Sunday 24 June 2012

A Winter's day on the South coast


Well we don't want to 'rub it in' but this is what South Africa looks like on a winter's day! 

As most of you will know by now we have had some sad family news in that our Granny B has had a stroke and is quite poorly. We have spent the last two weeks in her cottage in a retirement village on the south coast and have cleared her house and settled her into a care home. It has been difficult to decide how long to stay  here but we feel that she is now relatively stable and are looking to set off next Sunday. Our first stop will be with Alistair and Joy in Zimbabwe.  

We still don't have a 'proper' route planned but we now know that we will no longer go through Egypt or come up through Europe. The main reason is that it is incredibly complicated to take a vehicle into Egypt. We would have had to deposit eight times the value of our car and leave the money locked up without earning interest until the end of the trip. If the car was to get stolen in Egypt we would not get our money back and to make matters worse you cannot get car insurance for Egypt. As things stand we will go as far as Ethiopia and perhaps into Sudan depending on the situation when we get there, then head back south but take a more western route. The advantage of this is that we will be doing a lot less driving and spent more time in each destination. 

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Wednesday 13 June 2012

From Puff Daddy to Imvubu (zulu for hippo)

 Well this is our bakkie with all the trimmings, ready for the trip. We picked it up yesterday and just explaining how everything works, from tow bar to winch, awning (yes we have an awning!), spare fuel tank, suspension air bags, water tank, all the electrics etc etc took a whole day. Don is delighted with it and so am I really but it is definitely a  boy's toy now. Our tent is called 'star gazer' because when you take the fly sheet off you can unzip the roof panels and gaze at the stars.

 Should be good as long as there is no surprise thunderstorm in the middle of the night!







Tuesday 5 June 2012

Leaving Ingogo

Gabi: This is us leaving Ingogo a couple of days ago and heading for Durban for the final leg of 'getting ready' with our bakkie booked in to have a face lift or rather face drop since it will look less 'Puff Daddy' and more like a vehicle fit for an overland trip. For the last few days we have been busy packing up Ian and Heather's house for a year. We decided not to take the ironing board in the end...
















Don: Rugby fever has hit SA: yesterday whilst shopping for a fridge we came across the England rugby team returning from a training session; awesome specimens We have managed to get tickets for the test match this Saturday. South Africa are expected to blood several new players C'mon the Boks!!!