Iringa to Ruaha National Park, August 2023

Kisolanza Farm Campsite is very well set out and we end up staying an extra few nights to enjoy the peace. This will also give us some time to make plans for the Ruaha National Park visit.

Kisolanza Farm is run by a family with accents such that I find myself humming the theme tune to the movie “Born Free” soon after arriving. The campsite is set up professionally with hot showers off of the donkey boiler and flushing toilets. We go for a morning run the next day and discover the fields successfully bursting with bushels of maize seed crop. The old farm tracks are lined by tall and non-indigenous blue gum trees. The farmhouse coffee shop is unfortunately priced prohibitively versus our adventurer budget and so we forgo the coffee and cake and enjoy some cheap Safari beers around the campfire in the evening instead.

We are uncertain whether we should go into Ruaha National Park. Looking at the long-term traveller budget, we feel we only have enough tourist dollar for a few official sightseeing destinations in the whole of East Africa. Our budget is designed for long term travel and not for once-off premium experiences. We’re fast discovering that East Africa experiences are priced at extortionate rates by budget traveller standards. We will have to make do with a few entries and a lot of driving around, exploring the wider country. Finally, after some research, we realise that Serengeti is way beyond our means and that Ruaha is one of the premier and less touristy of the national parks in Tanzania. We will enter Ruaha for a 24-hour stay.

Acheulean Tools & Old Missions

The friendly people at Kisolanza give us some directions and advice before we head out towards Ruaha. Their tourism based economy has been decimated over Covid and we wish them well for hopefully brighter days ahead.

Our first stop is going to be the Isimila stone age archaeological site which is along the way to Ruaha from Kisolanza. Only a few minutes off of the main road heading to Iringa, is one of the more significant ancient stone age sites to be found in East Africa. No hominid bones have been found on this site but a large amount of hand axes, scrapers, etc have been over the decades. Some dated animal skeletons have been found on the site also including hippo and giraffe.

The ancient stone tools are mostly made from granite or quartzite amongst other rock-types. The progenitors of the tools are thought to be Homo erectus. We have not been able to determine the more recently referenced aging of the tools.

The Isimila site is doubly famous for the carved ravine that the tools were found in. Thousands of years of erosion have resulted in impossibly tall pillars of sand crowned by a hard layer of compressed and fossilised mud. Walking amongst the pillars is something like walking through a kelp forest or amongst the stalagmites of a cave system. Thousands of years of sedimentary history is layered on the walls of the ravine. At one point, there is a wall of erosion so perfectly formed that it looks like the organ pipes of St Peter’s. More aptly like an inspiration for Gaudi.

We spend a few hours wandering through our first “proper archeological site” and leave feeling like we have experienced something important. I’m almost happy that the entire trip north is now completely justified by this one site.

We take a turn-off earlier than google maps expects us to on the advice of one of the ladies from Kisolanza. The route takes us through some small hamlets and eventually over a stream and around a bend into a small village with an incredibly large group of buildings called the Tossamaganga Mission. This mission and the buildings appear to have been started in the 1920’s by a group of Italian missionaries of the Consolota Order of the Roman Catholic Church. The juxtaposition of Christianity and Islam is becoming ever more clear the further north we travel. Iringa appears to be a significant living space for both of these World religions.

The impressively large mission is left behind and we drive along the winding track until we come out on “The Never-Ending Road”. We have been forewarned by many that this is a road to treat with some respect because of the corrugated conditions. The road runs from the city of Iringa to the gates of Ruaha National Park.

Into Ruaha

We quickly discover the ridiculousness of the corrugations and have to slow well down to around 30km/h for large sections. It takes us many hours to navigate the 100 kilometres of bone jarring road. There are two choices when faced with corrugations. Option one is to drive fast and effectively get on top of the corrugated sand waves. This reduces the vibrations on the vehicle and gets the vehicle to the destination more quickly. Option two is to go painfully slowly. We try option one for a few minutes but soon realise that the weight in the back of the canopy is going to throw the rear of the vehicle around and might result in a rollover. There are a few stories of vehicles losing control and rolling on both this Ruaha road as well as the even more infamous Serengeti road further north.

We are going to stay at a campsite on the outside of the park tonight and then get in on the 24-hour entry tomorrow. Entry to the park however is dependent on getting the “under 2,000 kg’s” price for the vehicle. There is a big jump in vehicle entry price if your overlander vehicle is designated as greater than two tons in tare weight. We have done a lot of pre-work for this though and I am positive that I can prove that our Hilux version (D4D Double Cab 2014) has a tare weight of 1,880 kg’s. Many Hilux models are above two tons which will result in a fee of USD100 plus.

