COMRADES IN ARMS

So who are the other culprits on this trip that I'm trying to catch up with?  They all keep themselves busy in Gauteng so the plan was to meet up in Windhoek and to proceed from there.  Salt of the earth bunch they are, and I don't easily pass up an opportunity to spend some time with them.

Ross

'Rossman', who has had his own mechanical difficulties (also Disco Tdi) is waiting for me in Windhoek.  He could be mistaken for a dorsland trekker, but the man is an asset to any expedition.  He never lets anything get him down, and his ready humour keeps everyone upbeat.  He understands things mechanical where I don't, and I know he would cross a desert on foot for a friend in trouble, so I'm glad his coming along and I'm looking forward to seeing him.

The rest of the party has gone ahead with some plans to meet up once we are properly on our way.  I understand that they have a satellite phone, but we only have cellphones, with minimal coverage around, so could be a challenging process to find each other.  They consist of:

Andrew

Andrew, a man of few words and dry humour.  He drives a Tdi Defender and is always seriously organised and prepared.  I look forward to getting to know him and his wife better.  

Natasha

Natasha, his delightful wife, is a woman of Africa.  She looks as comfortable on the roof of the defender as scratching around in the dirt.  Snakes and spiders don't fase this lady.  I'll walk behind her in the bush.  That way, when we turn around and run - I'm in front.

Arthur

My long standing friend 'Archie', has a disarming personality.  He is known to ask very personal questions on first meeting, in such a honest and straightforward way, that you have no wriggle room and no choice but to answer truthfully.  That's usually followed by some insight that bubbles inside of you for a few weeks until it explodes into a revelation some weeks later.  But beware, he occasionally gets this wicked twinkle in his eye, which usually appears well after midnight, at which point you know you are not getting any sleep, and are in for an eventful night.

Judy

Judy, is primarily there to protect us from that glint in Arthur's eye, but she also has a mean pare of hands.  A physiotherapist, she has helped us with many an injury or ailment on previous trips.  And she has a remarkable ability to cook or bake up a storm in the most inhospitable places.  Am I looking forward to those morning coffees with her rusks!

Alan

and Alan, is the biker on this trip.  I guess he will be standing around waiting for us a lot.  He volunteered himself as the safety officer.  I guess he has more to be concerned about from getting lost than the rest of us.  You know when everyone around you are losing their heads and you are not? - it may be that you don't understand the situation!  Well his emails about safety left me a little concerned that I don't understand what I'm getting myself into.

Saurus

This lot usually call me Saurus, sometimes Mollyslip (you will have to ask them to explain) and this morning, after the neighboring tent woke me in Keetmanshoop at about 5 a.m. and I cleared the fog in my head, I hoped I would be sharing a bear with them all soon.  I figured it was better to get going as soon as possible to cover as much distance as possible in the cool of the morning, to avoid overheating the motor as much as possible.

Only once did I have to redo the radiator pipe and add waster.  It was hot and I coasted into Windhoek at 60km/h.  I met up with Ross on the freeway and we dropped of the car at the local Landrover mechanic and set off to do our food shopping in town.

It was good to see a friendly face and talk to someone who understood the tribulations I had been through.  Ross always puts a positive spin on things, although I could tell he had had enough of sitting around waiting for me.

We enjoyed a restful afternoon chatting and I crashed  rather pleasantly after very little sleep the last couple of nights.  Ross claimed I was asleep within seconds of lying down.

STUPIDITY OR PERSEVERANCE?

So Chris arrived with the parts, and the pistons fitted and he undertook to work through the night to get the Landy up and running for the morning.  We were back on track and I would be on my way in the morning.

That was wishful thinking.  I should have known that Murphy wasn’t going to leave me yet.  It all went reasonably well, while the motor was being put together.  I stayed up giving Chris moral support.  Although my endless questions about what that is called and what this does may have been more of an irritent than support, but at least I learnt a thing or two in the process.

I did help tighten a couple of bolts, but otherwise I left the main work to him.  In the morning, I packed my stuff in the hotel room, full of guarded optimism that I will be on my way.  We started the motor and it sounded sweet.  Then my black box (a device intended to warn me of water levels, oil pressure etc), started beeping complaining that the alternator was not charging.

Another hour of tests and we ascertained that the alternator was in fact charging, so I decided to bypass the complaining circuit, because the critical water level warning light was still working.

A quick test ride around the block was all that was left.  And thats just when Murphy reminded me that he was still around.  In succession we solved, a lose turbo pipe that made the motor rev uncontrollably, a loose vacuum pipe that caused the brakes to fail, and an immobiliser that decided I was stealing my own car and stopped diesel from flowing to the engine.

It sounds fairly straightforward but There were at least two occassions this morning that I decided it was best to go back home.  Clearly this trip was not meant to be.

But after we solved all the problems, I decided to drive for an hour north and then decide whether to continue.   Steadily the thought of going back home and back to work looked more and more unpalatable.  So I pushed on.

One and a half hours into the drive the engine water boiled again.  I discovered that the radiator cap had stripped and water was leaking out.  Duct tape to the rescue! I made a temporary plug to get me to the next town where another mechanic made me a home made radiator cap.

Now I was really on my way.  I headed in the direction of Springbok and hopefully the border before bedtime.  Shortly before Springbok as it was getting dark, I stopped for a rest, and open the  bonnet for a quick check.  You guessed it - another problem.  One of the radiator hoses had been worn through and leaking profusely.

