The Conkouati National Park, situated on the northwest border of Congo ,was our refuge for 4 nights. Hilda the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) director hosted Linda and I in her incredible house, situated on a hilltop in a savannah, which overlooks a breathtaking lagoon and dense storybook like forest. Drinking a cup of tea and looking over the misty forest canopy in the mornings was so refreshing and definitely helped in Linda and I gain our strength for the tough road ahead.

We were offered a ride to film the lagoon mouth, so we hopped on a riverboat and meandered our way through mangroves towards the sea. It felt like been back in Gabon, and the feeling that anything may just pop out the water at any time and have a look at you was exciting. We passed small fishing villages and finally touched onto the warm white beach sand with not a human or footprint in sight. An industrial trawler mowing the sea floor illegally for its bounty interrupted the feeling of seclusion and tranquility, and this sent me into a helpless rage. 

We finally turned our backs on it and headed back up the river. As we were getting back to dock, there in the trees was a chimp just looking at us. There is a chimp refuge a litter further up, and this must have been one of the males from the refuge. Nonetheless it allowed us to get rather close and get some fantastic footage. It was Linda’s first chimp and what a beautiful sight it was.

We headed off the next day to a fishing village called Paris to chat to a local fisherman called “broken glass” (apparently he drinks to much palm wine then just drops and breaks everything). As we departed we dropped by a village and bought two boxes of horrid red wine for the broken glass and were instantly drenched by rain. The road turned into a river and the lightning grew ever closer, but we pushed on as we would not have another chance to get to the village for the interview. As luck has it broken glass was not there, but we managed to chat to a young local fisherman who immediately went on the rampage about Chinese people and the hate towards there commercial and illegal fishing practices in the Congo. 

We heard that a pirogue from the village paddled to a Chinese fishing vessel and bordered it. Then quote “the Chinese came at us with all their karate, so we hit them with our paddles”. I couldn’t help laughing at the story , it was great.  Hilda was a fantastic host and we ate like kings, except when I tried to cook rice and created a glue like disaster. I think even the chicken at the house was dubious about my rice, only after threatening it with the loss of its drumstick for my dinner did it start to nibble at the rice I left on the floor. 

We left Conkouati on the 1^st of November bound for the turtle camp Nyafessa in Gabon. I was looking forward to getting there as it was where I worked last year and I was looking forward to reliving some fantastic memories.  We were warned that the route there was nearly impassable and that the border crossing would be tough and probably cost a lot of extra money.  Well luck was on our side yet again and the river crossing was on time and the border folks were super friendly. We got our stamps and headed down a great forest track to Nyafessa. We were there in no time and could not believe our luck. We did not stamp into Gabon as we did not go near the village where the border officials were. Instead we headed to the beach and had a cold beer, much better option we thought. We met up with Sara Maxwell, who was putting satellite-tracking devices on olive Ridley turtles. 

Unfortunately with 6 weeks of hard work, there were no turtles to track. We joined Sara on 3 night walks, each starting at 10pm and ending at 3:30pm covering 16km a time in the hope of finding dome turtles. Alas nothing, but we did get rained on (ok Linda would like to point out here that that is a gross understatement- we got dumped on by pretty much everything that whatever is up there had to dump on us, and then some extra just incase we didn’t get the message )and we did have to walk near the tree line on the beach and at one stage crouch under some flimsy branches to avoid the crazy lightning. It was hard work that I remembered all to well from 2007. Ahh it was great being back!, but I do believe there is a strong correlation between the 50km we walked, and the sore feet and stiffness we suffered, fancy that. 

After 3 nights we had a brain wave, leave before the rain opens the river mouth, then we can drive down the beach and be in Mayumba in 1 hour and we would avoid the toughest forest road in West Africa. Not to be, the Bame river was pumping, we missed our chance by 1 day which was bitter irony , and the inevitable was upon us, time to hit the nemesis mud. We were lucky though as one of the eco-guards in the camp happend to recall a short cut throguh a savannah that would cut out allot of pain on our parts. We loved him. (I have great memories of this savanna and forest section as it was where I was carried out with crazy malaria just on a year ago). 

We drove into the savannah; no road of course and slowly ground our way to who knows where. The guys would basically walk infrount of the car while Linda, Sarah and I would manuvure behind them, bouncing along nothing more than a glorified hiking trail.  We were treated to some buffalo and antelope lazily basking in a water hole, proberbly laughing thier heads off at the contraption jumping around them. Finally we reached the road, which meant we managed to bypass 15km of the hardest road section in the forest. Joy! The eco guards decided to join us to Bame instead of walking back through the forest to Nyafessa, which we didn’t complain about as it ment more hands for any problems we would face.  We chopped our way through fallen trees and climbed over muddy banks and small rivers and then there it was, the infamous mayumba mud puddle from hell, which likes to eat cars apparently. It did not help that a couple of elephants decided to take a bath there and leave great big holes in the mud, which one had to take great pains to avoid. I know there are 3 guys reading this and smiling as they had a car eating experience here in June 2007. We laid down all the wood we could find and carefully guided the car onto it, trying to avoid the mud, which realy did’nt happen and we were instantly stuck at 3pm.

Getting out of the car to check the problem I was obliterated by horse flies, probably now my least favorite animal in the world. We dug, and winched and jacked the car for hours, inching half a meter at a time and then sliding off the wooden planks back into the sticky red mud. At times like this it is important to stress ….and drink cold beer, so we did, drink beer that is. When you walked nexto the car, between the jacking and the winching and the re-arranging of planks follwed by more of the aforementioned exercises, the whole ground would wobble like day old jelly. Not very comforting when a nice slushy bog lurked right nexto our trawling mud track we were lumbering through. Confidence levels were high.

Finally at 11:30pm ,after seven hours of labor and literally moving 15 meteres we popped free from the mud death grip and as we got onto dry land once again. In the midst of our high fives and general “hell yeah-ing!”…. it started raining. If it rained while we were stuck, things would have been a lot trickier, the marine expedition might still be there as you are reading this…who knows?

After re-winding the winch, finding out that our new high lift jack went up and not down and after winching some trees to a horizontal position we were back on the savannah.  We wound up the beach road and finally at a little after 1pm limped into the Bame turtle camp, which has not opened yet.  Linda and Sara cooked pasta with a tomato bacon sauce in the rain, while the lads and I listened to some rubbish rap music, which I thought was fitting to the occasion.  At 2 pm the eco-guards and Sara left Bame to walk the 20km back to Nyafessa and look for turtles on the way, I had a shower in the river and hit the bed, nursing all my cuts and scrapes and enjoying a shot of whisky.  The next morning we left Bame for Mayumba. We were treated to buffalo and antelope on the beach. In hindsight, it was a great experience being stuck, the language gap between me and the eco-guards, problem solving and getting in and out of thick mud, was in it’s own way rewarding. But quite frankly not again please.

We are now in Mayumba amongst familiar faces and we look forward to filming the fisheries, and seeting all the great people we useto work with, its going to be fun getting back to where the entire trip was conceptualised…oh and having a bean sandwich with a laikaye!!!yummmmm