We spend the evening at Chogela Safari Camp. The well run camp is owned and managed by a local Tanzanian guide and business owner. We win a large spot to ourselves away from another large group. The camp attendant builds us a ridiculously massive campfire. Stupidly, I light the wood pile instead of removing most of the fuel first and end up having to bbq our chicken pieces on the edge of an inferno similiar to a volcanic crater. I haven’t burnt my eyebrows many times but do this night.

The next morning we drive along the outside of the national park hoping to see something. Not much to see except for some eroded geography and so we turn back after an hour. On the return trip again we don’t see much except for possibly the largest black mamba we’ve seen on our travels. Probably about 2.5m. The snake quickly heads the other way to us, and we continue to shake our way down the road.

I walk up to the National Park gate office on arrival and nervously finger my sheaf of papers. As feared, there is some disbelief with regards to my lower Hilux weight and I speak very respectfully to the official in charge until finally he disappears and spends a good half hour doing some research and speaking to some central HQ somewhere in Tanzania. Eventually, with a big smile, he returns and confirms that their system agrees with my vehicle weight. The budget is saved and we cross over at 11am. We have 24 hours of national park time ahead of us. We can choose any of the public campsites to sleep over at for the night.

The Ruaha National Park (NP) is reported to be larger than Kruger NP in South Africa and has an  official size of 20,226 km2. The exact dimensions of the park are however slightly confusing to me as official information is slightly difficult to come by. The figure of 20,000 km2 plus appears to stem from the inclusion, in 2008,  of Usangu Game Reserve (GR) in the south and some further indeterminate wetlands potentially to the north and east. The overall Ruaha Conservation Area however is much larger and includes the Rungwa GR. It is not possible to transit the park or conservation area and exit at another gate as hoped.

Wikipedia says further that “the park is a part of the 45,000 square kilometres (17,000 sq mi) Rungwa-Kizigo-Muhesi ecosystem, which includes the Rungwa Game Reserve, the Kizigo and Muhesi Game Reserves, and the Mbomipa Wildlife Management Area.”

Whatever the size and make-up, this large area in the middle of Tanzania is a huge conservation achievement. The area is said to hold 10% of the entire world’s lion population.

We are evolving slightly in our wildlife tourism needs and appreciation. Where before we have been desperate to find as many of the big game as possible, we are now just “happy to be here” but haven’t yet moved to twitcher (bird watcher) status. This is probably a good philosophy to have  because expecting to see great sightings in the space of a 24-hour visit is maybe asking for a bit too much, and would put way too much pressure on the adventure.

We enjoy ourselves first with the sight of the Great Ruaha river soon after passing through the Park gate. Hippo, crocodile and water birds saunter or bathe in the cooling waters. The river’s name is a good example of a redundant tautology as ruaha means river in the local Hehe language. The Ruaha travels from the highlands near Mbeya all the way up through Ruaha NP after which, the river feeds hydroelectric and irrigation schemes before passing through the Nyerere NP and finally emptying into the Indian Ocean opposite Mafia Island. The banks of the river here are mostly eroded sand.

After enjoying the sights of the river’s bend, we cross the bridge and spot a weird looking rodent in a small tree on the opposite end. There is one flower on a small tree and the little rodent is gingerly stretching out along thin branches to get to the solitary flower. We identify the little guy as a tree hyrax. A cousin of the rock hyrax. A lucky sighting, and our first ever, as these small creatures are mostly nocturnal.

The Ruaha seems to be the best area for exploration and so we turn south (upstream) and drive along the river for a while. There is a strange object in the river on a sand bank and we quickly identify it as a huge, dead and bloated crocodile. It’s uncertain why the remains have been left alone by scavengers and other crocodiles. The carcass is bloated but untouched. Maybe being saved for an evening snack by a patrolling crocodile, the sun being used to tenderise the aged meat for a slow-cooked dinner.

A group of tourists in a professional safari vehicle are enjoying some game viewing at one of the view-points with their guide. It always feels good to know that we have our own vehicle and the freedom to explore as we like.

The sun is still high and so we head to camp to claim a pitch. We can head out for game viewing when the afternoon begins to cool. We have deliberately entered the park at midday so we can get an afternoon game drive in today and a full morning game drive tomorrow on the 24 hour entry permit. Staying in one of the park’s public campsites also allows an extra hour of viewing in the evening while the day visitors have to get out well before sunset.

Public Campsite number 2 is our preferred destination as it’s set further away from the main Park HQ but on arrival there is an entire bus of university students from Dar es Salaam on some expedition or other and so we greet them, but head off quickly.

