The guest-house may have been a bit rubbish, but we both slept quite well. It was certainly peaceful after the continual noise of our hotel in Karonga.
For some reason I have forgotten to mention in my last few blogs that I have been nursing a slightly buckled rear wheel. Probably caused on the stretch of unsealed road between Babati and Kondoa. This morning, I went to have a look at my wheel and discovered that I have two broken spokes! It looked like we would be giving any cycling a miss today, as I would have to make an attempt to replace the spokes and straighten the wheel. A job that I have been dreading since we set off; I understand the principle of wheel truing but actually doing it is a whole other thing. Working as carefully as I could, I am quite pleased with how straight I have got the wheel. I am just not certain how tensioned the spokes are supposed to be. I am not convinced that I am going to find someone capable of rebuilding my wheel this side of South Africa. With a bit of luck I have repaired it well enough that I will have no further problems, but I will be keeping a close eye.
The repairs took a bit less time than I expected, but we still decided to stay put, as did Thomas. We told him to go on without us but he decided that he may as well stay here. Knowing the way Africa time seems to work, it would be just our luck that the ferry would arrive early and be gone by the time we got back!
Some time during mid-morning the ticket guy arrived at the guest-house to tell us that the ferry had left Nkhata bay and was on its way. We are now expecting it sometime around 8pm. It looks like we wouldn't have had to worry about missing the boat after all.
With not much else to do, we had a wander down to the beach and dipped our toes into the water. It will be nice to get to one of the beach resorts, so we can have a proper swim.
By now it was midday and the temperature had risen dramatically, so we had a slow walk back to the guest-house. Fingers crossed that there are no more delays, because we really have exhausted the things to do. Having said that, I still haven't had a haircut, the recommended barbers has been closed all day, perhaps I should wait until Nkhata Bay!
A quick update, 8pm came and went and we were left sitting on the grass outside the ferry port waiting for a seemingly non-existent ferry. By now we are used to this, we seem to have had a bad run of luck when it comes to ferries. The only one that has actually gone when we expected, was the ferry that we left England on! At least we were coping better than Thomas, who had taken to pacing around and swearing about the ferry. When we found ourselves surrounded by children, our white skin glows like a beacon in the dark, it all got too much for him and he went off to sit on his own. Interspersed with the now expected 'give me money'; 'give me torch'; 'buy me water or food' and the rather hopeful 'give me your bike' we chatted away to what were basically friendly if somewhat over exuberant children. Bearing in mind that Thomas is a school teacher we were a little surprised that he couldn't cope, Austrian children are obviously a lot better behaved! The only problem with being surrounded by the kids with their occasionally grabby hands, was that we had been left with Kerry (an Australian guy) and his two friends luggage. We had no problem looking after it, we just didn't know he was going to be gone for so long. The boat was now expected at around 10:30pm and at about 10pm we were called to bring our bikes and luggage through the gates so that we could board first. There was no sign of Kerry, so not wanting to leave the luggage behind with the expectant looking kids, we took it with us. When they eventually returned, there was no thanks for moving their bags at all. Despite the fact that two rucksacks and another two bags on top of our bikes wasn't particularly easy to move. You really do wonder why you bother to help some people!
Loading our bikes on the ferry turned out to be tougher than promised. Instead of letting us on first as they had told us, they let everyone flood towards the ferry. They did call us to the front, but by now the gangplank was surrounded by people and we had to force our way through, only to find out that our loaded bikes were too wide to fit through the gap. Some shoving and pushing later and a certain amount of effort on Thomas' part ended with the bikes safely stowed on the forecastle. Getting our luggage up onto the top deck involved another scrum, but eventually we were safely on board. Six of us had the whole first class top deck to ourselves. We each hired a mattress, a large piece of foam, and settled down for the night. It has been a very long 30 hours since we arrived in Chilumba, but at least we were finally under way!
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