Limping to Mombasa

As soon as dawn broke I was awake. I hadn't slept well and the light woke me immediately. I looked at my leg and saw that the knee and calf were double their normal size. I knew that riding along this track was a non-starter.

As I sat in the cab of the JCB, I could see that the road had deteriorated further; Huge lorries were struggling to get up the smallest inclines and a 4x4 Land Rover turned over in front of me.


The Tanzanians tried to flag down a truck to get it to take me and my bike to the end of the track approx 1 mile ahead. No one wanted to stop, afraid they would not get going again. I therefore decided to try and walk to the better road where I intended to ride the remaining 300 miles to Mombasa.


With four of the guys pushing my bike and another helping me to walk, we made our way to the end of the track, taking an hour to walk just under a mile.

Mount Kilmanjaro

The road surface was better and, having strapped my knee as tight as I dared, I got on my bike, thanked the guys and began the final leg of my journey. After an hour and a half I was at the Tanzanian / Kenyan border. I limped from one office to another, getting the permissions and paperwork stamped. I asked about the road ahead to Voi and was told it was one of the worst and would take a couple of hours to get there. I decided I couldn't risk riding it - I only had to put my right leg down and I would have been in agony so I persuaded two guys with a small pickup to take me and my bike to Voi for around £40.

That was the best £40 I spent! The road was truly awful and it took nearly 2 hours to complete our journey. When we arrived at Voi I saw that the bike , despite having been strapped down, was lying on its side with the mirror and side stand broken. Normally I would have been hugely annoyed at this but I was simply relieved to have got there.

I got on the bike and rode to Mombasa, a fairly uneventful ride. I found a hotel where I immediately ordered a beer, then another before taking a long soak in the bath and going to bed.

The next morning I rang Humphrey "The Fixer" who met me in the hotel. I dropped the bike off at the port and he helped me to re-arrange my flights. 15.30 and I was in a taxi on my way to Mombasa airport where my luggage was taken from me and I was put in a wheelchair and wheeled to the plane. At Nairobi, another guy with a wheelchair met me at the plane and transferred me to the BA desk for the final leg of my journey home to Heathrow.

0500 and I was back home. It was freezing and standing (just) in a pair of borrowed flip-flops ( one of my shoes had been stolen some days earlier rendering the other useless!) I knew how ridiculous I must have looked but I didn't care. I had completed one of the most exciting, amazing and unforgettable journeys imaginable. I had also met some of the poorest yet kindest people in the world. Sure I had injured my leg but ask me if I'd do it again!