Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites and Saloum Delta

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites

   In the brown tidal water of the River Gambia, some thirty kilometres from the Atlantic, a small low island of rock and scrub carries the ruins of a fort that mattered far beyond its size. For centuries Portuguese, Courlanders, English and French all fought to control this reach of the river, the gateway to the gold, ivory, wax and, above all, people that came down from the interior. The island was long called James Island, after a Stuart prince, and in 2011 its name was officially changed to Kunta Kinteh, after the ancestor in Alex Haley's novel Roots, who is said to have been taken from the nearby village of Juffureh. Whether or not the family story holds in every detail, the island stands for the whole trade, and the World Heritage listing covers the island and its related sites on the banks.

   Read the complete Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites is where the day begins. Next is Six-Gun Battery.

2. 2. Six-Gun Battery

   The Gambia is a long, narrow country that follows its river, and Banjul sits at the mouth where the river meets the Atlantic, on a low, sandy island that feels like a sandbar with ambitions. The city was founded by the British in 1816 as Bathurst, a base to suppress the slave trade, and the Six-Gun Battery is one of the military remains from that era. It forms part of the UNESCO site called Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites, which also includes Fort Bullen on the opposite bank at Barra, and together they tell the story of the Gambia river as a route of the Atlantic slave trade and of the later effort to end it.

   Read the complete Six-Gun Battery write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Six-Gun Battery comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Saloum Delta.

3. 3. Saloum Delta

   The Saloum Delta is where the river Saloum and its arms dissolve into a maze of mangrove channels, sandbanks and low islands before meeting the Atlantic, about halfway between Dakar and the Gambian border. It is a flat, watery, shimmering place, where the horizon is a line of mangroves and the only things standing taller than a man are baobabs and the occasional village water tower. Locals call the narrow creeks bolongs, and they wind through the delta like veins.

   Read the complete Saloum Delta write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Saloum Delta. Next is back through Six-Gun Battery.

4. 4. back through Six-Gun Battery

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Six-Gun Battery write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Six-Gun Battery, late in the day. Next is Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites.

5. 5. Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites. That is the ride.