Category: LONDON TO CAPE TOWN

This morning was the first time i woke up and instantly thought “where on earth am i.” Then i realised, tent, africa, marsabit, yesterdays hell roads, today. In hindsight, we made another smart move and left slightly early (only about 30mins) than scheduled for a 540km day into Nairobi. The first 150k’s was dirt roads then tarmac. We were also told that the first 30k’s would be bad, then it got better. Well, that was a blatant lie! Most of it was worse then the day before. Hahaha, if those roads where at home i would almost consider not taking my own 4×4 ute (pickup truck) over some of the sections. It was horrible, undescribable roads. Giant rock’s just pocked out of the ground, either on thier own or amognst 50 other basketball sized axel-killers. Once I had to stop and spend a minute planning and picking my route through a minefield of obstables. And the only thing you can do is just idle our way through, blub blub blub blub blub bouncing over everything. Lucky that all the stones and rocks had smooth tops, so puncture risk was down. Today’s moving speed average was ever less then yesterday, at about 13km/hr for almost 100k’s. It was one oclock before we even got to the tarmac, and my god that was a blessing. A  beautiful road that we could blast along at 108kph for the slog to the Safari Park Hotel.

More carnage, more cars arriving on trucks, more broken things (not for us!). We were about the 23rd car to arrive, still so many behind us limping along. Another careful day with great success, we made it for the night AGAIN!!!

News on the animal front:

-Saw a hyena cross the road 20meters or so in front of us! They are MONSTROUS dogs.

– more babboons

– these little animals that look like deer, but minature. ONly like a foot tall. We also saw a dead one on the dirt section (i think Joost van-something-or-other hit him when travelling at light speed)

-Saw some elephant poo, but no elephants. Also, no giraffes yet. Still time to go

Photo’s to come in next post, or close enough.

James

False! More like a slippery slide into the fiery pits of hell itself. Thats one way to describe the road to Mars today. By Odin’s beard it was a tough day. 250K’s took 10 hours for us, the first 190 took almost 8 hours. The fourbies cleared the day without breaking a sweat, arriving in camp some 4-5 hours before us. And we were the 3^rd 2-wheel drive car to even arrive. Then after us there was a steady stream until midnight of the tailing cars to make their way. It was shocking the amount of carnage from today, me and dad between us don’t have enough fingers to count how many people broke shockies. Now and then we would be overtaken by someone, then an hour later see them on the side of the road fitting a new set of dampers.

The amount of service crews here in the carpark is stunning, cars here there and everywhere are high in the air on stands, with entire suspension quarters lying on the ground in some state of fixing/welding/repairing/removing.

We made it trouble free because we just took it slow and steady. No punctures, no broken springs, no hassles. The only big risk we had was hitting our sump on some giant rock poking out of the ground (everywhere) but i took it steady and careful and made it! A true tortoise and the hare story.

Up until a few days ago i was oblivious to a big thing in the rally, i had no idea that Joost Van-something-or-other in the 1973 911 Porsche had nothing inside his car at all. Because he had entered his own car, and 3 other 4×4’s as his personal service team. He is a serious racer. Some mornings we leave earlier then schedule and i would pull over when i see a cloud of dust in the mirror. And he would FLY past us at breakneck speeds. Unbelievable

The campsite we had was awesome! Really really well done. We had nice warm/hot showers from buckets hanging from trees, a cot bed thing with a mattress and blanket, and awesome food. We did however have to shit in a hole, but hey! That’s Africa! Ahhaha

Nairobi tomorrow with a rest day, much needed. I am wrecked!! After one day of Dad driving, i’m back in the drivers seat, with the very occaisonal need for dad to depress the clutch pedal for me when im stopped, fixing the linkage today so i can be back solo driving! 😀 I’ve been asked why I drive everything, and pretty much,  Dad is a fantastic navigator (better then me) and I am a better driver. Stick to what you’re good at i reckon.

