On the road: day 9

This driver just popped in.

Today's blog is short in length but long in distance travelled. We covered 667.6km door to door, from Tan Swiss Lodge in Mikumi to the doctors compound at KCMC. There was nothing particularly notable about the day other than how well the boys coped with being in the car for 9 hours especially given the high temperatures.

The corruption cops were out in force and I have to admit we completely ignored three of the with speed guns who were pointing at us to pull in. We were traveling at a speed that I thought highly likely to show 106kmph and I really had gotten to the end of my patience with their blatant extortion.

However, we did eventually get pulled over at a particularly slow spot and we joked with the rotund bobby who was desperate to find something he could use to induce a fine. He eventually pointed to a crack in the windscreen and we embarked upon a comedy moment where we talked our way out of the situation whilst he tried to negotiate some kind of kickback. It all passed with good humor and a typically Africa handshake of mutual friendship.

That was pretty much it for the journey, of course we managed to play spot the carnage along the way and there will be a separate montage of some of the kinds of things that we saw as we thought you should get a flavour for how shocking some of the accidents are.

The boys were happy to be back and they promised to do a road trip reflections entry. So 2707km covered for our final road trip in Tanzania. I don't believe it is the final African adventure, already we have spoken about were and how, so maybe further blogs will be required. This part of the adventure has been great fun and quite an education, it has been wonderful to see the boys grow closer together as they have shared time without the distraction of others. Although a back seat with soundproofing is a highly recommended optional extra that should be made available in all overland vehicles.

Leather seats are not comfortable and diesel engines are really noisy, any car without an air-con option saves lots of fuel but requires numerous t shirts to maintain comfort. 4x4 should be muddy and be capable of having a bucket of water thrown inside them to clean out the foot wells, anyone without this option should rethink their need for a 4x4. On the road bingo is a great game for the kids as is the need to have your own personal iPod for when things get too loud from the back seats.

Zac and Josh Tan Swiss swan song

Almost home as Kili floats on the clouds and into view.

Finally, Toyota may not make beautiful 4x4's like the quintessential Land Rover, but in terms of reliability and strength I would highly recommend a Land Cruiser for any of you who want to do an overland trek that involves real world off road adventure.