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14 January 1999

The Kingsmill's Trans-Africa Overland Trip, Part 9: Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya

Geoff Kingsmill
2006-04-25 21:12:17

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10pm and we were becoming concerned that there would be no room left for Troopie. Finally we were asked to drive Troopie alongside the ship. The crane had a five-ton lifting capacity. The lifting harness was attached . However, when the crane tried to lift Troopie the front wheels lifted but the back wheels wouldn't lift off the ground. The ships engineer had stern words to us because unbeknown to us vehicles loaded onto the Victoria are not permitted to carry luggage. In contrast, Troopie was loaded to the hilt with 180 litres of diesel, 70 litres of water, two spare tyres, food, roofrack and tent, tools and spare parts.

At first they wanted us to unload Troopie which of course was impossible and impractical. Fortunately the ship's captain was on our side and eventually Troopie was precariously lifted onboard. Troopie was the last thing to be loaded sitting precariously on six wooden planks above the cargo hold. What an amazing sight it was amongst the cargo and 800 passengers. As soon as Troopie was tied down the third class passengers rolled out their mattresses all around and under Troopie and laid down to sleep. We had delayed the ship and all its passengers by over an hour. The captain's bridge was right above Troopie so we were satisfied that she would be safe and secure. We retired to our first class sleeping cabin after a long day. We were amused at the cargo pricelist. Vehicles cost A$75 whilst the cheapest consignment was a corpse which cost a mere A$7! Our first class sleeper cabin cost us A$28. We found out later that there are two ferries that cross Lake Victoria. The other ferry was called the Serengeti and it was a vehicle ferry. If only we had been told this when we booked, we would have saved ourselves a lot of worry.

We arrived at Port Bukoba at 8:30am and Troopie was the first to be unloaded. Again, this caused a lot of hassle and concern as the crane had problems lifting Troopie. Whilst on the ...