The white-necked raven eyed us beadily. It was not an attractive bird. Its feathers were scruffy and its heavy beak was all too obviously designed for scavenging on carcasses. All the same, I was glad to see it. We were in northern Tanzania, one of the most famous wildlife destinations in the world. But that raven, I realised, was the first sign of life we had seen in hours.

Firstly, hats off to those reviewers below who have summited Mount Kilimanjaro. It’s a great undertaking and I hope to follow in your footsteps one day. We debated whether trying to fit in the full ascent on our trip to Tanzania. We could have done – but it would have involved sacrificing other aspects of our itinerary. And, as our travel agent pointed out to us, “This is supposed to be a honeymoon, not an endurance test!” (The endurance test comes once the honeymoon is over I guess…)

So, like Els, we settled for a day hike on Kilimanjaro. From what I can gather, many of the trail heads are located outside Kilimanjaro National Park itself. The World Heritage Site occupies exactly the same dimensions as the National Park and both start ‘at the tree line’. So if you are still trolling through forest, you are not yet in the National Park / World Heritage Site (I think). And that’s a shame, because it’s the forests that hold much of the wildlife. All of the overnight huts are located within the Park proper, though.

Our entire walk was above the treeline as we chose to take the Shira Route from the western Londorossi Gate. We were staying out towards Longido, west of the mountain, so it made sense. It also allowed us to maximise our time within the World Heritage Site. Beyond Londorossi Gate the road is passable for vehicles and so we swerved the first 1000m of ascent through a 30 minute drive. From there it was only a 90 minute walk to Shira Camp. The route took us across the Shira Plateau. The word to describe the surroundings would be ‘unearthly’. It resembled nothing so much as a particularly godforsaken stretch of Scottish moorland. To our left was the slope up to Uhuru Peak, shielded from view by dirty grey clouds. To our right was Shira Peak.  Ahead, ‘Shira Cathedral’. And underfoot was mostly uneven rock, though with enough soil strewn about to support a regular alpine rock garden of hardy plant life. Sadly, we didn’t spot any of the weird giant lobelia that can be found here. Nor did we spot any wildlife – or, indeed, anyone else. Despite all the bustle down at the park offices at Londorossi Gate we didn’t spot anyone else on our trek across the Plateau towards Shira Camp. It was just the pair of us and our guide (for whom this must have literally been a walk in the park; he told us he had summited some 200 times). Our wildlife sightings were that single solitary raven and a brief glimpse of a mouse, and they were both once we had retraced our steps to the Land Rover. Larger wildlife is not unknown up on the plateau; indeed we crossed the gorge of the Simba River, named after lions that are infrequently seen.

I would stress one point that Els made in her review – Park fees are payable only by card. There was a group of Americans at Londorossi Gate when we arrived. They were still there when we left over four hours later. Upon arrival they discovered that none of their party’s assorted debit or credit cards worked and they had needed to send someone all the way back to Moshi to withdraw cash.  They were now racing the clock; if their friend didn’t get back soon they wouldn’t be able to leave for Shira Camp before night fell. And regardless of whether they set off that day or the next their booking still required them to leave the National Park on a fixed date. A day’s delay undermined their chances of getting up to the summit and back down again safely.

World Heritage-iness: 2.5

My Experience: 2

(Visited Jan 2015)