Regular readers will know that I was met in Grunau, Namibia, by no less than ten South African MG enthusiasts in six MG cars; two midgets, three MGB GT’s, two of which were V8 versions, and one MG TF. What they may not realise is that the round trip for most of those people was over three thousand miles each. To me, that is truly the mark of friendship that is always proffered by the members of the MG Car Club.

The welcome group was headed by Bruce Henderson, Chairman of South Cape MG Car Club, in a MG Midget and consisted of Ricky Cooper (MG Midget), Kevin and Jenny Loader (MG TF), Rob and Theresa Mercer-Tod (MGB GT), Stewart and Thelma Cummings (MGB GT V8), Alan Uzzel and Tony Escott-Watson (MGB GTG V8).

We made our way, first to the Felix Unite lodge on the Orange River and then via the border crossing to Clanwilliam in South Africa and on to Cape Town. Nigel and Joan Stokes met up with us in Cape Town; Nigel having driven from London to Cape Town over an eleven month period in 1970, in his MG Midget which he arrived in to meet me.

The following day we met-up with the Cape Town MG Car Club, led by Joan Parker the President, at the Crankhandle Club house. Several of the welcome group showed me around the Cape Town area including a run to Cape Point, the most southerly point of the Cape Peninsula. We were joined in Cape Town by Norman Ewing, President of the South African MG Car Clubs, who flew over from Johannesburg.

From Cape Town, the official end of the Odyssey run, we drove to Knysna, some five hundred kilometres east. Knysna is situated in a most beautiful coastal location on the Indian Ocean with mountains and hills bounding the land side. Although the population is only forty thousand, classic cars abound, with many Jaguars, Austin Healeys and MG’s. Knysna is the home of the MG Car Club South Cape and I was invited to their Christmas party. It was just the occasion I had hoped would occur, offering me the opportunity to present a commemorative plaque, from the MGCC UK, marking the African Odyssey run, to Bruce Henderson.

From Knysna we drove the last leg to Port Elizabeth where I would hand over Bridget to the safe keeping of a shipping agent until she could be loaded onto a ship bound for the UK. Bruce handed me over to the safe keeping of Terry Estment, Chairman of Port Elizabeth MG Car Club. Once again the MG marque of friendship was in action, offering me a nights rest in a place of safety. Several members of the club’s committee came to dinner that evening to make me feel at home.

The next morning, Terry dropped me at the airport and I caught the plane home. In a very short period of time I had come to enjoy the South African life style and climate.

Bridget and I had driven over eleven thousand miles through forteen countries. Since buying her in 2006, I had now driven Bridget in thirty-eight different countries and she has given her all in the effort. Bridget will need a complete re-build when she returns, from her floor panels to her rubber bumpers. Every panel will need to be removed, cleaned and if re-usable, re-sprayed.

With regard to myself, I need to recharge my batteries before considering the future options. I have learnt some important lessons on this journey; to travel alone, not to commit to timescale restricting appointments. I still have the urge to know what is on the other side of the next hill. I enter into these challenges with the understanding that in certain conditions I may have to abandon Bridget and return home alone, but this didn’t happen this time and so we were lucky.

I was deeply impressed by the work that CoCo is doing in Songea, Tanzania and how we could make a major difference to that community, with very little effort, and so I will be attempting to make that difference.

During 2012 I will rebuild Bridget and together we will do some local runs around Europe preparing for another longer adventure, possibly in 2013.

Finally, I want to put on record my gratitude and thanks to my sponsors Moss Europe and Scorpion Signs, to CMC LandRover in Nairobi who made repairing Bridget in Kenya possible, to the MG Car Clubs in South Africa and at Kimber House. I also want to thank those that have given so generously to CoCo just because we asked them. Most importantly I want to thank my family and close friends who put up with all the rubbish surrounding these escapades just because I want to do them.

