RTG Southern Cross Daily Dispatch low-res - Flipbook - Page 6
15 February to 5 March 2020
Day 2
Hemingway’s Watamu to Kilaguni (328.8 km)
17 February 2020
Photos: gerardbrown.co.uk
A walk on the wild side
Last night, at the daily briefing, Rally Director,
Fred Gallagher, stood up between courses and,
like a wily old football manager, promised us that
today we’d be playing a game of two halves. Quite
what he meant didn’t become apparent till the
middle of the afternoon, but anyone who cared
to recall his words, was struck by how true they
were. Nobody, however, expected the game to be
played out on a pitch of such quality.
Kick-off was at the slightly earlier hour of 8:30am, everyone
was match fit and keen to get going. Yesterday had been
fun and something of an out of season friendly, but today
was when the real business of safari rallying started and for
Denis and Jill Wilson they were especially keen not to end
up on the sub’s bench once again.
The first few kilometres were on tarmac and led us
through small settlements and fenced farmland but, soon
enough, we turned onto the gravel and, with the dust of the
David and Jo Roberts, Triumph TR250
Keith and Norah Ashworth, Bentley 4 ½ Le Mans with Gavin and Diana
Henderson’s Porsche 911 coming up behind
cars in front hanging in the air, we began to experience the
real taste of Africa.
There was only one Regularity today at Mwaga, but that
didn’t mean that there was nothing to play for. The Kenyan
countryside was, at times, enough of an opposition and
some sections tested the crews with its topography, as
much as anything with a stopwatch would.
By and large though, the morning was, as we’d been told
to expect, fairly flat and, for most, pretty uneventful. There
was a coffee halt and Passage Control at the Crocodile
Camp, where cinnamon tea was one of the drinks which
the crews enjoyed whilst keeping a close eye on a vast
crocodile, lounging in the river Tsavo. A similarly large
monitor lizard was scuttling around on the shore.
From here our next stop was the gate of the Tsavo East
National Park, where our car registrations were entered
into their logbook and our credit card details entered
into their banking system. This is a vast park and one of
Kenya’s oldest and, given that it is set in the Taru Desert,
there was a certain irony in the fact that many of the roads
were currently under repair thanks to the unseasonal
and heavier than usual rains which the region has been
experiencing.
www.rallytheglobe.com
