Page 183 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

indicates that he virulently dislikes on that occasion everyone and anything. I saw
no reason to test his mood, particularly as the Volkswagen, as with most of its ilk,
sounded as though it were having a minor stroke. Photos taken, we repaired to
the lodge for lunch.

This welcome repast we took near to, but a safe distance from, Mzima
Springs. It had to be acknowledged that the Chief Steward had outdone himself,
though I suspect that this was because our two ladies were disembarking, and he
reasonably wanted a good report if any were sent by them to P&O’s Head Office.
I should also add that these two were good if quiet company for the day, but I still
did not know their names!

Mzima Springs are well known in this region. Although this is by no means a
well-watered area, geological formations have created the Springs in this unlikely
place. The animals living there, mainly hippos and crocodiles, never go far afield,
and their lifestyles, including their excreted vegetable diet, maintain a natural
balance that the park wardens naturally wish to maintain. I recall being high
enough to see what we needed, comfortable enough to consume an adequate
amount of Tusker Beer, and safe enough not to concern myself with the hippos,
which I knew to be quite as unpredictable as most wild animals.

I much enjoyed this outing, as I had never been to a similar place before and
could not easily see me visiting another such in the future. Back aboard, I noted
that Eagle had sailed, apparently to Singapore to create some mayhem, so the
next day (discharging cargo had virtually ground to a halt) two of us took a trip
to Nyali Beach, which we understood to be Kenya’s Bondi or Waikiki beach.
And it was … but it was totally deserted! This, I thought, must soon become a
tourist trap. It did.

The port of Mtwara was something of an anomaly, a port whose purpose
had passed it by. The British had attempted to give life to the southern part
of Tanganyika initially by encouraging the growth of a groundnut industry
(which was an idea whose story was short and brutish in Africa as a whole; the
industry developed its markets slowly and ineffectively), and later by touting it
as the terminus of a central route into northern central Africa mainly through
developing an East-West railway. The schemes never really took off, and when
Salsette went there, the port was a mere shadow of what was planned. We
unloaded what we had by way of manufactured goods and headed north again
to Tanga. Despite some wishes to complain about our earlier ‘bar charges’, we
generally agreed that it would be churlish to do so (and which might result in
a few job losses by those who obviously had little by way of alternatives) loaded
some coffee and agricultural products and sailed north to Suez.

It was a mark of the ubiquity of the Commonwealth that on this voyage all
of the ports visited (except Aqaba) had, to a greater or lesser degree, enjoyed an

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