Paul Jones
Kal, a Land Rover Defender, and his four travel companions, 1 Scot and 3 Aussies, will be travelling from Cape Town up to the Equator and back. Starting from 30 November the next 6 months will be driving through Southern Africa.
Paul and Susan will be using this site to tell our story and to show pictures as we go along, depending on the availability of internet (and reliability, which is a challenge).
WE'RE BACK IN CAPE TOWN!!!! Sorry we have been so slack updating photos and stories but we have been having so much fun we could never find the time to keep it up to date. We are curently busy trying to complete everything for your viewing and reading pleasure. There have been a lot of highlights in the last couple of months: Victoria Falls including a helicopter ride over the falls, Wild Dogs making a kill in our campsite in Botswana, good sightings of game throughout Botswana, Paul's Mum and Dad travelling with us for 6 weeks, tracking and finding the Desert Elephants, the barren Skelton Coast of Namibia, a Balloon ride over the desert in Namibia, plus much more, photos coming very soon.
Distance travelled: 23,333 km
Countries visited: South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia
Repairs to Kal: (the list grew longer thanks to the quality of Tanzanian roads!):
- - Rear shocks replaced in Underberg, South Africa.
- - Rewire and fix the windscreen wipers after a rat chewed through them. Cape Maclear, Malawi
- - Rear shocks replaced again in Mwanza, Tanzania. The cheaper Gabriel shocks couldn't handle the poor excuses for roads of Tanzania and packed it in, replaced with more sturdy Monroes. At the same time a full service was done, which was long overdue.
- - Hub seal replaced twice, once just outside Ngorongoro, by some roadside mechanics and again in Arusha, Tanzania.
- - Rear axle replaced in Arusha, it had been twisted and discovered when replacing the hub seal.
- - Universal joints placed in Moshi, Tanzania, these guys seemed to find other issues with the Kal rather than find the issue we had taken it there for....
- After Tanzania no more issues were experienced and we made it back to Cape Town without any problems...
- Number of Flat Tires: 0
Kaz and Dave also have a site, see www.offexploring.com/AAA for their take on events and photos.
Noel Peries Hey do you remember the name of the mechanic/place in Moshi as we are heading there shortly and need a reliable LR Mechanic? Thanks Noel Maggieinafrica.com
re: Arusha, Tanzania