David Finn
David Finn is a journalist, part retired (but don’t ask which part). He has spent all his working life since the age of 17 in 1966 in newspapers in Lincoln, Birmingham, Burton, Manchester and London. He is currently editor of a monthly newspaper, which he part owns, in Derbyshire.
David lives in Derby with partner Genevra (a fully retired journalist), dog Charlie and cat Ginger.
exhilarating. Mainly scary. But still vividly clear in my mind.
That set the scene for the rest of the expedition. Raleigh International had mapped out our routes, each day ending at a Leonard Cheshire home or hospital. We camped out one night in the grounds of a leprosy clinic.
Uganda is known as the Pearl Of Africa, a description it totally deserves. Beautiful landscape, blue, blue skies and extremely friendly folk. We covered around 40-50 miles a day, the cyclists split into groups of four or five. Some of those ‘teams’ treated the adventure as a race, to see who could get to the overnight stop first. To my mind one helluva waste. They missed all the fun; all the scenery. My group of five (two men and three younger women – lucky me, eh?) was generally one of the last to arrive at our destination. We stopped for lunches at village shacks for a taste of the Ugandan culinary delights, some serving oh-so tasty samosas. We said Yambo (hello) to everyone we passed … and that was a lot of yambos because the whole region was aware of the crazy white people on bikes coming their way.
Not one to shy away from the fun side of things, even in a far away land unlike anything I had encountered before, I took to leading our little bunch into the small villages en route and weaved around yelling out Yamma Yamma Yambo to all the wideeyed, open-mouthed children at the side of the roads (tracks). To this day I am not sure whether the screams we left behind us were from excited or frightened youngsters. I like to believe they enjoyed my antics.
The bikes were ideal for the event and I cannot recollect any mishaps or mechanical faults, despite the punishment they were subjected to over the 10 days. The weather was generally kind to us after that wet first day, the October heat not overly oppressive, although our water bottles took some punishment.
My memory after all this time is not what I would like it to be, but I can vividly recall one overnight camp being on the edge of Lake Victoria. We had cycled through the town of Jinja (I believe it was the old capital of the country, but don’t quote me on that in Wikipedia, please). Ooh, the blue Nile perch we were treated to for that evening meal
was yummy, yummy (not Yambo this time) scrummy. The following morning some of us were up early and ventured out on foot to discover the nearby alleged source of the River Nile. Then it was back on the bike.
Although we were racking up the miles on a daily basis it never seemed to tire my little party. We were not in a rush to get anywhere so the leisurely pace we adopted suited us fine.
The Leonard Cheshire staff at the different locations were warm and friendly. All the riders had had to raise around £2,000 each for the privilege of the venture, money which must have been a great comfort to the Ugandan outposts of this very worthwhile charity. I also took along some books and crayons from the UK to be given to children in the homes.
Showering was an interesting proposition at the end of a day’s cycling. Makeshift cubicles were erected in the grounds; you were handed a bucket of cold water which you placed on a beam above your head; then you pulled the string attached to each bucket to tip the wet stuff out. Refreshing to say the least.
Talking of which, the locally brewed bottles of Bell Lager and Nile Special went down a treat of an evening. Well, it would have been downright rude not to …
It is true what they say, though. Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. And the fun was over in a flash. Before we knew it we were back in Kampala, cooling off in the swimming pool of a local lido. To honour the event we were all invited to the British Embassy for a garden party where the G&TS went down a treat. No Ferrero Rocher though, but the sarnies were nice.
Within 24 hours we were back in Blighty. But I didn’t go home alone, having taken up the offer of buying my trusty steed at a knockdown price. The Wildtrack accompanied me on the flight and I still have it! If you look closely at it today you might even spot some of the red Ugandan mud in hard to clean areas. Small but smileinducing reminders of my bike ride of a lifetime.