Monday 070319

T-2 hours and counting.
070311
You can always trust a Landy!!! Oh yes, after giving it its last wash Nev couldn’t get it out of first gear. We called in our dear friend Paul Engelbrecht who helped Nev reinsert the grub screw from the gear box. How lucky to have the first breakdown on our front lawn in the shade of a beautiful old oak tree.


STANDERTON
Blast Off at last
After a teary farewell, and after discovering my digital camera didn’t work so couldn’t take last photos of the family, traveled 100 Km from home and when we stopped for a wee break found the Landy leaking oil out the transmission box. At the top of the Drakensberg escarpment we stopped in Van Reenen where we found two bush mechanics asleep in the shade. They filled the gear box with oil, and we then caught up with Beryl and Dave in Harrismith where we had lunch. They kindly offered to take our passports and apply for the Egyptian visas for us while we sort out the Landy. Then on the road again I phoned the ‘Landrover Assist’ 0800 0.. line and they put me onto the nearest Landrover agent which was in Standerton. We took a short cut on a dirt road through Cornelia where a friendly petrol station attendant helpfully lay under the Landy with Nev to put more oil in. The Standerton workshop foreman, Jaco Groenewald, met us in town and escorted us to a beautiful sandstone boarding house appropriately called Die Kliphuis. This B&B is of the highest standard owned and run by a vivacious Susan Schutte. William gave us a guided tour then offered to take us into town to a Spur to have supper, then fetched us again. The people so far in Standerton have gone out of their way to be helpful, and on a Sunday!

The back of the Landy is now covered in dusty oil, yuk. Living is not yet automatic and I have to still think where everything has been stored - the old neurons are having to make new connections all the time. It is strange to think how we are going to leave all the familiar, comfortable things of home for different experiences , languages and cultures. Oh, you should have heard Nev sprouting Afrikaans to the petrol attendant as if he was used to speaking Afrikaans every day. I was impressed.


jOHANNESBURG
070312 Monday
The garage Ritchie Landrover in Standerton started working on the Landy first thing, and finished at 1pm. Seems like there was water in the transmission oil, this boiled and damaged the seals. All fixed now yay. We bought a new camera, same kind, but and upgradeS5600 and sent the old Fujifilm S5000 for repairs.
From Van Reenen we have seen dry maize. Pitiful crops with the odd reasonable crop indicating patchy and sporadic rains. The soya and millet looked good because they are far more drought resistant crops.
We explored Standerton on foot while waiting for the Landy to get fixed. It is a quiet, laid-back, leafy, oak tree-lined town with clean, too-wide streets for the lack of traffic. The people have an enviable small-town, laid-back attitude while being close enough to Joburg to generate a quiet pride in keeping up a high standard of self-achievement. They have an open, trusting and friendly demeanour, and if they are not actually related to each other, then they know and care about their fellows. We had a fish at Zon Onder, a red and black cozy restaurant right next to Landrover run by a bony, lean young Scot who had come to SA to start up a drug-rehabilitation clinic and who envied our trip. The Foto First shop was run by Danie, the brother of the lady at Landrover. The prices in the shops are slightly cheaper than in Pmb.
We took the ‘scenic route’ through the middle of the cities of Brakpan and Boksberg, the traffic getting busier and more stressed on our way to Johannesburg and found our way to Melrose Arch to where Andrew (Ingles) is working. Arriving in Melrose Arch, a new development in progress, was like landing in the middle of London. They have cleverly designed the architecture, paving and décor to give the feel and atmosphere of a London arcade, but in a modern almost clinically clean way. It was quite delightful. Andrew looked cool and fitted in well. Suited men and women were interspersed with a sprinkling of the casual rich youth, made us feel like the ‘poor relations from the plaas’. The Mark Gold jewelry is uniquely different, and exclusively expensive, whew.
We found the crummy but clean Sandton Park Hotel, room only R320, with secure parking, most important, for the night.
Nev said he would rather be sentenced to a year’s hard farming than to drive in Johannesburg for one day, the traffic was so bad, and that was at 11am. Where is everybody going, aren’t they supposed to be at work somewhere? (wait for Cairo we hear its worse, AND on the wrong side of the road!) Recons too that just as well we will be in a retirement home in 20 years as he would not want to be driving in traffic then.

