Trip report: Southern Africa
OK, so I've had my takeaway and a bottle of Belgian beer. The cats have stopped attention-seeking and the house is quiet because Sally is 20 miles away with an IV antibiotic drip in her arm failing to...
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Day 4: Tuesday - Drakensberg
Quite a long day of driving today, via more dirt roads.
For the first time we start to see the sign that it might be rainy season:
More smartly dressed school children were in evidence today (no, my eye sight is not going - the following is not a school child).
We stopped in the above location for a cup of tea. Rather than brewing up with the kettle and propane each time Sally took a leaf out of our trips at home - she bought a cheap Thermos flask at Pick-n-pay in Johannesburg and each morning filled it with tea. We could therefore enjoy a cup whenever we stopped for a few minutes with minimal fuss.
The ground was covered in grass hoppers of various makes and models. This is the stealth model:
Damn all this traffic:
Looks like a nice location for a farm:
Sally is currently wearing a hooded fleece of exactly the same colour as this - maybe this bird shops at Walmart too:
After hours on dirt roads we return to tarmac just as we reach the crossroads for the Sani Pass road we will be using tomorrow. The Sani Pass is one of Africa's great dirt road high passes, winding up to the Lesotho border. For years there have been rumours of it being tarred, ruining the challenge of the drive. The collection of tarmac machines at the bottom of the pass road does not bode well.
The road heading to Underberg is all freshly tarred:
Tar-covered stones pinged against the bodywork in great numbers, hitting the mud and cow manure already plastered over the lower parts of the car.
We stopped to fill both fuel tanks. The garage had 500ppm diesel. This is the part per million of sulpher and I believe Toyota wants you to use cleaner 50ppm, which is a bit silly given the agricultural nature of this vehicle and the remote locations it is likely to be operated in. Ironically my sophisticated turbo-diesel truck at home can supposedly operate on much dirtier diesel than this ancient 6-cylinder engine - I suspect Toyota are just being over-cautious. I filled with 500ppm - it was all they had.
A word about gas stations in South Africa. None I have seen are self service. Pump attendants vie for your attention and usually wash your windshield and offer to check tyre pressure and oil levels - angling for a larger tip. It is custom to tip them a few rand. Most garages now accept credit cards and have the modern wifi connected chip-and-pin machines - this is not the place you want to hand someone your credit card to take away into the back room to 'process'.
As I waited beside the pump attendant I noticed a lean, roughly dressed and very sun-tanned guy resting in the shade on the garage forecourt next to his touring bicycle. This was a hot time to be cycling around a mountainous part of the country.
We carried on to the centre of Underberg and visited the Spar supermarket to top up with food and big bottles of water. We looked for gluten free food for Sally with little success. Sally found the shop baker and she said "we actually had some gluten-free bread, but we sold out this morning". Damn.
As with all but one campground, I had done my homework and identified campgrounds that looked acceptable on our likely route in advance, then programmed their coordinates into my GPSs. Tonight's campgound would be "Dragon's rest" on a hill overlooking Underberg with views to the Drakensberg mountains and Lesotho behind.
Pulling up the dirt road we parked next to an early 70 series Land Cruiser belonging to the owner. Kelvin the owner, an ex soldier, inherited the site from his parents. There was a colonial feel to his house, dominated by a bar and old framed photos and mementos. He poured me a drink and we sat on his veranda enjoying the view, while he talked about the country going to the dogs. I had stumbled into a Joseph Conrad novel.
Kelvin's campground wasn't cheap but we had the whole place to ourselves and a stunning view:
Kelvin was clearly keen for us to stay longer, maybe with the hope of firing up the old 70 series ("I just need to fix the carburettor") to give us a paying tour of Lesotho. He warned about the state of the road after rains and on cue a thunderstorm moved in and started lashing the mountains we intended to drive up tomorrow:
Once on our own I said to Sally: "Look, I don't mind driving up Sani pass and finding we have to turn around because it is washed up, but I don't want someone telling us beforehand we cannot even try". To attempt something and fail is better than to be scared off by naysayers and never attempt it. My plan was to get up as soon as it got light (around 05:30) and leave straight away before Kelvin could sober up and suggest otherwise. Also, I thought if we went early enough we could get through border control before any officials had driven the road that day and decided to close it.
Although it probably would be no use, I decided to sort the winch out. I could see the winch wire was looped all over the place. I wasn't sure if the freespool worked, so I spooled the wire out under power. On doing so I noticed something very worrying. The wire was wound the wrong way around the drum, and someone had wired the controller to match. The winch wire was rubbing against the top of the winch bumper cutout. During a recovery this would have bent the winch bumper, but more importantly cut into the wire causing it to fail catastrophically.