Arriving in Kongola mid-afternoon I saw several signs for lodges but for some reason wasn’t particularly drawn to them. Just as I was about to turn around and retrace my steps through the town I spied another sign for a lodge some two kilometres further on. I drove along and turned off onto a dirt road following the lodge signs. A further two kilometres down the dirt road and I came to a collection of crude buildings, a sign stating ‘Car Park’ and what looked like a gateway. I was just about to squeeze past the gateway when someone called out. I asked which way the lodge was and he said to take my bags out of the car and put them by realised how fortunate it was that I hadn’t squeezed past the gateway, for there was the river. Being so low down I wasn’t able to see the water from inside the car!

This was the entrance to the Mazambala Island Lodge and as the name implies it is located on an island. A boat was summoned and I was transported to the lodge where I was met on the landing stage by the Assistant General Manager. He explained the safety rules regarding walking around at night and showed me to my cabin. At dinner, in the evening, were a party of guests that had seen Bridget in the garage and chatted to me about travel adventures. The lodge is a film-set piece of Africa with the classic veranda, safari bar, viewing platform and accommodation cabins. I was expecting Rod Hunter or Deborah Kerr to appear at any moment.

My plan for the next day was for a relatively short drive to Rundu, and so I decided to take a boat safari in the morning, before breakfast, and explore the marsh. During the dry season elephants come to the banks to drink and only three weeks earlier there was a leopard nearby. They explained that with the start of the wet season the elephants were unlikely to return as their waterholes would be full, but other wildlife would be about.

As it transpired there were some small Nile crocs, about although I didn’t manage to catch any on film. I did catch hippo, antelope and many great bird species. I had breakfast on my return and left the lodge later than planned, but very happy.

Bridget and I travelled on to Rundu, Namibia, a distance of two hundred and thirty miles. Bridget was still travelling well despite her ordeals, but on stopping at a hotel in Rundu I decided to check under the bonnet because she appeared to be suffering some engine vibration. I found that the nearside front engine mounting was breaking up. I also checked the front tyres and discovered that they were wearing badly, probably due to the track rod ends being damaged. I changed the front wheels with the back ones and hoped that they would last to Cape Town.

Leaving early the following day we set off for Windhoek, capital city of Namibia. It rained heavily for the first hour then remained cloudy for much of the day. Bridget’s damaged under side seemed to scoop up much of the rain and through it into the boot soaking everything, but at least the temperature remained bearable for the rest of the day. Windhoek was a drive of some four hundred and fifty miles which we completed in eight hours.

Windhoek is a small city by most capital city standards, but with a couple of reasonable international hotels and lots of parking meters!

In the morning we set off for Grunau, four hundred miles south of Windhoek. The plan was that, if we made it, we would meet up with the enthusiasts from South Africa. We arrived by 15:00 having stopped at a café for a piece of carrot cake and coffee, and we were still ahead of our friends who started arriving around 16:00. Having covered the best part of one thousand miles in the past three days, Bridget was working well.

The South Africans started to drift in from around 16:00, but had not had a particularly good journey. There were two Midgets, two MGB V8’s, one MGB GT and one MG TF, only the TF had problems with a ‘T’ piece hose that had fractured. They eventually arrived some six hours after the lead car, but were very philosophical about their misfortune. They gave me a terrific welcome and a somewhat needed lift in spirits.

I was considerably more relaxed the next day when we took a leisurely drive down to the border with South Africa and to a town called Noordoewer on The Orange River. Here we booked into an excellent lodge to spend a restful day watching nature and drinking the odd beer or two.

The crossing into South Africa was the easiest and quickest border crossing of the entire journey, discounting Europe of course. Once through the border we drove to Clanwilliam, some two hundred and eighty miles away, in temperatures reaching fifty degrees Celsius. That evening the day’s temperatures were the topic of much of the conversation including how well the cars had coped, although Bridget had been overheating climbing many of the hills. Nobody foresaw the problems that were to occur the next day on route to Cape Town. The day started with Ricky’s midget misfiring which eventually turned out to be down to a broken head gasket. Bridget ended up towing him to a service station where a breakdown truck was able to take over.

Then Bruce’s midget ran dry of water and needed to be towed by one of the V8’s until the engine cooled enough to be restarted, after we refilled the radiator. The problem turned out to be a small leak that only happened when under pressure if Bruce exceeded fifty miles per hour.

