one week to go...

We hear that Africa is hot & rainy this time of the year ;-) so we have had the leaks sorted out, and today we're installing the aircon in the cab.

Our plan is for me to leave next Tuesday (8 Dec), and pick up the family from JHB airport on Thursday to start our holiday. Our very rough & flexible plan is as follows:

• week 1 - Cape Town to Inhambane (Moz)
• week 2 - Inhambane to Cape Maclear (Malawi)
• week 3 - Malawi
• week 4 - West Tanzania / Rwanda
• week 5 - North Tanzania (Serengeti / Ngorongoro)
• week 6 - north Tanzania to Zambia
• week 7 - Zambia / Malawi again
• week 8 - Botswana / Mozambique again
• week 9 - arrive back to "our house in the ground" (source: Xan)

Now normally when we travel, once we hit the turnaround point we generally have the unusual habit of just getting home, for example:

1. Blantyre to Cape Town in 2 days (after my bike trip)
2. Durban to Cape Town in one go from 12h00 midday (planned to take two days)
3. Lost in the Richtersveld (the whole day to get out of the river canyon) to Cape Town in 1 go
4. Swakopmund to Cape Town

etc etc...

But: our main plan is to be flexible and follow our hearts - if we don't get beyond Inhambane in 8 weeks, that would be a good change of plan to have!

So much to just finalise this week, and make sure that the work team are comfortable with me working "extreme mobile", and finishing off some contract work, and setting up for 2010, and making sure that Max is ready, shopping, carnet de passage ... absolutely can't wait!

leaks & face lift

this week rained a lot, and we're sorting out some leaks, a flat battery, and getting our ride pimped...

we did however successfully renovate our driveway to make Max fit, and a day after that we found a place up the road where we could store Max underground in a secure mobile home/caravan parking bay!!

But we're planning on keeping it at home for true mobile office days and spontaneous weekend camp-outs.

Max is now back in Knysna for a week or so to get some more of the 'snags' done so that we can hopefully be ready to leave on the 10th December as planned.

tweaks & corrections...

7 hours of work to make a start at the snaglist ... and the coolest thing was getting back into the truck this evening and feeling at home!

...the beginning

Today it all began! We picked up MAX the truck from Travelstar in Knysna at around 14h00 - had the quick electronics tour, and then reversed it out of their driveway into the road.

That doesn't sound like much, but it was a mission to find reverse, the driveway was sloping down towards the back, there were quite a few cars parked there, and everyone was watching! At that point I realised that an 11 tonne truck does feel very different from a big car - significantly different!

We drove through town, and had to find a dirt road quick - Phantom Pass was close enough, and there were even some mud puddles! Delicious!

Evening was coming so we went and found some parking at the waterfront which by now was all working quite nicely - we need just more width than 2 parkings end-to-end provide. Not sure if you can see us there in the background, but we're the white Mercedes in the background...

We drove to Jeffries Bay for the evening, and luckily we had already made the decision to be social campers (as opposed to reclusive campers) because everyone comes over and wants to have a chat and a look. After a looong family exercise walk on the beach and too much sun and the rest of the morning, we decided to head back towards Knysna so we could get there without too much travel time on Monday morning. We have a snag list which we need to discuss, including: TV doesn't work (for travel DVD's); the fridge opens if you wheel spin around a corner too fast; the toilet flush is super powered and sprays the door; and when the secondary fuel tank is pumped into the main tank, after a little while it all gets pumped onto the road! (much to the distress of the pump attendant at Tsitsikama).

Tonight we're near at Keurbooms Lagoon campsite - nice & lush, and right on the edge of the lagoon. Paradise. (note to self: dont forget to keep track of the days because we must get back home some time)