Congo
Day 159 10/06
Yacht Club, Pointe Noir
14 131 miles
We entered Congo through numerous checks by various people and eventually tracked down all the stamps we needed. The roads wre very slow going with huge mud holes and they were very narrow. We eventually ditched our towbar as we'd managed to break a couple of bolts and it was catching on every bump in the road. We managed to find a bush camp in a very narrow quarry where we were hidden by long grass. The next day took us over a very windy mountain road through what is left of Congo's forests, slow going but an interesting road. We are going to try for the Angolan visa here too, although aren't expecting much.
Day 163 13/06
Bush Camp, 4km from DRC border
14 740 miles
Well we're officially out of Congo but not yet in DRC. It's been a tough few days driving on very dusty roads or roads with huge holes in them - thank goodness it's the dry season. We bumped into Ben and Maria - another couple of overlanders - in Pointe Noire ans so decided to travel to Brazzaville with them as we'd been warned about ninja bandits on that stretch. There is also not a lot of traffic in Congo so travelling together seemed like a good idea. Niether of us were too keen to go to either Brazzaville or Kinshasa so and the road was so bad we decided to try a route from Mindouli to Luozi as shown on the Michelin map. At Mindouli we tracked down the police post and asked about the route. They said it would be possible with 4x4's so we decided to go for it. We got all our necessary stamps and headed off. After a few false starts we eventually found a road going over the mountains but by now it was getting late so we decided to camp on the track in a flat spot. There was a steady stream of locals passing us and they all seemed to think the route was possible and assured us that although the road was bad here it was a 'bon route' in DRC. We will see what happens!