In spite of the incidents we made it to Cape Town, stopping on route for the obligatory photographs at Bloubergrant, taken by Bruce’s son, Ian.

Once again, against the odds, Bridget had delivered me safely to my destination. I have very mixed emotions about the whole odyssey, which is normal at this stage. There is elation at having arrived, sorrow at it being over and relief that I don’t have to consider the next day’s route. I have previously found that it takes a couple of weeks before being able to rationally sum up the whole thing, but I will post a closing journal shortly.

The drive from Morogoro to Songea was fascinating and I dearly wish that I had more time to spend in the area. Shortly after leaving Morogoro, with its lovely mountain scenery, we entered Mikumi National Park. Our route took us some thirty miles across this park and even though I needed to get on I still saw hundreds of Thompson Gazelles and numerous giraffe.

From the far park gate to the turning for Songea the scenery was really interesting, lush, green, several hill ranges and mile after mile of grasslands. The small round bushes that festoon the Massi Mara remind me of the wool balls that appear on a badly washed jumper.

The final one hundred and fifty miles from Mikambo to Songea were truly beautiful, and the first one hundred of them have to go in the book of ‘roads I must drive my MG on before I die’ However the state of the road deteriorated into potholes and some sections with the surface tarred and gravelled, but the potholes were not filled first, so what you got was camouflaged potholes. We arrived in Songea just on 18:00, smack on schedule for once.

I checked into the hotel and waited for Oswin, Coco’s man on the spot. He arrived just as I was starting into my first Tusker beer. He filled me in on the following days schedule and also broke the news to me that the models cars, so generously donated for the children, by Rob Gammage, have been stolen. I was gutted, but fortunately the children didn’t know about them and so will not miss them.

Primary education in Tanzania is available to all children from the government, secondary education however, is generally inaccessible unless the child is particularly academic, or from wealthy parents that can send them to private schools. Coco support a primary school that was originally built by the community, but which the government wouldn’t staff. With Coco’s support the school started operating in 2006 and now has some 180 pupils. The first of my photos in the CoCo Songea picture gallery is of some of those pupils that were due to take their final National Exam the next week. Failure at this stage can condemn a child to a lifetime of poverty because they will be unable to get a secondary education. Those in the photo have been receiving Coco sponsored tutoring to assist them through this stage. Pass results have gone from the around 20% to 90+%.

Coco also runs a secondary school with over a hundred pupils and also vocational training courses. Photo 2 shows the main school building on the left and an extension on the right. The extension has been built by some of pupils studying a building course. They are unable to complete the project currently as they don’t have the cost of the roofing materials, plaster or paint.

Photo 3 shows the woodwork classroom where the pupils make doors, window frames, desks and chairs, as well as carrying out repairs and maintenance of the school. The 4^th photo is of the tailoring classroom where they make soft furnishings for the school and all of the uniforms.

My 5^th photo shows some 30 pupils who despite it being their annual holiday stayed at school for an extra day just to welcome me as their guest. I also persuaded the staff to join in the shoot.

A shot of the schools science lab demonstrates the minimal equipment that they currently have to teach physics, biology and chemistry. The final photo is of ‘Oliver’s House’ where some of the resident pupils sleep. This house and the surrounding ground was bought and given to the school by Sue and Chris Vernon following the tragic death of their son in a road accident in Africa.

As well as schooling, Coco run a micro financing program in the community and adult education services particularly centering on malaria and HIV Aids. Finally, they also run a highly successful agricultural program teaching the community how to grow crops without industrial fertilizers, etc. This year the community sold over twenty tons of maize, a feat never previously achieved.

I only spent one day in Songea and it really wasn’t anything like enough, but Bridget and I have to press on. We drove from Songea up to Mbeya not far from the Zambian border which would lead us into our next country.

I spent most of the week waiting; waiting for others to do whatever they do and deliver various parts to me. The damage to Bridget, following our journey from Moyale to Nairobi, is so severe that all I can do in Kenya is to replace the parts that are preventing us from completing the run. The rest will need to wait until we are back in the UK when I will probably remove the engine and gearbox, strip off all the individual panels, repair, replace where necessary and re-spray the entire car.

