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20 June - 23 June 2002
The South African leg of our journey was rather brief. Being
South Africans ourselves, our real interest was to cross the
border and see foreign lands. So, bright and early on the
20th June we loaded Nyathi fully for the first time. There
was an audible groan from the old lady as she came to terms
with the job ahead of her. I guess after 25 years of service
she was looking forward to retirement.
After two hours of sweating and cursing we came to the astonishing
realisation of just how much stuff we had set aside to take
with us. By the time Nyathi was fully packed, there was a
visible sag in the back. That was without the four passengers.
Our Mother (Georgia) and sister (Sunara) are accompanying
us through Namibia, after which they'll somehow make their
way back to George (the family home in South Africa).
With high hopes and a significant amount of nervousness we
finally (after 3.5 hours of packing) set off. Nyathi was the
epitome of mutton dressed as lamb. Although she had had a
significant overhaul, she was still a 25 year old vehicle
setting off on a 35,000km trip. With all the work done on
her there were bound to be a few problems along the way.
Sure enough, 200km later and there is no clutch. Bugger!
Extra excitement came from Rob, after checking for the leak
under the vehicle, banging his head on the bottom of the open
door. Yet another scar on the head and a good bleed to boot.
Sigh!. With a few topups of hydraulic fluid we finally managed
to limp into a little town in the Karoo called Laingsburg.
There Anthony - a friendly local mechanic - managed to fix
up the major leak in the clutch hydraulic system. We also
had to delve into our treasure trove of spare parts (already)
and replace the diesel pump. The existing one had started
to leak a heap of oil. We gave thanks to the all forms of
religious deities for the inspiration that had prompted us
to bring along a spare pump.
After all that excitement we decided that we had come far
enough and spent a bitterly cold night in Laignsburg Cold
enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, I tell you.
The situation was not helped by the fact that one two man
tent and one sleeping bag capable of handling sub-artic conditions
cannot be equally shared between 4 people. Watching workers
pull blocks of ice out of the gutters of a hotel in Sutherland
at 10:30am on a clear sunny morning painted the picture rather
nicely. Fortunately for all involved, the next day we came
to the edge of the escarpment which dropped dramatically down
to the coastal plains. Our second night in Vanrhynsdorp was
much warmer than the first. We were only at 200m above sealevel,
as opposed to about 1500m (data from our trusty little GPS
gadget).
We had expected most of the Northern Cape to be flat with
long straight roads, much like the Karoo. For the first halfway
through though, it was surprisingly mountainous. We have our
suspicions that Nyathi had quietly communicated with oncoming
traffic and realising the work ahead of her she made a weak
effort at pulling the plug. Luckily Anthony the friendly mechanic
snuffed out those plans. So she worked. Damn did she work.
Our speed varied from a thundering 80km/h (pretty much our
top speed) to a paltry 40km/h. We even had to go into Low-Range
up some of the hills. In Nyathi's defence it has to be said
that we did pick all the back roads, which just happened to
be dirt. They seemed to follow the "Direct Route"
principle - come hell, high water or a wacking big mountain.
The broad geography of South Africa consists of an extended
plateau inland, with a escarpment right around the country
which drops off to the coastal plains. With this in mind we
were expecting to be going generally uphill from George (which
is on the coastal plain) until a fair bit inland where we
got to the top of the plateau (after crossing about 3 mountain
ranges which make up the escarpment). After a full days travel
we were starting to get concerned as we still seemed to be
going uphill. After seeing Nyathi from a distance, the reason
finally dawned on us. Nyathi is on a perpetual uphill. With
all the weight in the back she's going uphill all the way
to Europe. Hmmm.
Our third day of travel got us to Namibia at through to Ai-Ais
- close to the Fish River Canyon. The geography between Vanrhynsdorp
to Noordoewer (through Springbok) was ever changing and facinating.
It varied between flat scrubby bushveld and desolate rocky
hills. One area we went through was full of big granite hills
emerging from the flat plains. Another area consisted of hills
made up of huge bolders all jumbled ontop of eachother like
a gaints playground. Words do the scenery very little justice,
but it was significantly different to the flat dry landscapes
we were expecting.
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