Tour around Africa: Stage 55 - Robe (HAGB) to Dire Dawa (HADR)
MS Flight Simulator VFR Flight Plan
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At the bottom of this page you will find the download link of this Flight Plan (.PLN file)

In this VFR - GPS Flight Plan we take off from the dirt runway of Robe (HAGB), fly to the Abul Kasim mountain, then to Awash and Harar and finally land in the runway 33 of the airport of Dire Dawa (HADR)

Find below a short extract and screenshots of the main points of the route. In this journey around Africa I have used the Cessna 172S (Skyhawk)

Take off from the dirt runway 15 of the aerodrome of Robe (HAGB).

Robe Airport (IATA: GOB, ICAO: HAGB) is an airport in the town of Bale Robe, Ethiopia. It also serves the nearby town of Goba. (*1) 

Leaving Robe towards the Abul Kasim mountain.

Reaching the Abul Kasim mountain.

Abul Kasim is a mountain in southeastern Ethiopia. Located in the Arsi Zone of the Oromia Region, this mountain has an elevation of 2,573 metres (8,442 ft) above sea level. It is the highest point in Seru woreda.

Although this mountain has great importance to Oromo cultural and religious tradition as the home of the Abba Muda, it is also important as the location of the tomb of a descendant of the Muslim saint Sheikh Hussein, and is the object of an annual pilgrimage. Trimingham describes the tomb as "covered with glass beads and ornaments of copper and brass. Similar ornament are to be seen on some trees in the forest, and no visitors would dare touch these holy objects." (*1)

Overflying Awash.

Awash Subah is a market town in central Ethiopia. Located in Administrative Zone 3 of the Afar Region, above a gorge on the Awash River, after which the town is named, the town lies on the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, which crosses the gorge by a bridge there. It is the largest settlement in Awash Fentale woreda.

Awash lies outside the Awash National Park, which is known for its wildlife, for the Mount Fentale caldera and for the Filwoha Hot Springs. Its market is held on Mondays, where Afar and Kereyu crafts can be found.

An iron bridge over the Awash had been built at the present location of Awash by Emperor Menelik II's favorite, Alfred Ilg, around 1890; this bridge replaced an earlier wooden one. The construction had to face the great difficulty of transporting the girders from Djibouti, but once the material had arrived, the structure had been finished in ten days; however Emperor Menelik had used for other purposes the cement imported from Europe to build the bridge with. When Count Gleichen encountered the bridge in 1897, during his mission to Emperor Menelik, he found "the bridge would be too weak to stand anything but ordinary pack-animal traffic. For nine months in the year it is blocked at each end by a broad abattis of thorn-bush, - to prevent people from using it when the river is fordable, - but during the rains it is left open."

Awash grew up around the railroad station, which was opened not long after 1917 when the railway had reached this far into Ethiopia. A hotel for passengers was built in Awash about that time. The fourth post office in Ethiopia (after Harar, Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa) was established in Awash on 1 September 1923, but it may not have been much of a point of origin and arrival but rather a place on the line between the capital and the coast.

During the Italian occupation, Awash still provided a post office, a telegraph station, the hotel, and restaurant. The town was occupied in April 1941 by the 22nd East African Brigade of the King's African Rifles, who had advanced for three days from Dire Dawa. Elements of this brigade afterwards continued their advance across the Awash at this point on 3 April 1941, although the road and rail bridge had been demolished by the retreating Italians. By 1953, the bridge had been rebuilt.

One of the five camps to train conscripts of the People's Militia (reconstituted in the spring of 1977 as the "Red Army") was located at Awash. (*1)

Beautiful large mountain chain in the way to Harar

Passing by Gara Muleta.

The Gara Muleta or Gārāmulatā is a 3405 m high mountain in the Oromia administrative region of Ethiopia . It is the highest mountain in the Chercher Highlands and belongs to the Ahmar Mountains. The mountain is surrounded by an evergreen cloud forest zone with many epiphytes . Within the semi-arid to arid landscape, the forest forms a unique ecosystem.