The spares that Moss Europe have so kindly sent are a new fuel tank, fuel line, brake line, rear shock absorbers, rear light cover and a roll bar link. Locally, I have sourced a temporary windscreen replacement and a new exhaust pipe from the olive joint back to, and including, the tailpipe.

I have now been able to re-construct the probable cause of the majority of the damage and it was most likely that when loading the car onto the truck the operator used something that was not secure and as Bridget’s front wheels passed over the unsecure ramp, it moved creating a large a gap between the truck and the platform, and causing her rear end to crash down. This is certainly consistent with the extreme force that crushed the floor pan central tunnel, flattened all the pipes and crushed the sump guard, 1/8^th inch steel, into the sump, denting it.

I repaired the sump guard, two broken number plates, removed the fuel tank, broken pipes and freed the hand-brake cable that was trapped by the collapsing tunnel. This and several minor repairs were completed on Monday. The spares from the UK arrived at Nairobi airport on the Saturday at 11:55 but then Kenyan Customs bureaucracy kept them isolated until the following Thursday. The new exhaust was delivered and fitted on Tuesday and a plastic windscreen was crafted on Wednesday. This meant a great deal of my time was spent waiting around; I couldn’t even check over the engine without the fuel line and tank.

What made it all the more frustrating, was knowing that time was running out for the rendezvous with the South Africans who had planned to meet up with me in Namibia. I would have to leave Nairobi by Friday at the latest to have any chance of keeping that appointment.

Working on Wednesday I replaced Bridget’s disc brake pads and completed some minor electrical repairs including splicing the supply that powers the fuel pump. I also completed her service, replacing the oil, oil filter, topping up the coolant, carburettor damper oil, and checking the gearbox and differential oil levels. I also located the source of an ominous knocking that has been evident for the past three thousand miles to the differential. It is only generated when the nearside wheel is turned, and not when the right-hand side wheel moves, so I am not sure what is causing it. However, I am betting on it lasting until I get back to the UK.

It was Friday before the spares were eventually released by customs and delivered to CMC. I received them at around 10:00 am and started fitting them immediately. By close of play everything was ready and I re-packed the car. The tyres needed some air, but by this time the compressors were turned off and almost everyone had gone home so it would have to wait until morning. As it was I needed to wait for the banks to open to change some currency. Moshi is only a matter of three hundred kilometres from Nairobi so I had plenty of time.

The next morning I was outside CMC waiting for them to open up. I quickly inflated the tyres and fixed a broken connection in one of the indicator lights. Swiftly saying my goodbyes and thanks to all the people that had been so helpful Bridget and I pulled out into the Nairobi traffic. We filled up at the neighbouring Shell station and visited the bank. That took a little longer than anticipated due to the crowd gathering to admire Bridget and discuss the route, etc.

Leaving Nairobi was fairly straightforward, if you ignore the unscheduled visit to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Once we turned south on Highway 104 the road surface was good and we settled into an easy rhythm. I should have known better, not that it would have saved us, but after one hundred and eighty kilometres of untroubled driving I was more relaxed than I should have been. The first indication of trouble was Bridget launching herself into space before coming back to earth with an almighty crash.

We had hit a speed bump that was totally unmarked and shared the same dark surface colour as the rest of the road. It was almost impossible to see even when you knew it was there. There was an extremely loud grinding sound and clearly no power was being transferred from the engine to the rear wheels. I steered Bridget onto the hard shoulder and pulled up.

I knew I would have to be quick in whatever I did to beat the crowds. All that was needed was a swift look under the car to see that the universal joint between the prop shaft and differential was broken. We wouldn’t be beating the crowds anywhere.

Willing hands pushed us some one hundred yards up the road to where a mechanic was able to view the damage and confirm that he had nothing that could repair it. A local police officer continually fussed around repeatedly asking for the cars papers, having noticed there was no insurance certificate on the windscreen, until another local told him to ‘**** off’.

