Excursions
The most accessible part of Sierra Leone is the Freetown Peninsula. From Leicester Peak, superb views of the city between the sea and the mountains unfold below, and a narrow, steep road through the mountains leads to the old Creole villages (dating from 1800) of Leicester, Gloucester and Regent. The area was chosen as a resettlement area for liberated slaves who built the villages of Hastings, Kent, Sussex, Waterloo, Wellington and York. Freetown itself, surrounded by thickly vegetated hills, is both a colourful and historic port. Attractions include a 500-year-old cotton tree; the museum; the De Ruyter Stone; Government Wharf and ‘King’s Yard’ (where freed slaves waited to be given land); Fourah Bay College, the oldest university in West Africa; Marcon’s Church, built in 1820; and the City Hotel, immortalised in Graham Greene’s novel The Heart of the Matter. The King Jimmy Market and the bazaars offer a colourful spectacle and interesting shopping. A boat trip up the Rokel River to Bunce Island, one of the first slave trading stations of West Africa, makes an interesting excursion.
Permits, obtainable from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Freetown, are necessary for visits to Reserves, and a guide is provided. For more information, contact the Ministry of Tourism and Culture (see Contact Addresses section).
The Outamba-Kilimi National Park in northern Sierra Leone, which can be reached from Freetown by road or air, offers varied and spectacular scenery; at this and other reserves there are game animals such as elephants, chimpanzees and pigmy hippos. The Sakanbiarwa plant reserve has an extensive collection of orchids, which are at their best early in the year.
|
