There are 4 on the bike that is coming along the road!

 Minziro Forest Reserve

This trip has been a long time in the planning.  We couldn’t do it until the new tyres arrived.  Today Steve and I, along with Terri (USA) and Leen (Belgian) finally made it.  And it certainly was worth the effort!

Minziro is about 50 km west on a good bitumen road then another 20 km northeast on good gravel – so the driving was easy (and Steve only swore advised other drivers a couple of times).  Most of the traffic on the gravel road was bicycles, some carrying quite a load, though there were several cars and motorbikes including one carrying a dad and three little tackers – baby on his knee and two more on the pillion – all of whom waved and smiled as they went past!

The gravel road winds through the forest and up to Minziro village which is close to the Uganda border.  The forest crosses the border – it has a different name on the other side – and could have been National Park quality except that it has been exploited for rainforest timber since German days when a little rail line took the timber to Lake Victoria for export.

 The first thing we noticed about the forest was the number of butterflies.  They were of many different colours – orange, blue, chocolate, yellow, zebra striped, and more.  There were so many that sometimes we were ‘wading’ through them as we walked along the road.  The butterflies were certainly easier to ‘watch’ than the birds which were mostly skulking just out of sight.

There are many little dirt footpaths leading off the road and we wandered down about a dozen of these over the several hours we spent in the forest.  One went along a little creek where we saw beautiful ferns and fungi as well as a glimpse of a blue-breasted kingfisher.  Both Terri and Leen are quite interested in birds – Terri spotted Steve’s Shoebill several weekends ago and Leen has asked if she can have Steve’s bird list for the house as she lives near us and wants to narrow down the possibilities to look up in her bird guide for what she sees in her garden.  Terri goes home to the US on Wednesday next but Leen I think will be a fixture on Steve’s local birding expeditions when she is in Bukoba.

Steve’s bird Life List increased by 10 – I spotted the African Moustached Warbler and the Whinchat!

It was a lovely day out!

Leen & Steve studying the handbook