Public Campsite number 1 is just as ideal and not as close to Park HQ as feared. Unfortunately, some other adventurers have already staked out the best pitch looking out on the Ruaha and some hippo pools. We instead choose a spot further along on the high bank. There is some significant bush all around the camp. We position ourselves to get the best view over the Ruaha whilst still having a reasonably open route to the ablution, an important consideration given the park’s considerable lion population.

There isn’t much point in sitting in the baking sun and we are only in the park for the space of 24 hours so, after booking our pitch with some camping chairs and a camping table, we head out to explore.

After a survey of the park map, a digital photo on our phones as the park gate has run out of maps to hand out, we decide to explore along the Ruaha and maybe make it to the confluence of the Ruaha and the Mwagusi rivers. We move slowly up the side of the Ruaha sometimes finding it easy to dip and dive along the edge of the river but often times having to take detours through the thick vegetation where Maasai giraffe, Thomson’s gazelle and more well known friends like warthog, impala and greater kudu can be found. The Ruaha National Park area is a meeting place of Southern and East African ecologies, has a huge number of bird species, and is the only place where you can see both the greater and lesser kudu, and we do see both.

No big 5 sightings are made on the first day but we do make it to the confluence of the Mwagusi and Ruaha Rivers. In this dry period, the Mwagusi is waterless, a wide soft sand river while the Ruaha seems almost still. Some tracks of other adventurers can be seen going across the Mwagusi in places. I have done some pre-reading on this. It’s a treacherous crossing with some deep sand and significant distances to a nearby tree trunk if you have to resort to the winch to get out of trouble. The Mwagusi river sand crossings are best left to adventurers travelling in groups of two vehicles or more for recovery options.

We head along the side of the Mwagusi absolutely confident that we will see a leopard or pride of lion in the dry river. We are unlucky. Again, we’re only in the park for 24 hours and so don’t worry overly about having to tick the animal box’s. Maybe because of this approach, the animal gods are kind to us. On the drive back to camp and away from the rivers, we spot a civet in the late afternoon light. For both of us our first sighting of this elusive creature during daylight.

Further down the road we spot a herd of antelope on the banks of the Ruaha. We drive closer and realise that it’s a herd of at least 20 eland. We drive to a slightly closer location, still at least a couple hundreds of metres away from them. This appears to be too close for their liking, to our surprise, and we win the sight of an entire herd crossing away and in front of us in the setting light of the sun. After some reading, it appears that there are some significant hunting concessions in some of the Tanzania game reserves and so possibly these eland are more suspicious of humans with the proximity of Rungwa GR.

Arrival at the campsite is exactly on time but the the light is well beyond dusk. We busy ourselves setting up the roof top tent. We barbequed our chicken and sausages in the volcano cauldron the previous night, a trick we often do for national parks to lessen the admin inside, and so nibble on our foresight while enjoying the sounds of the night in our first East African wildlife area.

Behind us, a 10 year old child walks out of the thick bush where his family have set up camp even further along the bank than us. By the light of his cellphone, the child makes his way about 40 metres from pitch to ablution block. We wait to hear the whoop or cackle of a hyena as he walks by again but lucky for him, there is nothing near camp tonight.

Morning Gamedrive & The Trip Out

We are up at the break of dawn. I convince my cranky travelling companion to head out before the interminable ritual of coffee prep. I promise that we will cook up her fix at a picnic spot we found the previous day.

We were surprised at how much we enjoyed the road away from the river yesterday and so have decided to choose this route today. There is plenty of wide open savannah away from the river to spot animals on their way to their favourite watering spot as we did the civet yesterday.

The sights of Ruaha are many but one of the most defining is probably the baobab trees standing strong, pre-eminent over the surrounding landscape. We enjoy the morning sun and the baobabs. We come across two more rare sightings for us being the lesser kudu as well as a dik-dik.

My intention is more about exploration and geography than animal sightings and Kirsty is happy to let me follow my nose. We join up with the Mwagusi river bed much further west than the previous day and move along it towards the confluence with the Ruaha river. Ilala palms dominate in this area and we enjoy travelling up and down rocky hills spotting more kudu, greater this time, as well as some small herds of buffalo. While we hunt amongst the ilala palms for buffalo and more, a hot air balloon striped like a boiled sweet silently glides by in the morning light. On the ground, we have this entire area of the park to ourselves and see no one else for most of the morning except for the hot air balloon adventurers in the sky.

We say goodbye to Ruaha by driving back along the baobab road, past the airstrip, over the river and spend a tense 12 minutes rushing to the gate to be out before the 11am deadline. There are a few stories of adventurers being charged for an extra day coming out even a few minutes late. The stories concern the Serengeti more than here though. We make it to the Park gate over a corrugated road with 2 minutes to spare. The game wardens barely glance at the clock. We thank them with big smiles and head back down the Never-Ending Road.