One week to go

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Beaurocracy in Africa has started already testing our patience. Having applied for passports on 25th August 2007 Nev’s correct one arrived 2nd March 2007, six months later! We can now start applying for the necessary visas with only one week to go. Looks like we will have to camp in Pretoria while getting them.

Meantime we have taken out the sheep and chickens and fiddled and faffed around the Landy. We seem to have so much STUFF that I am getting claustrophobic. We haven’t changed much on the original 5-door sedan. We took out all the back seats and added a rack to store the packing boxes. One thing we learned from our other trips is that everything should be very well tied down, so although the boxes are not as convenient as cupboards, they do not jump around, no matter how bumpy the road, and the eggs don’t get scrambled. We decided to leave our trusty 80 l National Luna freezer and get a 73 litre double door NL fridge/freezer costing more than your larny one in your kitchen! We installed it between the axles just behind our two 60 l water tanks, so that the heaviest items are low down and in the middle, giving us optimum stability.
We have four different diesel tanks built in everywhere so can manage 1400Km at a stretch. On the roof rack (with an awning) then, is the Christie Sports tent, two plastic boxes for pillows and sleeping bags, our table and chairs, the high-lift jack and fishing rods. Outside at the back are the spare wheel and spare tyre, the spade and two 10Kg gas cylinders. On the front bumper is the hydraulic jack and in the bumper is a 4 m long milk hose. Milk hose? Yes from the dairy, for filling the water tanks if needed. I made curtains and mozi-screens for some of the windows. We have nothing extra on the sides of the Landy because things get scraped off the sides in the bush.
Inside we have a radio-tape-cassette, a two-way radio, satphone, clock, max/min thermometer , and Nev is thinking about taking a rain gauge because rainfall and temperature are important to farmers, even while on holiday!!

Keeping the vehicle moving is Nev’s responsibility, although I like fiddling with mechanics too. Trust a farmer to find all sorts of holes in which to store spares. All the spare engine hoses are in bags secured in the engine compartment under the bonnet. Very ‘secured’, … I hope we don’t need them or we will have to pry them out!!! Baling twine and bits of wire make up most of the rest of the spares. And a pair of fencing pliers of course. I prefer using Velcro and glue to baling twine, personally.

We are taking some electronic devices in the hope that they work, and we can figure out how to work them. Laptop computer, digital camera, digital camcorder with a bigger hard drive than the laptop – 60Gig, so an external 400Gig hard drive to keep the computer happy, two Garmin GPS units (on a previous trip we had one die on us in the middle of nowhere and we nearly had to stay there. Fortunately Garmin replaced it when we found our way home, but we lost the data) and an inverter to recharge it all. We hope our two 120AH deep cycle batteries will be sufficient for the fridge and all this STUFF. At least they won’t drain the Landy’s starter battery. Two hand held spot lights, a fluorescent light and a rechargeable lamp, oh, and a few manually wind-up torches, will eclipse any starry sky in the bush. An extra little tent with self-inflatable mattresses (for the old bones), and a nifty pop-up toilet/shower cubicle (which we battle to fold up again) are extras we haven’t used before.
For security we are taking a little electric fence unit (very effectively kept the hyenas away once before), a movement sensor with an alarm so loud it will deafen the intruder, and a sparky zapper thing to electrocute the baddies (he he he!). Oh, the razor-sharp machete is only for hacking through jungle, ok?
The kitchen is a two-plate caste-iron gas cooker or a fire when we can get wood/charcoal. The rest of the stuff is food and clothing. Well off to try to get visas today.