Duct tape worked last time, so I taped it up and with KFC nuggets in my lap I decided to try and get through the border post.  The new facility there made the officials a bit more thorough than usual, and they even took my laptop serial number after asking me four times if I was carrying any fuel in my jerry cans.  Otherwise it was fairly painless crossing into Namibia.

It felt like an achievement to get there, and after a quick inspection at the Noordoever lodge, I decided to press on as far as I could to shorten my drive to Windhoek tomorrow.  I eventually pitched a tent in a Keetmanshoop camp site and 1 a.m, and dosed to the sound of a wind pump clanging as it turned gently from the wind.

As I drifted in and out of sleep, I wonder if I’m showing perseverance or plain stupidity carrying on and hoping to go into the most remote area in Southern Africa, with a vehicle, which frankly I wasn’t sure was healthy.

THE TRIBULATIONS OF A LANDY DRIVER IN EENDEKUIL

I should have been north of Windhoek by now, but I’m stuck Eendekuil, a little dorpie in the Swartland, not far north of Cape Town.

Why?  Well the easy explanation is that my Disco Tdi overheated north of Citrusdal, blew a gasket and inflicted some collateral damage in the process.  As to why it overheated?  That is a tougher question to answer.  Probably because my regular mechanic didn’t do a proper job at the last service.  Either the a welsh plug wasn’t inserted properly, and it popped out while driving, or because 4 head bolts weren’t tensioned properly, which caused the gasket to blow and which in turn caused the welsh plug to pop out, which drained the motor of it’s coolant.  The latter scenario however leaves unanswered the question of why the engine overheated in the first place.

Whatever the answer, it’s resulted in a unscheduled stay in Eendekuil Hotel for the last 3 nights with another one to come (at least).

Thanks to the AA I located a tow-in service and a local mechanic to help with the task of replacing, pistons, bearings, gaskets and skimming the head.  Happening on a Saturday as it did, made the sourcing of replacement parts impossible.  So after catching a lift to Cape Town on Sunday and purchasing parts from LR Service Centre, my schatzi drove me back to Eendekuil, only to discover after a few hours that the pistons were the wrong size.

In order to make up for the mistake, Chris the local mechanic undertook to hop on his motorbike early on Tuesday morning to be at LR when they open at 8am.  I should have know that it wasn’t going to be quite so easy (although I hesitate to use that word).  First of all, he gets lost and arrives at only 10.30 then LR doesn’t have the oversize pistons that we need.  Then the only pistons we can find are double the cost.  An additional two grand later, I make an EFT and anticipate the mechanics return.

I hope and pray that this is the end of the mechanical issues for the next fortnight, but if the last two days are anything to go by, I may not be that fortunate.

Is it all worthwhile?  Should I still go?  Should I just go home and sell the landy?  That is the question(s).

Meanwhile, Arthur, Andrew and Ross have been in Windhoek since Sunday.  Arthur and Andrew have moved on this morning, but Ross has been forced to wait for me because of his own mechanical problems.  Just guess what he drives!?

I have tried to make the best of the stay here, with wife and youngest joining me yesterday, and we took a drive earlier today to Clanwilliam to buy some Rooibos tea and generally just potter around.  They have left for home now, and I’m left with myself and my thoughts and questions and the occasional ring of the Eendekuil church bell.

I can just hear every non-landrover driver shouting ‘I told you so’.  So with my bank balance dented, my pride injured, and well a general sense of feeling sorry for myself, I’m off to read my book, wait for the mechanic and possibly consume a moderate amount of alcohol, to numb the senses a little.

Until the next episode of the wannebeebushwackingadventurer.....

Seweweekspoort

Day 1 of our Baviaanskloof camping holiday.  It felt a bit strange to leave Zoe and Ellen behind, and together with Daniella take to the road.

It seemed to take hours to leave Cape Town, what with needing to find a bicycle tube and then breakfast hunger pangs interrupting a quick getaway.  Anyway after a Winelands One -Stop Wimpy breakfast we hit the road!

After a short game of animal/vegetable/mineral (you know the game.  Whatever its real name is....), Daniella got stuck into imparting the knowledge of the countryside granted to us by Mr T.V. Bulpin in his ‘Discovering Southern Africa’.  She had to compete against the wind noise in a getting-long-in-the-tooth Landrover, but she did very well.

It inspired us to take a right to Matjiesfontein and to explore James  Douglas Logan’s creation.  Unfortunately the Museum and gift shop were all closed for lunch, so after some photo opportunities and checking out Logan’s London street lamps we were on our way again.  But not before checking out some of the other sites like the old London bus with it’s interesting signs and the railway station platform.

Laingsburg’s flood museum proved a little disappointing, other than taking in the scale of the disaster.  We supposed the town was probably quainter before the flood with more victorian buildings still standing.  A quick lunch and stock up on a few things we forgot to buy in Cape Town allowed us to take in the spectacular scenery of the Bosluiskloof (‘Cleft of Ticks’) on the way to Seweweekspoort.  Needless to say Daniella refused to even open the widows.

Arriving simultaneously at the entrance to the Seweweekspoort and the guesthouse we were staying at we allowed ourselves a little  relaxing reading, soaking in the silence before a short mountain bike ride got the heart pumping and the arteries flowing enough to enjoy a some artery clogging meat followed by melted marshmellows on a ‘hardekool’ fire.

The silence and spectacular night sky, makes me think sleeping under the stars is a must tonight to round off a fantastic first day to this little father and daughter excursion.