05-Jun-2005 -- We came from Iringa and had to spend the night in Mikumi as it was already dark. As the following day was a Sunday, we decided to try a Confluence near Mikumi in the northern part of the National Park.

Our adventure started off very straight (first trying to fuel the car as some petrol stations were empty and finally - indicated by "IPO", we found some litres), taking a gravel main road from Mikumi northwards, that brought us closer to the intended Confluence area. Getting to the point where the distance to the Confluence would start to increase again, we found a small track entering the area of the point, leading direction east. The distance to the Confluence rapidly decreased, but at the same time the track we started on turned out to be some ranger path that ended at some point.

Still some 4 km away, we decided to continue guided by our GPS, but the area turned out to be difficult to pass by car, as hidden under the dry grass we discovered big trunks of cut trees, sudden holes and the bush got more dense the deeper we got. At about 2.2 km distance we had to decide to carry on finding our way by car, starting to walk, or to decide to call it a day and to return some other time. I suppose a reason to continue our way to Dar was also given by the fact that the National Park has no fence...

So walking for some 2.2 km was not our choice. We finally decided to turn and start our way back to Dar es Salaam using the road passing smaller villages such as Ulaya, Kilosa (with a formerly big Railway Station), Kimamba, and finally reaching Morogoro, from were a tarmac road led us back to Dar.