We had to start our day with some repair work. The diesel leak had started up again from the pump so we needed to replace the pipe and we had yet another flat tyre which needed to be repaired. So after fixing the pipe and getting into Iringa for the tyre repair and diesel we were on the road late morning. We also found a great market and got the Masai blankets we'd been looking for at a much better price than the tourist places.

It was probably one of our most boring days having driven this road through a less exciting portion of Tanzania. The road was slow but uneventful, the same roadworks that had been there on our way in with the hold ups and the many small towns scattered in this very arid region. It's only towards the major town of Mbeya that everything suddenly becomes green again as you start to ascend into the tea plantations.

We had originally hoped to make it into Malawi but another 500km for a second day would be tough going (we work on an average of 70km/h including stops so 500km takes most of the day) especially if we needed to fit in a border crossing. We heard from the people we'd met in Iringa that Bongo Campsite was very pleasant and we headed there, 400km away and an hour inside the border just outside Tukuyu.

The campsite was a Denmark-funded (not surprisingly!) initiative to provide a kindergarten school free of charge to the community as well as a number of other community projects, funded by overland campers. It was run by locals and so therefore had the usual assortment of far too many people lurking around for us to know who was really in charge. They provided hot water for us to bucket bath and offered a basic restaurant and a pleasant campsite high up in the mountains (though just off the main road) with a grassed lawn and campsites lined with small shrubs, quite a novelty that made it look quite professional. The kids were on holiday and lurked around plucking up the courage to whisper "how are you" every know and again! Then Joey set the place alight with some Fizzers from the car…

It was cold! Colder than Iringa because we were higher and further inland. We whipped up our tuna and mashed potato (tuna's really nice with cheesy white sauce or tomato and onion gravy!) as quickly as possible and hopped into the tent with all our blankets.