Our real travels finally started yesterday, 18/7/19. Our youngest daughter, Kelly, flew in from Australia on 17/7/19 and she will join us for just over two weeks. Kamba was specifically built for two people, we never thought the first two weeks would include our last born, but we are thrilled to have her with us. Kamba behaved very well as we left Joburg at 6.00am and towed 420kms to Berg En Dal, a Sanparks rest camp in the South of Kruger National Park (KNP). It took us about 45 minutes to set up camp, longer than we should have taken but I was training Kel, this provides Linda with an opportunity to sort out other bits and pieces. The additional luggage brought by Kel also mean less room in Kamba but all items have found a place. It looks like we will slowly determine how best to set up but for a maiden proper trip we were very happy. A brief drive yesterday and a couple of trips today were fruitful and we managed to see the sought after “Big 5” today. A sighting of 5 lion this morning, plenty ellies, many rhino in this part of KNP, a large herd of Buffalo and two leopard sightings. We’ll go out again tomorrow morning but tomorrow afternoon there will be no game viewing as the Boks play the Wallabies and although I don’t have much confidence in the team Erasmus has chosen “once a Bok supporter always a Bok supporter”. A couple of photos below, unfortunately the lion photos are very poor as they were taken before sunrise but thought I’d better show evidence of the “Big 5”.

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Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the day with a Cape Town based training organisation known as Team Offroad 4×4. They were meant to have a training day but because there was insufficient interest the course was cancelled. Instead they decided to set up a course for an upcoming competition, they knew I had expressed interest a few weeks ago and invited me to join them for the day. My brother-in-law, Robin and I travelled the 230kms to Struisbaai to join the trainers and we had a superb day in some of the most extreme sand dunes I have ever imagined. At the start of the day I was extremely unsure and a bag of nerves, by the end of the day I was a different person and was tackling obstacles in the dunes that I would never have imagined in my wildest dreams. The obstacles are not what I am ever likely to encounter but at least I now have a fair idea of what to do when I’m travelling through sandy conditions, just hope I can remember all I learnt. And yes, I got stuck once, my car is longer than we thought!!

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After making minor mods to the car and the van, Kamba was ready to do his maiden voyage. I have to confess my Brother-in-law, Robin, did most of the work, I’m a reasonable tool boy. We visited Bontebok National Park on the banks of the Breede River in the Western Cape. Kamba behaved very well, towed like a dream and surpassed our expectations. The electrics were superb, the only thing that was missing was an electric blanket, it was freezing in Bontebok. All things considered a great test with us rating it at 10/10. We returned via Bush Lapa in Paarl to collect a couple of items and were lucky enough to meet Jannie Oeschger, the owner of Bush Lapa, a charming man. Martin Appelgryn, was, as always, ready to offer plenty of assistance with no ask too big or too small. We are back in Cape Town for three days collecting the outstanding items for our trip and I will be going on a day’s training course in offroad driving, I’ve asked them to gear the course down to accommodate an accountant!!

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The day finally arrived, we woke up early full of anticipation and once Western Cape traffic settled we set off for Paarl. The weather was awful but that didn’t dampen our spirits. Martin was waiting for us when we arrived and showed us through for our first sighing of Kamba. We weren’t disappointed, our baby was beautiful, Martin had set Kamba up to show his full potential. It took about two hours for him to explain all the intricacies of the Baobab and as we were getting ready to leave I suddenly remembered that Kamba wasn’t insured, fortunately a quick call to an insurance broker rectified that and after some mishaps on the lights we were able to take our baby to my sister and brother-in laws home in Durbanville.

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Today was my first official day of retirement, sure I finished working on Friday 28th June, but was theoretically still a Safeguard employee until yesterday. We are currently in Johannesburg and have had some alterations done to the car, we had a long range fuel tank fitted and a fridge slider placed in the rear of the car, I’m getting to old (did I mention that I’ve retired) to climb into the back of the Hilux. We travel from Jo’burg to Cape Town, 1,400kms tomorrow, probably should have broken the trip into two but can’t wait to see Kamba, yes BL1715 now has a name. Kamba is Shona for tortoise, as you know a tortoise carries its house around with it. See some further pictures below, Martin has been doing overtime for me. We collect Kamba in 36 hours time!!!

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For those of you that don’t know us we are John and Linda Marais. We currently live in Harare and retire on 28 June. Upon retirement we travel to Cape Town to collect our 4×4 offroad caravan, a Baobab, made by Bush Lapa in Paarl. The Baobab will be towed by our Toyota Twincab 4×4 and will become our home for the next 12-24 months after which we intend returning to our kids and grandkids in Australia. We anticipate travelling along the roads less travelled during this time-frame hoping to visit South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and if we can find some adventurous travel-mates possibly Tanzania and Kenya. This is our first go at a blog so please excuse the clumsiness. We have 30 working days to go and counting down rapidly, we are deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, a mammoth task, unfortunately Linda has to do most of the sorting. We leave Harare on Sunday 30th June and hopefully collect the Baobab on Wednesday 3rd July so it is all systems go. We need to think of a name for the Baobab at the moment it is known as B1715 because it is the 1,715 Bush Lapa caravan manufactured. There are a couple of photos below that were sent to me by Martin of Bush Lapa a few weeks ago, I hope it will be ready in time!! Till next time…………

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