The Gara Muleta extends horizontally for 16 km, with elevation differences between 2400 and 3400 m.  The geology, soils and climate of the mountain were described in 1968 by Henry Fred Murphy  and in 1990 by Siegfried Kurt Uhlig and Käthe Uhlig scientifically described.

In the forest around the mountain, various animals are found such as the bushbuck , leopard , Ethiopian ibex , Beisa oryx , hyenas , three species of baboons , bush pigs , genets , African civets , common porcupines , francolins , guinea fowls and an abundant selection of birds and reptiles .

Between 1983 and 1994 there were numerous botanical studies on the mountain, recording more than 391 plant species from 43 families. Many of the plants are endemic .  (*1)

Overflying Harar

Harar[a] (Amharic: ሐረር; Harari: ሀረር; Oromo: Adare Biyyo; Somali: Herer; Arabic: هرر), known historically by the indigenous as Harar-Gey or simply Gey (Harari: ጌይ Gēy, lit. 'the city'), is a walled city in eastern Ethiopia. It is also known in Arabic as the City of Saints (Arabic: مدينة الأولياء, romanized: Madīna al-ʾAwliyāʾ).

Harar is the capital city of the Harari Region. The ancient city is located on a hilltop in the eastern part of the country and is about five hundred kilometers from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa at an elevation of 1,885 metres (6,184 ft).

For centuries, Harar has been a major commercial center, linked by the trade routes with the rest of Ethiopia, the entire Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Asia, and through its ports, the outside world. Harar Jugol, the old walled city, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2006 by UNESCO in recognition of its cultural heritage.[8] Because of Harar's long history of involvement during times of trade in the Arabian Peninsula, the Government of Ethiopia has made it a criminal offence to demolish or interfere with any historical sites or fixtures in the city. These include stone homes, museums and items discarded from war. According to UNESCO, it is "considered 'the fourth holiest city' of Islam" with 82 mosques, three of which date from the 10th century, and 102 shrines.

Yahyá Naṣrallāh's Fatḥ Madīnat Harar, an unpublished history of the city in the 13th century, records that the legendary saint Abadir Umar ar-Rida and several other religious leaders settled in the Harar plateau c. 1216 (612 AH). Harar was later made the new capital of the Adal Sultanate in 1520 by the Sultan Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad. The city saw a political decline during the ensuing Emirate of Harar, only regaining some significance in the Khedivate of Egypt period. During the Ethiopian Empire, the city decayed while maintaining a certain cultural prestige. (*1)

Final approach to the runway 33 of the international airport of Dire Dawa.

Dire Dawa (Amharic: ድሬዳዋ, Harari: ድሬዳዋ, lit. "Plain of Medicine"; Oromo: Dirree Dhawaa, lit. 'Place of Remedy';[6] Somali: Diridhaba, meaning "where Dir hit his spear into the ground" or "The true Dir", Arabic: ديري داوا[]) is a city in eastern Ethiopia near the Oromia and Somali Region border and one of two chartered cities in Ethiopia (the other being Addis Ababa, the capital). Dire Dawa alongside present-day Sitti Zone were a part of the Dire Dawa autonomous region stipulated in the 1987 Ethiopian Constitution until 1993 when it was split by the federal government into a separately administered chartered city.

It is divided administratively into two woredas, the city proper and the non-urban woreda of Gurgura.

Dire Dawa lies in the eastern part of the nation, on the Dechatu River, at the foot of a ring of cliffs. The western outskirts of the city lie on the Gorro River, a tributary of the Dechatu River. It is located at the latitude and longitude of 9°36′N 41°52′E. The city is an industrial centre, home to several markets and the Dire Dawa Airport.

The projected population for 2015 was 440,000 for the entire chartered city and 277,000 for the city proper, making the latter the seventh largest city in Ethiopia. (*1)

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(*1) Credits: The descriptive texts are mainly an excerpt of those provided by Wikipedia. Visit Wikipedia to read the full descriptions.