After breakfast in a small street restaurant next to the hotel, we drive almost to the top of Leicester Peak. There is a checkpoint, but as far as I can see, all tourists are allowed to drive to the viewpoint on the western slopes of the peak. There is a fairly large car park and a few locals around.
We took a few photos of Freetown and then looked towards the true summit, which was about 100 metres away in a fenced area next to communications masts. We walked up to the gates and saw a friendly team of guards sitting in the shade. We asked if we could go up to the highpoint and were obviously told no. It wasn’t a big deal as we were standing 10-20 metres from a pile of rocks that looked like the highest natural point in the area but we tried to explain in a few sentences what peakbagging was all about and asked again, this time getting a much better answer – “No photos, OK, only touch, OK?” We said yes, put our phones away and hurried up the pile of stones. A few seconds later we were at the highpoint. Success! There were buildings around, so it is possible that the natural summit was somewhere else in the past. But now we think we were standing on it. Peakbaggers are very grateful for the permission to reach the summit and greatly appreciate it!
On the way back, at the viewpoint, we also found the BM1 and BM2 benchmarks with triangles on one of the stones. An easy drive up and a good start to the day. Now we head to Lumley Beach and later across the mouth of the Sierra Leone River to the airport. This is the final peak of the trip.