James

Once again, i had such a brilliant title for today’s post, but completely forgot it. Oh well, onwards to more important things. 3 days in to what is known to be the toughest 6 days of the entire rally, and tomorrow is told to be the worst; The road to Mars. Marsabit will have waiting (to those who make it) a comfortable camp site specially set up for us, with hot water and amenities. Most probably much needed. On paper it doesn’t look too bad, 250km and not even a border crossing, but the truth of the matter is that it will be hell. Mr Phillip Young himself doesn’t give people on an ‘endurance rally’ an easy 250km for no reason, especially even if the following day is only 500k’s. There is no reason why we couldn’t do a single 750km (we did one the other night including a border crossing) day, well yes there is! It is because it will sort out the men from the boys. Time will tell…

Today was another spectacular day, left Awasa hotel that was on the edge of a massive lake (hippo’s live in it, but we didn’t see any) and drove a fairly tight schedule for 400km’s. And my god did that landscape change drastically. It began in an almost tropical setting, thick and lush bushland with villages amongst it growing copious amounts of coffee beans and banana trees. It was astonishing that it was warm enough and wet enough that banana tree’s flourished even at 7000feet. In the 100 or so k’s we drove through these parts, I felt like royalty! The roadside was littered – not with rubbish – but with spectators. For the hour and 20 minutes we drove through, i honest think we saw 50-60thousand people.There would be a village every 2 or 3 k’s, and at least a thousand people on the road in every village, on and on and on. In the centre of some villages there was moshpit-esc like crowds, 3 and 4 people deep in the thick bits. I would like to wave to everyone to see their smiles and joy they got from our car, but i honestly couldn’t. My arm was getting exhausted. I was getting waved-out, and quickly. And then it all changed.

We descended a thousand feet or so, and within 40km’s we had gone from prosperous tropical forests, back into complete barren desert plains. Not full on sand-deserts, but very very few trees and short grass and scrubs around the place. And dry, so dry!

Then all of a sudden, we saw baboons! Like 20 of them, they started crossing the road but we kinda cut the pack in half and the scattered, it was awesome! Big red but’s and everything.

Fuel availability was big with everyone this afternoon, many towns are empty. The single fuel station that had fuel on the Kenyan side of the border this evening decided to charge people upwards of 5dollars US a litre for shitty quality fuel. Why? Well, because he can. Demand is massive, and supply is almost at zero. No fuel for another 300k’s at least tomorrow. Troopers like we are, we have plenty, no problems for us 😀 Maybe we could sell some of our stocks hahaha.

Everything changed on this Ethiopian/Kenyan border. The side of the road we drive on, currency, road quality. The road into town was fairly good, very potholed but still allright, then we passed through customs and immigration, then over a shitty tiny bridge (which every non-4×4 car bottomed out on) and then on to what some people would call a road. It may have been a dirt road 40 years ago, but it hasn’t been touched since! It was a hardcore 4×4 forestry track in its own right, not a main road in and out of Kenya. Once again, pictures will come soon, sorry for the wait.

James

Well, not really. But, definitely Giraffe country. Everywhere now there are those tree’s that you always see on movies that giraffe’s are eating from. And we are at the very north of their habitat, so hopefully, fingers crossed we can see some as soon as possible.

Today’s drive was probably the most spectacular day of driving i have ever done. We crossed the Blue Nile Gorge. Utterly fantastic. We came off the table-lands at 2500m and then BAM, it was just like a giant split in the world, a massive gorge in the middle and then table lands again on the other side like nothing has happened. From 2500m we started our slow and steep decent to the bottom 1500m lower. It was 22km of road on the way down and it took us an hour to do it, first gear the entire way, second gear was too fast and we quickly ran out of breaks (we didn’t want to end up like 2 of the trucks over the edge or upside down in a gutter that we saw). And the other side was about 25km of road but we climbed even higher to a top of 3200m (almost twice the height of Mt Koziosko) and that took about 40 minutes powering up in 2^nd gear. Just magnificent.

That was the highlight. The real tough bit was that fact we had to drive 840km for the day, the last 200 in the dark. We chose to drop out the 200km of gravel roads this morning and take the slightly longer route around the mountain. We did the first 10k’s or so of said road but it was way too rough and we knew it wouldn’t improve over the next 190km so we opted to take the longer tarmac choice. Lots of people tonight said that it would have been a Vuaxhall Killer if we continued, too bumpy, for too long.

In total we clocked 14 hours of driving, needless to say we are a bit tired. This hotel-ish kind of place we are in is very nice to be honest. You wouldn’t think you are in the middle of Ethiopa. The other hilarious thing about Africa so far is the mobile range, i have never had less than 5 bars the entire time. Even in the middle of Sudan, in the middle of a barren desert, 400km from the nearest thatched roof hut, and there would be a solar powered cell phone tower. It’s just crazy. Or in Ethiopa you would drive through a little village with a few thousand residents, none of them have any more possessions other than a donkey and a hat, and the middle of the town is a giant cell phone tower.

It was good dad drove all today, i needed a bit of a break. Dad even got some of his own back when i had a little nap in the car, the old bugger took a photo of me sleep! I’ll get it up as soon as i can.

James