In March 2011, the telecoms company I worked for at the time approached me and asked if I would like to join a survey team travelling to Sierra Leone, West Africa to undertake initial surveys for a private wireless network on behalf of a large international minerals extraction company. The following photos were taken during our 3 week stay in the country. We were based in the capital Freetown but travelled up country to carry out surveys at our clients open cast iron ore extraction mine at Tonkolili (Tonk), their logistics base in Makeni, (located between Freetown and Tonk), and at various other wireless mast sites in between. Here is my snapshot of Sierra Leone, a much troubled country in the recent past but extremely interesting, resilient and diverse nonetheless.....
Lungi beach. Situated in the North side of the Sierra Leone river estuary. This is where the main SL international airport is located. To travel to Freetown city itself (situated on the south side of the estuary) you have 4 options - by road (too long and bumpy); by normal ferry (too slow); by charter helicopter (too expensive) or by fast speedboat - this is the option we selected for our first trip. For all subsequent journeys across the estuary we availed of the slow ferry. Photo below....
The "Slow" ferry - an amazing experience and grew to enjoy over the handful of times we used it. Such a diverse mix of people all packed onto this ferry, with 3 x different "class" lounges. On the top deck, (which was covered with a sheet for protection from the sun), there was a "resident" style pair of DJs blasting out brilliant jungle music over an ancient hifi/record player and speaker system.
Rush hour, Wilkinson Rd, West Freetown
Side streets in the capital Freetown
View from the "Bintumani" hotel, Aberdeen, Freetown
Freetown
Our drivers - Mohammed and Mohammed (Med)
On the highway to Makeni (NE from capital Freetown)
Meeting a few local children along the way....
....stopped at the Comium tower at Occra Hill and found out a bit of the local history here - the location of a little known military hostage rescue that smashed the gang of rebels known as the "West Side Boys" during the civil war in September 2000. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barras
...onwards to Masiaka where we climbed the 80m Comium tower in seering heat....
...crossed the Rokel river on this battered bridge...
...arriving in Makeni.
We also travelled to Mile 91 for a survey on a tower site...
...dirt roads for tens of miles ...
..meeting other locals on the way. Here a mother and her child sit in the shade under a tree all day as her husband carries out guard duty at the Comium tower compound close by.
Curious group of locals at Mile 91 with Med, one of our drivers(left)
Tonkolili village up country. Closest "urban" area to the iron ore mine in the mountains. Extremely hot location - up to 40 deg C in the shade!!
On the road to Tonk
The view from the Comium mast site overlooking the iron ore extraction operations ( to the right in the valley). The highest mountain to the right of the shot apparently consists entirely of iron ore and will be extracted by open cast mining techniques and be transported to China over the next 50 yrs. Thus the need for a high capacity dedicated 200 km rail link to be built from this location direct to Pepel port on the Sierra Leone river to be loaded onto ships - http://www.african-minerals.com/operations/tonkolili-project-videos
As part of the mission, we had to survey a number of inaccessible hilltop sites where we might potentially locate a new tower. The only way we could do this was by helicopter so we were given use of one of the choppers provided by one of the few private charter helicopter companies in country.
Fuelling up at Freetown International Airport located at Lungi
Aerial view of the new deep water harbour for loading the cargo ships with raw iron ore - transported to here via new railway line (can be seen under construction to the bottom left of photo)
Pepel port again
New railway embankment under construction
Landed at Tonk mine
Aerial view of a part of Tonk mine complex
Landing at railway construction site for another survey