Take On Africa

Here are some photos from the latest part of the journey.
I travelled south from Yaounde in Cameroon through Gabon to a small town called Booue. Having drunk some dodgy water and thrown up in the middle of the town crossroads, I thought it best to leave as soon as possible. This I did by taking [...]

I debated a long time whether to get a bike with a Rohloff hub, or a regular dérailleur system. In the end, not knowing much about bike maintenance and being inherently lazy, the appeal of a low maintenance piece of equipment won. If, in the unlikely event something went seriously wrong and the hub had [...]

This is quite a thorough list of how the bike, panniers and racks have held up and problems I have had. Most people won’t want to read beyond this intro, which is fine. I just hope that perhaps for anyone planning a similar trip, they may find some of these notes useful in helping decide [...]

Time to hit the hills.
Time to take on Cameroon’s Highlands.
Top Speed
I cycle out of Bamenda, refreshed after the rest. The road sweeps around the green hillsides and I look out down the valleys into the distance. I am reminded of an English summer on a crisp, clear morning before the sun warms the [...]

Uphill to Bamenda
End of the road
I decided to take the high road, up to the hills surrounding Bamenda. Told that the tarmac road would end at a bridge after 10km and from then on it is ‘a road is under construction’, I was unsure how hard it would be. The last ‘road under construction’ was [...]

The dirt road even turned to tarmac in the town of Mamfe. But Mamfe was disappointing and I didn’t want to stay there. Instead, I cycled a little further to the junction village of Basuo-Akagbe. At this stage I was still undecided whether to persevere with the poor roads and attempt the hill up to [...]

Scene 1
The dirt road from Ekok wound its way round and up and down through the thick, overgrown forest. Everything was big. Trees competing to grow the tallest, to reach out above the canopy and feel the sunlight on their leaves. Hillsides vanished into a mass of green where fast-flowing waters rushed loudly, out-of-sight, cutting [...]

Ever since originally planning this Africa trip I had wanted to see the highlands of Cameroon. The guidebooks say it is beautiful. My map shows the roads as ’scenic’. My map is flat. The countryside is definitely not. But I didn’t have to worry about that in the comfort of my own bedroom in England.
Finally [...]

Just a few photos from Nigeria and Cameroon’s Highlands….

Out of Abuja
From leaving the Abuja, it was nearly 600km and five full days of cycling to reach the Cameroon border. But first, back to Nigeria. I had entered Nigeria with some trepidation. I knew little about the country, but two words above all others I associated with it. Corruption and Kidnapping.
If I had confined [...]