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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 9

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 9

Date: 2017-06-16

Out of Egypt and into Sudan, one of the least visited countries in Africa. After a crossing Lake Nubia arriving at the port of Wadi Halfa, we follow the old 1890's British railway line which General Kitchener's forces laid at an astonishing half a kilometre rate per day.

We make camp in the Nubian Desert. Chicken on the coals, the stars overhead, feet in the sand, the warm desert wind, camp chairs in a semi circle, it's an overwhelming sense of freedom. Tomorrow we will attempt to cross the vast, waterless Nubian Desert, following a line on our Garmin GPS's - it's a somewhat dangerous thousand kilometre journey. If we make it, it will reconnect us to the Red Sea coast somewhere near Port Sudan so bringing to an end the long detour we've had to make around the Egyptian military area and the disputed section of the Egyptian Sudanese border.

Ross is the navigator, his is the biggest responsibility - eyes fixed to his Garmin GPS above the Land Rover dashboard trying to follow endless wadis (dry river beds) in the hope they will lead us through the rugged moonscape and steep razor back mountains that run in formidable ridges across the dunes and gravel plains of a desert seldom travelled. After five days we are about to give up. Diesel and water are beginning to run low and we are shredding tyres on the ragged black volcanic sharks tooth rocks. It's late afternoon, the wind is howling across the desert.

Directly ahead of us is a narrow gap in the mountains, a dry riverbed, but it's to the North and the Egyptian border, not the way we want to go. "Let's give it a go," says Ross, forever the optimist. Okay, I nod, and the three Landies difflock in low ratio grind through the gap. We pass some nomads with camels. I stop next to a woman wrapped in a shawl, she has a leathery face and a gold nose ring. "Port Sudan " I ask pointing East. She shakes her head. "Suakin " I then ask, using the name of the ancient Arab slave trading port that's just South of Port Sudan. She nods vigorously and points up the river bed. Two days later and running on empty the three battle-worn Land Rovers rumble into Port Sudan. And so we continue on our journey to follow the outside edge of Africa.