Eventually a guy with a Toyota pick-up towed us to Namanga, a distance of some twenty kilometres. I suspect the village mechanic phoned ahead because as we pulled into the Namanga River Hotel we were greeted by the local mechanic who insisted he could repair the joint even though one of the four bearing cups was missing. Finally he conceded that he would have to go to Nairobi to get a replacement, or have one made, which he did the next morning.

He arrived back at the hotel shortly after midday with a new universal joint fitted. I readily admit to being surprised and very relieved at his achievement. Two of his guys re-fitted the prop shaft and I took it for a test run which confirmed a suspicion I had, that the speed-bump may have been the final straw rather than the cause of the joint breaking. I had complained several times over the past four weeks of hearing something making a noise in time with the wheels turning, but I had been unable to locate the cause. Now with the universal joint repaired that noise has stopped. When I examined the damage underneath the car in Nairobi I had checked the prop shaft, but only the nuts and bolts, not the bearings. I think one of them was already very loose and gave up the ghost with the sudden change in torque caused by the car lifting off the road and then slamming back down.

Everyone assures me that from here on the roads are good, but I will stay unconvinced for a while yet.

We left the Namanga River Hotel at 06:30 and went straight to the border crossing some two minutes away. Leaving Kenya took some fifty-five minutes, partly because of the number of people to be processed and partly because Bridget’s carnet had not been stamped at Moyale where we entered the country. Once that was sorted out we moved across the border to Tanzanian immigrations and customs. Once again it took longer than expected this time because of me. My visa was valid up until the 19^th November, the day the universal joint broke and unfortunately the immigration officer noticed, albeit after she had stamped it. I had to buy a new one which took another half hour, a total of one hour thirty-five minutes for the full crossing.

The first thing I noticed in Tanzania was the standard of housing appeared to be better and then I noticed that things appeared cleaner. I have no idea of the statistics but Tanzania appears to be better off than Kenya. The scenery is once again beautiful but although we passed Mount Kilimanjaro I didn’t see it. Cloud totally enveloped it from the base up. I could have taken a photo, but one cloud is much the same as another, unless you study clouds (don’t know what people that do that are called).

The road initially was very good, another Chinese product I suspect. Rather like restaurants in the UK in the sixties Chinese roads are cropping up all over Africa. The rumour that all roads lead to Peking is nothing more than a rumour.

However having enjoyed the trouble free, speed hump free, road for over a hundred miles we then came to a fifty-two mile stretch that was fairly awful. It certainly reduced our average speed to around twenty-five miles per hour, taking two hours to complete and then another half hour to regain the confidence that it was over. I am convinced that another serious clatter with a pot-hole or something similar will finally break Bridget, so I am ultra-cautious.

I genuinely do not believe vehicles can have character, or any other living attribute, but Bridget really is something else. After the trauma the car has survived it refuses to calm down and just seems to thrive on more punishment. We completed four hundred and thirty miles to Morogoro even though the daylight ran out and, against all the rules, we completed the journey in darkness. Another day like this and we will be in Songea to meet the children that are the focus for the money raising we are doing.

I make no apology and I am glad to say there are a lot of people around the globe that have enjoyed this, and the previous, adventure through this blog. It is free of charge, for you at least, so I am asking you to please dig into your pockets and donate a minimum of £10 each for the entertainment that I assume you must gain from the site. I exclude all those that I know have already generously given. It’s not a lot but it will make a tremendous difference to the children in Tanzania.

As well as the picture of Bridget, there are some photos of Marabou Storks, a truely pre-historic bird, not unlike my cousin!! There is a colony, if that is the right word, of these birds in the area surrounding CMC Motors Group in Lusaka Road, Nairobi. Standing at a height of three feet six inches with its neck distended (the stork that is), it has a wingspan of around eight feet. It’s bill, or beak, is approxiamtely eighteen inches long. Perhaps a twitcher, not a tweeter, will enlighten me to the difference between a bill and a beak.

As I am checking out from my hotel tomorrow, it is necessary to empty the room fridge comprising almost entirely of ‘Tuskers’. When I say almost entirely I actually mean entirely. Therefore please excuse any excess of spelling mistakes, and rude comments particularly about anyone remotely resembling my lovely cousin.

