Whatshot
Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 19
Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 19
Date: 2017-08-25
The road narrows to a track, a man on a bicycle shows us the way. "No vehicle has been here for months", he says. We're trying to get to the mouth of the Rio Lurio, the beautiful river that separates the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula. "Yes or No, is going to be the question," says Ross over the radio, "but it looks safe up to the water's edge." We follow his tracks, the tide's going out. We hire some fishermen to peg out a route with long sticks, but it's at least a kilometre wide. Ross goes first, tires down to one bar, engine screaming. Gets off to a bad start, five metres and down she goes. I winch him out backwards - it doesn't look good, but now the blood's up - I hope we're not being stupidly gung ho. Another route to the left seems shallower.
Anna and Ross take-off in John Ross, it's four cylinder TDi motor screaming in protest, flat-out into the river. Sixty metres and down she goes, but really down this time and sinking fast. Rio Lurio water pours in over the floorboards, the clutch and break pedals now under water, the exhaust bubbling away deep under the surface. If Ross stalls now it will be a disaster. "I'm sending you man power, 23 guys," I shout into the radio. "One, two three go!" The winch cable snaps. We put on a snatch strap, three vehicles - one behind the other. "One, two, three go!", over the radio. Together we drop the clutches, out she comes.
It's last light, the tide has turned. Another fifteen minutes and we would have lost her. We move back off the high water mark onto a small reed fringed sand island. The mozzies are thick. There's no way we'll get across the mouth. The sand's too soft, the river too high. Seems there's been some unseasonal rains upstream, a man who owns a motorbike says it will take at least a week for the water to drop. This means we'll have to follow tracks upstream through thick bush past the beautiful waterfall on the river to the road bridge across the Lurio. Will keep you posted.