22-May-2005 -- Ajaokuta, it is Sunday morning and after having visited 9N 7E the day before and having had a good night at the bar of the "Berghof", we all found it extremely difficult to get up. Eventually, we all met for breakfast around 7 a.m. We managed to get onto the road before 8 a.m. and our aim was to visit confluence 7N 7E.

We were proceeding towards the bridge and crossed the river Niger, bypassing Itobe and heading in direction of Ejule. Some kilometres before Ejule we took the turnoff to Umomi. At Umomi we followed the road towards Idah, but turned off before we reached Idah towards Oforachi and reached the road leading to Egabada. Just after we had crossed the bridge over the river Anambra we off-loaded our bikes. In a matter of minutes we were surrounded by the villagers who were very curious, wondering what we were doing here. One lady, quite smartly dressed, thought she knew it all and was convinced that we are prospecting for oil and wanted to be informed of our findings first.

At this point we were 5.2 km away from the degree confluence 7N 7E. After travelling for a kilometre we reached a side arm of the river Anambra that looked bigger at the map than it actually was and would have been a problem later on during the raining season. The area before was rain forest, but now it was cleared and the wood had been turned into charcoal. What a waste of pristine forests! We managed to get as close as 50 meter to the Confluence with our bikes, the rest was an easy stroll. After we had made the required pictures we returned to our bikes and had a casual ride back the same way we came.

We reached the small stream again which we crossed with ease, provided of course you are riding a Honda. Schnuppi's KTM somehow didn't like the crossing: he tried twice and ended up landing in some bush but eventually managed - well done, Schnuppi! To avoid again a big gathering of the villagers at Egabada when loading the bikes we decided to carry on with our bikes for another 25 km or so before we loaded the bikes onto the trailers.

We returned to Ajaokuta and branched off to the "Berghof" where Heimo and Traudl already expected us for lunch. We got served an excellent tasting Austrian specialty called "Backhendl" (braised chicken parts). The lunch lasted for quite a while, mainly because of the good company and all the digestive we were offered and could not refuse. At 4 p.m. however we had to say farewell to our friends at Ajaokuta and returned to Abuja. Our trip to the confluence 7N 7E turned out to be a really fun-filled gourmet weekend.