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Southwardbound Itinerary 2007
Here it is finally, as promised on our home page, the planning masterpiece is finally complete! It will be interesting to see at the end of the trip how close we stuck to this proposed itinerary! We will have to wait and see……? It has us finishing the trip to Windhoek in just under 6 months which is about bang on & about 6 & a half months by the time we have visited Cape Town and made our way down the Garden Route to PE/Bushman’s River Mouth – perhaps a bit sooner as it will be winter in SA!
As mentioned on the home page the purpose of sharing this itinerary is to try and encourage as many of you as possible to meet up with us along the way. So start planning your trips now – whether you want to fly in somewhere or drive up, let us know, give us as much notice as possible and we will do everything in our power to meet up, provided they are as near as possible to our “window” dates which follow.
Briefly our itinerary is fairly cast in stone up until the start of Egypt which should be around 16th April. (due to our visa dates for Algeria) From then on it becomes more and more flexible as you factor in all the unknowns. For example we have allowed an extra week in Egypt (now 3 instead of 2) so we don’t have to rush to catch the weekly Monday ferry from Aswan and so we can chill out and de-stress on the Red Sea & hopefully catch up with a mate. Also a main factor in determining our southern African route will be the availability of the vehicle ferry from Tanzania to Mozambique near Mtwara (I have heard rumors from travelers on the trip that the company who was operating this ferry no longer exists) Ons sall sien? This will leave us with an A and a B option! Here we go then:
- 31st Jan: Leave LONDON for PORTSMOUTH (UK)
- 01st Feb: Ferry to SPAIN (booked)
- 02nd – 07th Feb: SPAIN via Bilbao, San Sebastian, Madrid & Algecieras
- 08th Feb: Ferry to Morocco (not booked)
- 08th – 19th Feb: MOROCCO via Ceuta, Chefchouan, Fez, Casablanca, Marakech, Agadir, Tinzit, Laayoune & Dakla
- 20th – 25th Feb: MAURITANIA via Nouadhibou, Nouakchott, (or via Atar depending on coastal route vs train line route? TBC) & Nema
- 25th Feb – 06th March: MALI via Bamako, Tombouctou & Gao
- 06th – 13th March: NIGER via Niamey, Agadez & Arlit
- 14th – 28th March: ALGERIA via In/Ain-Guezzam, Tamanrasset, Assekrem, Immidir, In Salah, Ghardaia & Taleb Larbi
- 29th March – 10th April: TUNISIA mainly in Tunis. We have 7-10 days here waiting for our Libyan transit visas to come through doing not a great deal besides servicing our Land Rover, emailing etc. so please come and entertain us!!! Cheap flights and hotels from the UK and warmish weather… what do you recon?
- 11th – 15th April: LIBYA via Tripoli (Gunt, try plan your business trip to Tripoli (get it? He, he…) somewhere in between these dates if you can!
- 16th April – 07th May: EGYPT via Cairo, Red Sea, Cairo again, Luxor & Aswan. Approx. dates for Cairo around 18/04 & then again 26th&27th/04. Red Sea 20th – 24th April which is over a weekend so should see Owen & maybe even persuade Rory to fly in? What do you recon royo? NB, possibility of shortening Egypt from 3 weeks to 2 but this would be a huge rush to get down to Aswan to make the ferry so would rather leave it at 3 for now – TBC
- 07th – 08th/09th May: Ferry Aswan to Wadi Halfa/SUDAN (not booked)
- 10th -18th May: SUDAN via Wadi Halfa, Atbara, (route still to be confirmed i.e. “westerly” desert loop or “easterly route following train tracks) Khartoum & Gedaref. NB, approx dates for Khartoum are 13th – 16th May (for servicing & repairs & shopping) if anyone happens to around? Unlikely, but you never know!
- 19th – 31st May: ETHIOPIA via Gonder, north to Simean Mountains National Park, back south to Lake Tana via Gonder again, Lalibela, Dese, Addis Abeba & Moyale. Approx dates for Addis, again if anyone happens to be around could be 27th – 30th depending on whether there are any repairs to be done to the vehicle (not a service interval) so might be able to shave off a day or 2 if not, but from what I have heard about the roads in Ethiopia they do seem to do break vehicles.
- 01st – approx 07th June: KENYA via Marsabit Nat Park, Isiolo, Nairobi & then Masi Mara/Serengeti into TANZANIA. Note we will do this route if possible preferably to heading straight down in one day to Arusha in Tanzania from Nairobi and then back up to Serengeti from Arusha. However if anyone jets in to Arusha we can come straight down and meet you here and then go on safari through National Parks/Mnt Kilamanjaro etc together! Let us know if you keen???
- Approx 08th – 26th June: TANZANIA (incl 1 week on ZANZIBAR) via Ngorogoro Crater, Arusha/Moshi, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Dar again & Mtwara. We should be in Dar around 13th /06, Zanzibar from 14-20th /06 and Dar again for a few days after until about 23rd. So for those that are keen on Zanzibar (I know there are some) see if you can sort something as close to these dates as possible!
What follows is OPTION A depending if the road south from Dar along the coast is drivable (not passable in rainy season) and whether vehicle ferry is operating across the Ruvuma River near Mtwara.
· 27th June – 06th July: MOZAMBIQUE – north Mozambique coast via Mocimboa da Praia, Pemba, Nacala, Nampula & Blantyre/(MALAWI)
· 7th – 14th July: MALAWI via Blantyre, Lake Malawi & Lilongwe. We will be spending 5 or 6 days along the southern part of Lake Malawi (hopefully visiting my cousin Craig) between 8th & 13th July.
· 15th – 22nd July: ZAMBIA via Chipata, South Luangwa Nat Park, Lusaka & Livingstone for a couple of days at Vic Falls!
· 23rd – end July/early August: NAMIBIA via Caprivi, Rundu, Otjiwirongo etc to Windhoek. Arriving approx around 27th/28th July in Windhoek. Rest of itinerary in Namibia to be decided – play in by ear!
· Maybe arrive in Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA around 5th/6th August & PE/Bushmans around 12th/13th August TBC
Going back to Dar es Salaam in TANZANIA above, if option A is not an option, OPTION B would be to go south east from Dar, via Mbeya (approx 28th June), cross into MALAWI at the northern tip of Lake Malawi spending about a week traveling down the west coast of the lake Malawi (Nkhata Bay etc) towards Blantyre (05th July). Then cross into Mozambique heading south towards Quelimane or Beira, Inhambane & Maputo stopping at various other places inbetween. Approx 2 weeks in Mozambique before crossing into RSA through SWAZILAND around 19th July. Then probably up to JHB for a few days visiting mates till the 24th July before crossing BOTSWANA on the Trans Kalahari Highway heading towards NAMIBIA and Windhoek, arriving around the 26th/27th /28th July i.e. around the same time as OPTION A above. From here continue as above.
That’s it. So we hope to see some of you somewhere along the way.
Try and email us first to confirm before making definite plans, but if not go for it anway, I’m sure you’ll have a blast anyway & if luck would have it we may even turn up on time as above… (chances….?????) We will see.
Thanks for reading
Cheers
Rob & Inga
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