Landmarks

LANDMARK  ROCKS

    We can be quite certain that rocks sitting on the plains on Tanzania today, were in the very same places in the 1870s.

This is exciting as it means these rocks were standing there when 

our Dr. Dillon passed by.

     The only transport for Dillon and the Expedition was with donkeys, as shown below.

And Dillon would have travelled along the main route westwards. This would have been a dust track.  These animals were not and are not shod with shoes of any type, so moving over the dust track is easier on their feet than going along the packed down roads, or the paved roads. 

We drove along the packed road shown here. 

More modern paved roads are raised up to allow water run-off during the rainy seasons.

 

 A cart being pulled along by two cows travels along the track beside the paved road which is built to allow rain run-off.

The road pavement would have torn away at the cows' hooves

Parts of the plains of Tanzania, between the Indian Ocean and Lake Tanganyika, are littered with landmarks on all sides along the way.

These landmarks are rocks, either now in piles or groups, or very large rocks standing out on their own.

Each rock pile looks different.  To those travelling past, they seem to cheer you on your way.

I was always interested in the rocks, on the look-out for the rocks sketched in Cameron's book "Across Africa."

Here are copies of the two main sketches:

These sketches show 2 campsites set up by members of the Expedition.

These giant rocks are what my geological adviser tells me are erratics.

They were carried to their present location by some massive force - either moved by a glacier, or by a glacial flood - where the back end of a glacier melts faster than the front end, forming a lake which bursts out through the front dam of ice at some point and sweeps all before it across the plains in a spectacular surge of power.

And then - 

I was CERTAIN I had found this rock sketched on the left.  I was CERTAIN I had touched where Dr. Dillon, his friend Lt. Cameron and their supporters had camped for a few days' respite.

Long-distance view

 There were no other erratics that we saw that even remotely resembled this shape.

 

Closer

Right there!

Perhaps it was THE ROCK, but when I got home and checked all the pics again, I wasn't so sure!

But - doesn't really matter if not perfectly correct!

And, how do modern-day Tanzanians travel around these plains?

They are excellent cyclists. 

And they use their bicycles for transport of personal goods

But the most frequent method of travel or transport is by walking

These women are carrying loads of wood for fuel.  

They were singing as they walked along, to encourage each other to keep going.

Here men are carrying wood along a road, with a modern truck driving up behind.

The old and the new.

Next time - modern vehicles in a vanishing world.

 Thank you for reading along.

News on book publication when I hear from publisher.