African Tailblazers

Yes!!!   Finally we’ve done it!  Can you believe it!  After 6 years in the building, running out of money, other jobs getting in the way and nearly losing Pierre in March, we have almost completed out first trip in this behemoth of a motor home….and what a gal she is!  And what a trip we’ve had!

Firstly, a little background.  We were ready to sell our house  in  February with just the finishings on the inside of truck to complete when Pierre had a major stroke under anaesthetic and spent 6 weeks in ICU fighting for his life.  We were very blessed to be able to bring him straight home from ICU and care for him there, and do therapy at home with the support of our dear friends from rehab matters.  The boys have been amazing, not only with helping their dad in his recovery, but also completing the inside of the truck.  Pierre is making excellent progress but still has a ways to go.

So, in July Pierre turned a huge corner, as did the truck…she was finally ready for roadworthy which meant we could then licence her and get on the road…or so we thought!  She passed the roadworthy and off I went very excited with all the papers only to be asked for my homologation certificate.  Pardon?  And there we came to a halt…who knew?!!

Enter Cheryl Sandmann……ok yes so she is based in Cape Town, but having spoken with her and discovered after 6 weeks of dead ends in Johannesburg, that yes she can help us from start to finish, the only snag being we’d need to bring the truck down there for the NRCS inspection…….really?  A snag?!!  All we saw was ROAD TRIP!!!!

So a week ago, we packed our truck complete with Georgie, our last remaining dog and set off at 3 am for Caope Town.  Our first problem presented very quickly in our blinking lights….seriously!  The zenon lights were faulty so we annoyed many motorists en route with our continued flashing….we were so relieved to see sunrise!

We hit Beaufort West in the pouring rain and discovered where the leaks persisted….one very important test, but not advantageous when the leak is over the bed!  Strike one for Isaac….he suffered the most there.  Unfortunately the pet friendly camp site was a muddy parking lot directly off the N1….not enhanced by rain by any means….one lesson for us though was seeing a family living there in tent and caravan, and heading off for school in the morning…We have nothing to complain about.

Further down the road, Josh was surprised that numerous people were flashing us….did they all really like the truck?!  No….we stopped for fuel and realised one of the shock mountings had broken off……..2 hours later we were on our way again having found a mechanic to weld it for us!

We arrived in Cape Town on Tuesday….and believe you me this lady is slow.  400kms to Bloemfontein normally takes 4 hours….make it 6! We managed 110kms downhill with the wind behind us!   Once!  She cruises happily around 80 to 85kms.  Do you know how slow that is!!!!  KMs tick off like miles….very slowly.

And Cheryl?  Cheryl is amazing!  She took us through all the inspections as promised, and will do all the completion of forms etc as necessary….that was the easiest and the smoothest part of our trip!!

We left Cape Town on Wednesday and headed up via the West Coast to Namaqualand.  Ike had wanted to fish but we couldn’t find pet friendly camping…so we pushed on to Citrusdal and that’s where the fun began.   We again arrived late with our blinking lights and discovered that the other shock mounting had broken….so first thing we found an engineering works who did a great job putting gussets in…..which the men would have had to do upon our return anyway.

However our lights were now not blinking anymore…they weren’t working at all….Ike suspected that the men had not reattached the wires to the battery, so we stopped by the side of the road to do that.  Isaac had already commented to me he really hated doing this job as it was a very narrow space and dangerous as you could easily short the wiring of the truck if you touched positive to negative……what happened?!!!  He got the spanner stuck between the terminals and fire broke out beneath the truck!  He extinguished that (thank heavens we needed an extinguisher for the road worthy).  And then he began to sweat as it could have destroyed the whole of the trucks wiring….but it didn’t!  We were so blessed.  We lost the cable to the winch only. 

So we all breathed a huge sigh of relief and stopped to pray and say Thank you to God….and off we set to Springbok.  I organised the accommodation and was so sure we would be there in daylight this time….no more of these blinking lights!!!..........

130kms outside of Springbok at 4.30pm we began to smell burning rubber.  The back airbag had burst and the tyre was rubbing on the wheel arch.  The men got out to examine the situation….came back in as deflated as the airbag and totally out of ideas as to how to fix it.

Enter Andre….owner of a tow truck company in Cape Town I happened to find on Google complete with his cell number….as now of course it’s 5pm.  Eish, he says when he hears where we are….that’s gonna cost you plenty….but tell me what’s wrong…..On hearing the problem he says ‘now listen very carefully to me…..’

One and a half hours later they boys had followed his instructions to the letter……where on earth in the middle of that barren scrub land are we going to find a log of wood?  I did contemplate sawing off the top of one of the wooden poles marking the laybye….I wondered how obvious it would look afterwards!!  But walking along I found the only 2 pieces of wood that could possibly have been abandoned in that area plus wire?!  So with a piece of wood holding up our suspension we crawled into Springbok at 40kms per hour….finally arriving at 10pm with our blinking headlights!!!