Soni Falls, Bumbuli

The district has changed and the copy has not

Soni is a small town on the road that climbs from Mombo up the escarpment to Lushoto, and the falls are in the town, on the Mkuzu river, beside the road.

Almost every description of them places Soni in Lushoto District. That has not been true since 2013. Bumbuli District Council’s own account is explicit: Bumbuli was part of Lushoto until 2013, when Lushoto was divided because its area of administration had become too large. Soni is a ward of Bumbuli District Council, and it appears as such in the council’s own ward list.

This is not pedantry. If you need to ask a district authority anything — about road works on the escarpment, about local arrangements, about anything at all — asking Lushoto about Soni is asking the wrong council, and has been for over a decade.

Whose falls they are not

Soni does not appear among the attractions Tanzania Forest Services lists near Magamba Nature Forest Reserve, and it lies well down the escarpment from the reserve. Nothing about Magamba’s management, trails or arrangements applies here, and any itinerary that bundles Soni Falls into a Magamba permit is bundling two unrelated things.

No authority publishes a height, a flow, a walking time or a managing body for the falls. Bumbuli District Council’s page for Soni ward carries no content on them.

What they are

A roadside waterfall on a river in a town, on the main climb into the West Usambaras. That is genuinely worth knowing, because it sets expectations correctly: this is a stop of fifteen minutes on the way up or down, not a destination, and it costs nothing in time because everybody driving between Mombo and Lushoto passes it anyway.

The flow varies enormously with the season. In the dry months it can be thin. The waterfall hiking guide covers falls in this range generally, and the Usambara guide covers the seasons, which in this range are not what a coastal forecast suggests.

Common questions