Cs1/4 Bunyonyi – 12 kms – This stage finishes at the Lake Bunyonyi resort but does not provide scenic views of the lake, that bragging right belongs to another stage. This stage runs along the lower slopes overlooking Kabale town, on wide and fairly straight roads. Not surprisingly the fastest stage of the rally. It finishes with a super steep downhill and fast brows that bring you back into town along the Kisoro road.
Cs2/5/9 Kitagata – 27 kms - A long liaison section along the Kisoro road precedes
this stage and takes us deeper and higher into the hills. It has very narrow, tight, rough and
un-protected hairpin bends as you spiral up the hills, a bit rough on the way up
through lumberjack territory for about 14kms. The road opens and maintains
altitude for about 4 kms before a rollercoaster descent on wide, smooth,
rounder medium speed bends to the FF which is itself near the start.
Cs3/6/8 Stadium – 1.5kms – This is a spectator special stage,
on a grass track in the Kabale town stadium right in the centre of town. Perhaps because the organisers figured you
can catch all the action from the adjacent slopes and without setting foot
inside the arena, they decided against a gate charge. How do you make a pitch of
100m length into a stage more than 1 km long. Answer – you create 15 hairpins
Cs7/10 Katuna 29 kms – a 20 km drive south takes you to
katuna border post, thru the border gates and west thru the Katuna village. It
starts in low lying areas and ascends gently at first and then sharply thru narrow,
stony cliff hanger hairpin bends as it makes its way towards Lake Bunyonyi.
Towards the end, it joins the Bunyonyi stage.
Cs8 Heisesero – 27 kms – stage starts at Heisesero on the Kisoro road and on the northern most tip of the Lake Bunyonyi, the only point where the highway touches the lake. You can actually touch the water here and because of the sharp bends in the terrain the lake looks like a pond at this point. The start is very similar to Kitagata – very narrow, rough, tight hairpin bends, and no barriers, the difference being drops into the water as opposed to fertile gardens – within 700m you wake up to the reality that if you step off the road and there isn’t much to stop you, you are ending up in the deepest lake in the world. It is a scary ascent when the road is say 50m off the level of the lake. It is suicidal when the road climbs to maybe 200m above lake level, a point where you can mistake the little islands on the lake for fishing boats. The entire stage traces about half of the eastern bank of the lake. Towards the end it leaves the lake and descends gently then sharply on very slippery red earth fertile soils towards Bubare on the Kisoro road.
Rugarama – This stage is very similar to Heisesero and
Kitagata, only steeper. It also adds
cracks in the narrow pavement and because it was raining, there was no telling
if the pavement would get washed away during the rally. It was cancelled.
It was obvious after the recce that this was going to be the
championships toughest. But even before it began, we would get premonitions of
things to come
Look out for Part 3: Premonitions/Weird moments and Part 4 for the Entry List
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