Saloum Delta and Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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

   Saloum Delta is where the day begins. Next is Fort Bullen.

2. 2. Fort Bullen

   Take the ferry from Banjul and the first thing you see across the water is a low fort squatting at the river mouth, its cannon still pointing out toward the Atlantic. Fort Bullen guards the northern bank of the Gambia, in Barra, and it was built by the British in 1826 to keep watch on the slave ships that kept slipping past after Britain had outlawed the trade. The brick walls are modest and the guns are old, but the position says everything: whoever held this bank held the river, and the river was the Gambia's only real road into the interior.

   Read the complete Fort Bullen write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Fort Bullen comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is James Island.

3. 3. James Island

   A rock in the Gambia river has been renamed three times, and each name tells you a chapter. In 1651, the Duchy of Courland, a small Baltic state, built a fort on the island and called it St Andrew's. The British took it ten years later and renamed it James Island, after the Duke of York, and it passed back and forth between the British, French and pirates, a base for the trade in enslaved Africans, and later a fort and a mission. In 2011 the Gambian government renamed it Kunta Kinteh Island, after the hero of Alex Haley's novel Roots, who is said to have been taken from the village of Juffureh on the riverbank, close by. Whether or not the story of Kunta Kinte is literally true, the island has become a powerful symbol of the slave trade, and the ruins of the fort, with its crumbling walls and cannons, are a sober sight. The island and the related sites on the shore were listed as a World Heritage property in 2003.

   Read the complete James Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach James Island. Next is Six-Gun Battery.

4. 4. 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, about halfway. Next is Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites.

5. 5. 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 sits at 165 km, about halfway. Next is back through Six-Gun Battery.

6. 6. 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 comes up about 206 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through James Island.

7. 7. back through James Island

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete James Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 246 km into the recorded legs you reach back through James Island. Next is back through Fort Bullen.

8. 8. back through Fort Bullen

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Fort Bullen write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Fort Bullen, late in the day. Next is Saloum Delta.

9. 9. Saloum Delta

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   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

   The route ends here after 328 km.