The last couple of days in South Africa

After finally having ticked all the tasks on my seemingly endless lists, after getting all the stuff done to my Landy ‘Anse’ which included things like ‘smash-proofing’ my windows with a special foil and replacing one of the locks on my aluminum window shutters which had actually never been used, after packing all my personal belongings into boxes and logging them from my apartment to my garage, after getting the wrongly issued ‘Carnet de Passage’ back with a 5 day delay, after saying good-bye to (almost) everybody, after having disconnected my telephone line and organizing everything for my tenants, after having one of my wisdom teeth extracted, the time has finally come!!!


Sunday, 16th of March, Cape Town to Joburg

I am leaving on Sunday, 16th of March 2008 at 5:30 am from Cape Town.
Doing the 1400km to Joburg in one day is quite a slog but I decide to do it anyway because I had pre-booked Anse for her last 50000km service at Land Rover Midrand on Monday morning and I also planned to fetch my travel companion Kirsty from Joburg Airport on Tuesday morning. All in all quite a catapult start, but at least I am gaining ground north quickly!

Apart from seeing a cyclist near Kimberley, riding behind his friend’s car who had left the boot open while he was driving to provide more slip-stream in the headwind (I am surprised that he didn’t wear a gas mask ;-)… the route up to Jozie was pretty uneventful.

Getting reasonably priced diesel has been quite a challenge though and I learned that it pays off to shop around and go to less fancy looking, hidden away (private) gas stations (R8,26/l) or truck stops (R8,16) to get a better deal. At one of those private stations, the petrol tenant chipped my petrol card while swiping it and it didn’t want to work anymore. So I had to drive to the nearest town Warrenton to draw some cash

In Joburg I had planned to say hello to my friend Kathryn, but she was so seriously sick that I chose to stay over at a B&B which was better anyway since I arrived very late around 23:00.

Monday, 17th March, Joburg

To avoid the rush hour I got up early on Monday morning and made my way to Land Rover in Midrand.I must say that my new GPS comes in very handy when driving alone through unknown terrain. The only time it let me down was when I accidentally got off the wrong turn-off while driving through Joburg City…trying to find my way back to the highway its trustworthy voice said suddenly out of nowhere: ‘Lost satellite reception!’ Luckily it wasn’t for too long!

Anse was checked in at Land Rover and after some wait for another customer, I was dropped off in Sandton at about 9 am by their driver. I went straight to Absa bank to organize a new petrol card. Luckily the Absa credit card division prints their cards in Pretoria, where I would be able to collect it on Tuesday. I managed to do a few other errands in Sandton mall and also got a new latch for my jerry-can holder which broke off during the drive.

I was picked up again by Land Rover’s driver and after a pretty chaotic 2 hour drive through Joburg to pick up another customer, I landed back a Land Rover Midrand at about 4.30pm. They seem to have done a good job and even refitted a mud flap that had come off. I also had the privilege of getting a 25 minute lecture by the workshop manager Nico after I had asked him if he could give me some practical advice concerning the maintenance of my Landy during my trip. During those few minutes I learned a lot of useful stuff which might come in handy on my long trip. Nico also listed a few spare parts which I hadn’t put onto my list yet.

After going back to the B&B to settle my bill I crawled my way through Joburg rush hour. Traffic was really bad, mainly due to non-functioning traffic lights caused by the power outages. I was happy to reach the family Bolling’s home who had kindly invited me to stay with them for the night. It was nice to catch up with Ursula, Wolfgang and Stefan and I was spoiled with yummy home made food and a super comfy bed.

Tuesday, 18th March, Joburg to Haenertsburg near Tzaneen

On Tuesday I left the Bolling’s house pretty early to get to the airport in time to pick up Kirsty who was due to arrive from Cape Town at around 9:00 am. Realizing that I was almost going past Midrand, I popped in at Land Rover again to find out if they had the spare parts Nico recommended to me in stock. Unfortunately they didn’t so I made my way to the airport where I picked up Kirsty who was happy to finally hop on and get away after her last minute decision to join me. We met through my friend Tollulah only a few weeks ago, so this trip would be a bit of a test to our friendship! Kirsty plans to be on board up until Ethiopia if all works out. You can follow her impressions and thoughts on her blog http://wherethehelliskirsty.blogspot.com/

After popping in at Land Rover Airport Industria to look for spare parts (no luck, they suffered from power failure) we drove to Pretoria to collect my new petrol card. Sticking out like a sore thumb with our CA number plate, a super friendly guy in uniform who was driving in his car next to ours and standing at the traffic lights, offered his help in finding the Absa building and a parking spot. He even waited for us when we got left behind through a red light and we followed him all the way to the correct address!

We left Pretoria around 11 am and drove all the way via Pietersburg, now Polokwane (where we had a chip in our windscreen repaired) to Haenertsburg which is near Tzaneen in the Magoebaskloof Mountains. Even though the campsite was not the greatest it was good enough to park off for one night. We got delicious take-away pizza from a nearby restaurant and sat down on Anse’s bonnet for supper back at our camp. Happy jumps at the next door kiddie’s trampoline helped settling our meal.

Wednesday, 19th of March, Haenertsburg to Mapungubwe NP
(60km west of Messina)

Since we had just chucked Kirsty’s stuff into the car at the airport and also needed to re-arrange other stuff in the car, we are going on a ‘unpacking and repacking the car’ mission this morning and leave only around lunch time. We drive all the way to a National Park called Mapungubwe, 60km west of Messina which borders on Zimbabwe and Botswana. We were told at the main gate that the camp site for this park is another 30kms away in another section of the park, so we moved on quickly and arrived there with the last day light. A quick pasta fixed our hungry stomachs.