With Bridget, willing and able, we are hoping to make Songea (approx.one thousand miles) by late afternoon on Monday. This town is important as it is the location of one of Coco’s projects and I will be blatently asking you for money. All the Bridget voyeurs around the world will be asked to donate via the Just Giving page at least a tenner (GB£’s not dinar or shillings, etc.)

From here on, communication is expected to become more sporadic and so I will communicate as and when I am able.

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When Roy and I left Awassa I was tired as I had run a marathon with Haile Gebrsalassie. He was good but I got ahead of him in the last 2 miles and never looked back. So, on the journey I fell asleep until a loud bang awoke me to a terrible clatter and the car jumping and bumping all over the road. When it stopped everything went quiet for a few seconds until Roy muttered words I can’t include in this report. Anyway, it seems that a truck going in the opposite direction had thrown up a stone and broken the windscreen and then we had driven into some holes in the road. Roy said we would have to put the car on a truck in Moyale, Kenya and have it driven to Nairobi.

I was really excited to ride in a big truck, but it did pong a bit. I am not sure what was in there before us but wasn’t very hygienic. Anyway it was night-time when lots of men started to push the car onto the truck. Roy had gone to the hotel and I couldn’t understand what the men were saying but one of them kept peering into the car through the whole where the windscreen had been. I am not sure what happened next but there was a terrible screeching sound as they moved Bridget and it was bumping about all over the place. I couldn’t see a thing until someone turned on a torch and then I could see that we were inside the lorry. Most of the men must of been outside as their voices were faint, but the man that had kept looking into the car appeared at the door. He leant in and before I knew what was happening he snatched me and stuffed me into a small bag. I couldn’t shout because it was so dusty and I was coughing and choking.

From the movement I was certain that I was being carried off and eventually the bag, with me inside, was dumped on a seat or bed. It was soft and quiet, and for ages there was no sound at all so I settled down for another sleep.

Most dogs would have been frightened by all this, but not me because I knew that help would be summoned as soon as it was realised that I had been snatched. If you remember, when we were in Turkey there was an attempt to kidnap me and following that a new secret intelligence service, the SBS (Special Benji Service) was created just in case it happened again. The SBS train with the SAS at Hereford and are very good.

Evidently Roy discovered I was missing and sent a Tweet saying I had been stolen. Although not even he knew it, from that moment the SBS swung into action. They contacted our agents in Kenya and told them to start making enquiries and a specialist team of SBS, led by a German Shepherd, started piecing together a plan to rescue me.

It seems that I was not snatched by professionals, to be held for ransom, but by a sneaky, greedy thief who just wanted to sell me. As soon as word got round that a European dog in an MG outfit was for sale our Kenyan agents were alerted and the man was identified. The SBS team flew from West London within the hour and arrived in Kenya some hours later the same day. They made their way to Moyale where the thief lived and fully armed with water pistols, spud guns and even two catapults, the team stormed into the man’s house. They found me tied to a chair, but still looking as cool and handsome as ever.

Roy had already left Moyale, so it was decided to take me safely back to England and Kimber House, where I am being looked after by Uncle Andy. So kids, don’t worry about me. I am fine and will have more adventures soon, thanks to the SBS (don’t tell anyone about them as they are a secret).

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 day with the letter.

With Chris at the workshop with Dorothy I decided to give Bridget a thorough check over and discovered to my dismay the she had a broken rear shock absorber. After some hasty text messages I took the shock absorber to the same place as Dorothy was and, between me and the mechanic, we disassembled the shock. The lever arm had become totally detached but we also found that one of the seals on the piston was broken. We couldn’t get a replacement but the mechanic found a rubber seal that was the right size and would suffice. The shock was reassembled and fitted looking good as new.

Dorothy had a replacement spring from a donor Hillman Hunter (perhaps the Midget Register would rule on whether this disqualifies Dorothy as a Midget).