Passports
We went early to Uganda to fill in all the forms and Martha said we could have them the next day when we handed in our passports which were still in Egypt. Egypt’s collections opened at 3pm, we were there at 2.30pm and I sat on the step outside waiting. They must have CCV cameras spying outside because a very concerned employee came to ask if I was ok, not sick or anything. He kindly husstled up the passports for me and we rushed over to Uganda and Martha got them signed right there and then. 24 hours earlier than we expected! Yihaai we were on our way.
Stayed at the Warmbaths spa (have to go back there again sometime!!) that night and met up with D&B the next morning. Started the journey well by saying, right, onto the N1 north and we promptly went in a different direction and landed on the R101 and lost them. They were dutifully heading for the N1. Got to the border at Zanzibar and the official was sitting under a tree on a bench filling out all the forms which we usually have to fill out. One chap kept climbing up and down a tree. When we enquired what he was doing, they told us that this is the only place they can get cell coms apart from on top of the water tower some 50 m away. Please, if anyone has high connections in the MTN group, organize them to get a booster, they are very pleasant hard-working people and deserve better than to be climbing up the tree in 40oC heat. We took half an hour through the border and we thought it was long until we heard the George and Ann-Rose took two hours to get through the border at Martin’s Drift. The border officials told us that at night hundreds of Zimbabwians cross the border unaprehended. In answer to our query why, he pointed to his shaking head and said, Mugabe.
The Limpopo is dry dry dry. We stayed in a bush camp that night with lots of steekgras, but it was wonderful.
The maize in the lands is pitiful, and the sorghum not much better. The temps go up to 37oC in the day and the Landy’s hell hole by my feet gets unbearable. Spraying with a water jet is a wonderful relief from the heat.

DAVE”S LANDCRUISER
Dave, the electrical technical IT man is also a gadget man and has kitted out his Toyota with just about every conceivable gadget including a second 100Kw alternator to keep his 3 batteries fully charged. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I’m sure, but it has made life really interesting these last few days. Things started going wrong when a set of wires worked loose and was cut by a fan, no alternator light. We won’t bore you with the list that followed, but to keep it short, the wires were cut through by the fan belt. The fan belt to the alternator broke, the alternator stopped working (phone call to Brian in Pmb – bring spares). We were called on the radio to stop as they had a major problems – the fuel tank showed empty!! Luckily it was only the gauges that weren’t working.
Now we were in the middle of the Makadikadi and Dave wanted to get to Nata Lodge camping ground before it got dark as he would have no lights, so we were doing some rally driving, with us in front and D&B eating our dust. We kept radio contact so as to make sure they were ok. Then a whole lot of things happened simultaneously. Our new radio went on the blink and they had a puncture. They couldn’t contact us, and we didn’t know they had stopped and were on a slightly different path to us in the maize of paths leading out of the pans. When we realized they weren’t following, we turned round and went back for 20Km to look for them, all the time calling on our broken radio. By now it was dark. We found a track of theirs and hoped they had passed us somehow and gone ahead and presumably got out of radio contact. We couldn’t stay there the night, (but it was tempting) in case they had serious problems, so carried on with Nev having a roaring dehydration headache. We kept going towards the main road using our trusty GPS: 40Km left, 30Km left 20Km yay, on the main road! And there we found them, stuck, stalled with no power, all three batteries were stone flat – not enough current to switch off the immobilizer, with no lights, on the road. I was soooo glad to see they were safe!! We gave them a tow start and we limped into Nata garage and then pushed on to the camp. Flashing lights from behind pulled us off the road by a very drunk ‘counceller’ who threatened to arrest Dave for driving without lights. After some smart talking from Dave and Nev, he was slightly appeased and he conceded to allow us to tow Dave to the camp. Driving under the Toyota’s own steam was not allowed, we had to tow him!! ?? We met George and Ann-Rose at the camp.

Next day Dave put new fan belts in and we all headed for Nata for Dave to get the puncture fixed. The counceller was there as sweet as honey and very helpful and opened a friend’s garage for us. Nev used the garage’s welding equipment to weld up a side shaft that was leaking oil. Welding equipment was interesting. They had been using the earth clamp to get the first spark for so many years that it had built up to about four times its normal size. The welding rod holder needed Nev’s little finger and thumb as a tension spring to hold the welding rod in place, but he did an excellent job in spite of these.
On our way north again, the Toyota’s air-con fan belt broke. Not much problem except internal temps rose to over 40oC. Then the main fan belt for the radiator broke. This Toyota gets so hot that you cannot touch the engine for hours after you have turned off so on-field repairs are virtually impossible. Nev and Dave both have brands on their arms. You just hear yells from underneath the bonnet or under the Cruiser as flesh gets cooked. Then Dave pushed the button to change over his fuel tanks, happily carried on and ran out of fuel. Dave wanted to go home. The electric change over switch didn’t work. We had to siphon fuel from one tank to the other with huge trucks whizzing by blaring their hooters in greeting. We arrived at Kazangulu at Kubu Lodge camping ground, Whew!

070318 Sunday
Repair day for their Toyota and removal of our radio, to be replaced when Willy and Ingrid (with all the newly-ordered spares) finally catch up to us.
The Chobe river is in flood and pumping water through past the campsite. The Chobe is bigger than the Vaal when we crossed it in SA. We can only imagine how full the Zambezi must be. The pool is very inviting and we even got George to swim, and Nev has warned Ann-Rose that she WILL be swimming soon!! Its funny not being on holiday with Rick, Trisha and Patrick. We miss them, but these other traveling companions all seem to get along very well. Trisha and Rick, thanks for your valuable mentorship regarding camping over the years.