Weary legs and harps this morning as everybody was up again, around about 5 a.m. To get breakfast and be ready to try to leave for 6:30 (impossible, but close to that )
People are tired now.
In the middle of last night, there were monkeys on my roof, and there was some sort of reasonably large animal running around the hut/tentthat I was in.
I didn't even bother to put the canvas down last night, so it was just the mosquito nets. It'sreally cool, it doesn't feel unsafe in any way, it's just mental, and of coursedisturbs your sleep quite a lot.
Off we set thoughreally flat for 3 kilometres until we started to climb to ngorngoro crater. Ngorongoro Crater is the remains of an old spout of a huge volcano, which is 210kilometres in circumference. You have to ride up to the top and overthe lip and down. We stop at the gate after a really hard session, climbing 3000ft in 24 miles.
Everybody makes it, it's amazing, much joy, and then itreally is super quick changes before we jump into Toyota Land Cruisers (likeeverybody else who's there) and head for the most rattly road you could everimagine. We ascend up to the lip of the crater. It takes about 40 minutes from there, and then we come over the top.
This is proper, real-life Jurassic World, no question.
As you come up to the crater, it's tropical, the side of themountain, the side of the hill, it feels like you're in a jungle. As you go over the lip, you could be in Scotland; it entirely changes, it's Scotland, only warmer.
And so we start to come down, and obviously, we have a guide that's done this a million times before, who's brilliant and driving the wagon.
The first thing we see is zebras, like right beside us, and then it continues, and you make a list of everything you ever thought you might see on an African safari: elephants, lionesses, antelope, gazelles, hippos. Allthat sort of stuff, absolutely crazy, but as the afternoon goes on, the wagon gets quieter and quieter because the 6 of us are in there ( there are 3 wagonsclose) and are properly exhausted.
We then have to trek back from Ngorongoro to the hotel, which is not even half built yet, and then try to scratch around, finding Wi-Fi to send a blog post or even phone home.
We're so used to the convenience we have in the United Kingdom that it comes so easily to us. Everything is 100 times harder here, 100 times slower, and 100 times more poorly estimated.
I spoke to Whitey (see tomorrow's blog) on the way up to the crater on the bike. He was the leader of our expedition, our head guide; he's brilliant. I asked him how far it was from the hotel gates at the end, so I would know when we returned here at something like 6 p.m. I'd have an idea of how far it was, he told me 7 kilometres.
It was 45 minutes, not 7 kilometres. Everything is 3 times longer than you think.
We did it though, everybody made it, and Ipromise you there were people there who thought they never ever would.
It was not the hardest bike ride I've done, but it was really difficult at times, and reallydifficult for lots of other people on the trip.
If you haven't made it yet, they're just giving links here. I think we're headed to 63,000 before I go to Mwanza for the programme.
Blog Post Number - 4433
Colin Campbell, Chris Barrow, and an intrepid group of dentists will be cycling across the plains of Tanzania from Kilimanjaro in early February 2026. If you would like to support the charity, Bridge to Aid, and this extraordinary challenge, please click here.
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