile Resort, is less than a mile off the main highway. As is often the way the most difficult part of the journey is finding the correct road. Indeed the town of Awassa was only mentioned when we had been on the road for forty-five miles. However the drive was otherwise straightforward and we arrived at 11:30. I was met on the steps of the resort by the General Manager, no less. An educated gentleman that has spent some of his life in Sheffield and Cambridge, England he was aware of MG and genuinely interested in the drive. The Haile Resort is a gem of a hotel set on the banks of Lake Awassa. Associated with Haile Gebrsalassie, the Olympian athlete, the hotel has all the health and fitness facilities you could...

New Meaning to ‘Breaking News’

5th November 201115th March 2020 By roychinnorNo Comments

From Khartoum we drove 250 miles east to the town of Gedaref close to the Ethiopian border. The heat was not as intense as it was across the desert, but it was still in the mid-thirties centigrade. The road surface deteriorated considerably for the last one hundred miles and although Bridget has been through worse, it was unexpected after the great roads prior to Khartoum. On inspection of the cars that evening Chris discovered Dorothy had a broken rear leaf spring. By the usual MG good fortune a passer-by offered to help and whistled up a good mechanic within half an hour. It was arranged for Dorothy to go to the workshop the next morning and I would chase the British Embassy for the letters we needed for the border crossing. I phoned the Embassy and, full of apologies, they admitted they had misread the dates and thought we needed the letter the following week. They promised to e-mail me later that...

Aswan to Khartoum

30th October 201115th March 2020 By roychinnorNo Comments

You should be aware from the two previous bulletins of Chris’s misfortune although it has turned out alright finally. The dog involved was identified by a local vet treating him for food poisoning and was not Benji. The Aswan to Wadi Halfa ferry is not your usual car ferry as it consists of a passenger boat, a general cargo barge and a vehicle barge. The barges travel independently of the passenger boat, are slower therefore take longer, and as they leave at more or less the same time do not arrive until one or two days after the ferry. We actually loaded our cars onto the barge on Sunday and returned to board the ferry ourselves on the Monday at 09:30. The ferry does not leave until 17:00 and by then is a seething mass of humanity. It appears that every Arab that travels carries several huge bags of goods, enough to fill most small shops. So by the time the ferry...

Broken News

29th October 201115th March 2020 By roychinnorNo Comments

Twitter users will already know, but for those that do not follow us on Twitter, I am pleased to announce that Chris did not have to return home after all. The doctor in Aswan came up with an alternative course of injections that allowed Chris to continue on this odyssey and so he is still touring. A report on our latest adventures will be posted sometime tomorrow once I have had a shower and good nights sleep....

Breaking News – 22/10/11

22nd October 201115th March 2020 By roychinnorNo Comments

Chris Vernon has been bitten by a dog, in Aswan, Southern Egypt. He has to have a course of anti rabies injections over the next three weeks available only from hospitals or clinics. As there are no guarantees that such facilities will be available along much of the route we plan to take Chris has reluctantly withdrawn from this challenge and will return to the UK in due course. I am sure everyone wishes him well. No further bulletins will be available until the end of next week when Bridget, Benji and Roy expect to arrive in Khartoum....