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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (13)

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (13)

Date: 2016-06-24
Our hardy Land Rover adventurers are still on their yearlong journey to follow the entire Great African Rift Valley, and now, the challenge of Lake Tanganyika, Africa's longest and deepest lake. It's story best told from the scribbles in Kingsley's sweat-stained expedition journals

'It's been a dream of mine for many years,' says Kingsley, 'but we've never got in right and now there's a chance for me to board the MV Liemba, formerly the Graf von Götzen, a passenger cargo ferry that can you believe it, still operates along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika between the port of Kigoma and Mpulungu. The 1575 ton steamer is nearly 100 years old, built in 1913 in Germany, she was sent in pieces to Kigoma, then bolted together and used by the German Empire to control Lake Tanganyika during the early part of the First World War. She was scuttled on 26 July 1916 off the mouth of the Malagarasi River during the German retreat from Kigoma. But in 1924 a British Royal Navy salvage team raised her and she was recommissioned as the Liembe.

Now we get the good news that the old girl is sailing tomorrow, so in one of the battle-worn Discoveries it's a race against time to get to Kigoma. Mike Nixon will mountain bike the length of the lake and Ross Holgate, the expedition leader, will bring the rest of the Land Rover party South. Don't know what to expect.

Dr Livingstone, I presume

Kingsley made it and is on the MV Liemba heading South down Africa's longest and deepest lake. Mike's made it by mountain bike from Bujumburu to Ujiji outside Kigoma to the place where on 10 November 1871, H.M Stanley found Dr Livingstone and greeted him with the most famous line in the annals of exploration: 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?' It's a celebration and an opportunity to do more expedition humanitarian work in this historic area. No news from Kingsley, I presume.

Set deep in the heart of the African interior, inaccessible by road and only 100 kms south of Ujiji, white coves overshadowed by a chain of jungle-draped peaks, tower 2km above the shore of Lake Tanganyika - it's the remote and mysterious Mahale Mountains and the expedition team's next goal - still no news from Kingsley - Will keep you posted.