I spooled the entire cable out and then spooled it back on the right way around, with Sally providing some tension on the hook. All I had to do now was remember that out is in and in is out on the controller.
Stay tuned for the Sani Pass and Lesotho...
Quite a long day of driving today, via more dirt roads.
For the first time we start to see the sign that it might be rainy season:
More smartly dressed school children were in evidence today (no, my eye sight is not going - the following is not a school child).
We stopped in the above location for a cup of tea. Rather than brewing up with the kettle and propane each time Sally took a leaf out of our trips at home - she bought a cheap Thermos flask at Pick-n-pay in Johannesburg and each morning filled it with tea. We could therefore enjoy a cup whenever we stopped for a few minutes with minimal fuss.
The ground was covered in grass hoppers of various makes and models. This is the stealth model:
Damn all this traffic:
Looks like a nice location for a farm:
Sally is currently wearing a hooded fleece of exactly the same colour as this - maybe this bird shops at Walmart too:
After hours on dirt roads we return to tarmac just as we reach the crossroads for the Sani Pass road we will be using tomorrow. The Sani Pass is one of Africa's great dirt road high passes, winding up to the Lesotho border. For years there have been rumours of it being tarred, ruining the challenge of the drive. The collection of tarmac machines at the bottom of the pass road does not bode well.
The road heading to Underberg is all freshly tarred:
Tar-covered stones pinged against the bodywork in great numbers, hitting the mud and cow manure already plastered over the lower parts of the car.
We stopped to fill both fuel tanks. The garage had 500ppm diesel. This is the part per million of sulpher and I believe Toyota wants you to use cleaner 50ppm, which is a bit silly given the agricultural nature of this vehicle and the remote locations it is likely to be operated in. Ironically my sophisticated turbo-diesel truck at home can supposedly operate on much dirtier diesel than this ancient 6-cylinder engine - I suspect Toyota are just being over-cautious. I filled with 500ppm - it was all they had.
A word about gas stations in South Africa. None I have seen are self service. Pump attendants vie for your attention and usually wash your windshield and offer to check tyre pressure and oil levels - angling for a larger tip. It is custom to tip them a few rand. Most garages now accept credit cards and have the modern wifi connected chip-and-pin machines - this is not the place you want to hand someone your credit card to take away into the back room to 'process'.
As I waited beside the pump attendant I noticed a lean, roughly dressed and very sun-tanned guy resting in the shade on the garage forecourt next to his touring bicycle. This was a hot time to be cycling around a mountainous part of the country.
We carried on to the centre of Underberg and visited the Spar supermarket to top up with food and big bottles of water. We looked for gluten free food for Sally with little success. Sally found the shop baker and she said "we actually had some gluten-free bread, but we sold out this morning". Damn.
As with all but one campground, I had done my homework and identified campgrounds that looked acceptable on our likely route in advance, then programmed their coordinates into my GPSs. Tonight's campgound would be "Dragon's rest" on a hill overlooking Underberg with views to the Drakensberg mountains and Lesotho behind.
Pulling up the dirt road we parked next to an early 70 series Land Cruiser belonging to the owner. Kelvin the owner, an ex soldier, inherited the site from his parents. There was a colonial feel to his house, dominated by a bar and old framed photos and mementos. He poured me a drink and we sat on his veranda enjoying the view, while he talked about the country going to the dogs. I had stumbled into a Joseph Conrad novel.
Kelvin's campground wasn't cheap but we had the whole place to ourselves and a stunning view:
Kelvin was clearly keen for us to stay longer, maybe with the hope of firing up the old 70 series ("I just need to fix the carburettor") to give us a paying tour of Lesotho. He warned about the state of the road after rains and on cue a thunderstorm moved in and started lashing the mountains we intended to drive up tomorrow:
Once on our own I said to Sally: "Look, I don't mind driving up Sani pass and finding we have to turn around because it is washed up, but I don't want someone telling us beforehand we cannot even try". To attempt something and fail is better than to be scared off by naysayers and never attempt it. My plan was to get up as soon as it got light (around 05:30) and leave straight away before Kelvin could sober up and suggest otherwise. Also, I thought if we went early enough we could get through border control before any officials had driven the road that day and decided to close it.
Although it probably would be no use, I decided to sort the winch out. I could see the winch wire was looped all over the place. I wasn't sure if the freespool worked, so I spooled the wire out under power. On doing so I noticed something very worrying. The wire was wound the wrong way around the drum, and someone had wired the controller to match. The winch wire was rubbing against the top of the winch bumper cutout. During a recovery this would have bent the winch bumper, but more importantly cut into the wire causing it to fail catastrophically.
I spooled the entire cable out and then spooled it back on the right way around, with Sally providing some tension on the hook. All I had to do now was remember that out is in and in is out on the controller.
Stay tuned for the Sani Pass and Lesotho...