In the morning we made our way eighty miles to the Ethiopian border. This was when Chris discovered he had not got an Ethiopian visa! The only way for him to proceed would be to return to Khartoum and attempt to get one there. I continued through customs and immigration and started the drive into Ethiopia.

I was heading for the town of Gondar, some two hundred and fifty miles away. The road is excellent although like all countries the roads of Ethiopia do have their own unique dangers. These consist of pedestrians and animals. Ethiopian people have no apparent appreciation of traffic and wander all over the roads rarely looking to see if there are any vehicles approaching. Children often run out unexpectedly and on many occasions adults walking in the road look straight at you but do not recognise the imminent danger of being hit until the last moment.

Animals are driven up and down the sides of the roads. Donkeys, cows, goats and sheep are all herded along the highway and it is not rare as you turn into a bend to find the whole road occupied. The most disconcerting thing I have found is that often the herder will, if crossing a road, drive the animals out into the path of oncoming vehicles and then stand back and watch to see if any are hit!

My expectation of Ethiopia, set by the media and in particular the famine appeals, was of a barren, hot country with little vegetation. In truth the countryside I have seen, which has taken in the whole of the north-west quarter of the country, is of very well established agricultural production. Everything is lush and the soil looks very rich. The scenery as a whole is nothing less than extraordinarily beautiful. There are many mountain ranges and hundreds of square miles of grasslands often depicted in films about Africa.

I arrived in Gondar at 15:00, quickly found a hotel and went exploring. There is a castle complex, consisting of what the locals refer to as six castles, but is more like one castle with five extensions. The people of Ethiopia are every bit as friendly as the Sudanese but there are the signs that tourism is making some of them more ‘commercial’, always looking to make a buck. Certainly not on the scale of the Egyptians though.

Chris e-mailed that he had arrived in Khartoum and hoped to return to Gedaref that evening. I replied that I would continue as per our schedule and see how things were when I reached Addis Ababa.

From Gondar Bridget and I drove down to Bahir Dar some one hundred and ten miles. The drive was without incident, but we were now around six thousand feet above sea level and the temperature was much cooler at twenty four degrees. Bahir is on the banks of Lake Tana. It is a progressive city and, I have to admit, my hotel was modern and very comfortable. The beer was cold, the food good and the bathroom clean. I took a boat across the lake to visit a couple of islands, both of which have Coptic monasteries.

That evening I e-mailed Chris and suggested he head straight to Bahir from the border and catch up a day. I gave him detailed information on the route and the location of the hotel. His response was that he hoped to cross the border the next day.

Meanwhile I struck out for Addis Ababa, a distance of three hundred and forty miles. The temperature was cool, we even had a thunderstorm during the previous evening, and the road started out as good as the previous ones. However that was all to come to a screaming halt at the one hundred and fifty mile mark. Suddenly the road surface undulated wildly and was badly broken in places creating large steps. It almost certainly has been caused by land movement and in some cases severe landslides.

Having crashed over the first patches I thought it was a temporary blip when suddenly there was more, followed by the total disappearance of any road. At first I thought this was just where they would be laying a new road, but soon found that this was a general long term situation. In total these conditions continued for eighty miles by which time Bridget was hot, bruised and very tired.

This nightmare run was however punctuated by the most spectacular scenery of the Blue Nile Gorge. This alone made the drive worthwhile even if Bridget couldn’t enjoy it. That was doubly the case when to get out of the gorge she had to climb some eight to ten thousand feet. The view for me was awesome.

Tired and battered Bridget made it to Addis, arriving around 17:00, but it took another two hours to find a hotel. As I arrived I received another text from Chris; he had crossed the border as planned, but now had a serious overheating problem. He suspected that he had blown a head gasket and would get a mechanic to check it for him.

I always like to say some positive things about the places I visit even when I may not particularly enjoy them. With Addis I make an exception. It has nothing to recommend it. None of the many international hotels I tried had any type of guide, there is nothing to guide people to, and none of them had a map of the city. I like to take at least one photo of every place I go and the only thing I could find in Addis was a Coptic Church.

I will be moving on tomorrow to Awasa and the last message from Chris was that he was transporting his car to Bahir Dar where he is hoping to repair it.