We left Stilts early, nobody awake yet to say goodbye 
We enjoyed a lovely drive down to the Tanzanian border, crossing with no problems. The road South to Tanga and on to Peponi was less enjoyable but the lovely camp site we found was more than worth the drive. We set up our tents and chilled out for the remainder of the afternoon.
While setting up we met a South African guy called Quintin who is travelling with his wife Julie (http://quintandjulie.com/) for the last year or so, having worked their way down from Spain. They have possibly the nicest overland vehicle i’ve ever heard of, let alone seen. The base vehicle itself is a twin cab unimog, the truely ultimate 4×4 (6lt turbo engine, 3000km range, impossible to get stuck etc.). Ontop of this Quintin had custom built his own cabin. The kit list was a thing of dreams, roof tent (as well as a double bed inside), 400l water tank, 100l solar water heater, solar panel, huge battery bank, microwave, tv, generator (for the welding kit!), 2 real live Egyptian cats (with their own cat flap!) the thing was a rolling hotel. No offence to Betsy but I was very jealous.
Quint and Julies Unimog (photo stolen from their site)
We had a nice dinner and planned to head off the next day…
Early in the morning we packed up
and planned to set off. Unfortunately about 10 minutes down the road I realised that I had left my phone charging at the campsite, I suspected the worst. Arriving back the phone, of course, had disappeared. To cut a long story short we decided to spend another night in Peponi to see if my reward brought any… rewards.
Unfortunately the phone didn’t show up but we had a very… rewarding… evening having a few drinks with Quint, Julie and their new friends from the campsite.
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Hi Aengus,
I’ve just finished catching up on your fantastic travels. You go a great job of writing about them – most enjoyable to read! I followed the links to Quinton and Julie’s blog – What a vehicle! He sounds like a jack of all trades with welder, air compressor etc on board and obviously knows how to use them all with stories about having to fabricate brackets on the road. My Dad had a unimog once in Glendalough but he never did get it fixed up. I think he intended to use it as a “Farm” vehicle for towing things – eventually someone he knew that had one bought it for parts. It may still be in Wooden-bridge!
Mambo View Point seems like a very special place. I love the idea of them contributing to the local economy the way they do. If we make it back to that part of the world it will be a must stay location for us.
We will be off to Australia / New Zealand soon for a small adventure of our own – tame by comparison with yours but should still be fun. We will be going from Adelaide to Sydney on the great ocean road via Melbourne and up to Canberra mostly visiting friends and relatives. Then we have planned a week sailing in the gulf of Hauraki beside Auckland, 5 days hiking the Milford track with a group of friends from Calgary, 4 days on a 150 km bike trail from Clyde to Middlemarch on an old railway line with very civilized B & Bs on the way. After that is more visits with relatives and friends including Charlie Price and his Wife Anne who live near Christchurch. Charlie was in Civil Eng with us in TCD back in the good old days.
Hope you continue to have a wonderful experience – I’m envious!!
Best regards,
Graham