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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (21)

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (21)

Date: 2016-08-19
Friends in adventure, this is the second part of a series of 24 action-packed Land Rover dispatches. Off to find the Heart of Africa, it's a story best told in the words taken from the scribbles in Kingsley's sweat-stained expedition journals

It's midnight by the time we drive into downtown Kinshasa. Tomorrow - Brazzaville here we come - Or so we thought But the Government ferry - She's buggered! Pas de chance! Hors service! Out of service. Can you imagine two giant country capitals Kinshasa and Brazzaville a few kms apart across the Congo River, without a working vehicle ferry joining them. The Expedition hangs in the balance and in the heat of the Congo Basin, our patience is wearing thin as corrupt, greedy officials bunch around us like vultures, determined to extract as much as possible as we attempt to lower the 3 expedition Landies onto a rusty old flat barge with an antique tugboat to push us across to Brazzaville.

The big Landy 130 Defender, nicknamed Ndhlovukazi, nearly tips backwards into the river. It's dark by the time we tie up amongst the flotsam and jetsam of old River boats and ancient rusty cranes at the Brazzaville dock, to be greeted by the words 'No Crane, immigration closed.' We throw out our tents and bedrolls amongst our Landies on the hot metal deck of the barge that's become our home. We raise our dented enamel mugs in a salute to the crazy! Jeez it's hot, the sweat pours. Sleep is almost impossible, and next day and it's not over yet, the tiresome bureaucracy continues, only difference being, that on the Brazzaville side they're more laid back and friendly.