Last week was hectic from a work perspective! Spent Monday to Thursday travelling but stayed in communication with Northern Offroad, who are preparing our vehicles. My vehicle was nearing completion but Gavin's has a bit of work still to be done. Fiona picked up the Landcruiser on Thursday whilst I was still in Cape Town. I got back Thursday night to the Beast parked in the drive way!!!! What a sight, what a feeling knowing that the trip was now really a reality for me!!! The Rooftop tent and spare wheel carriers that I had fitted looked awesome. I grabbed the list of things that I had done to the vehicle and began checking them all, VHF radio fitted, new seat covers, fire extinguisher, gas bottles, jerry cans, diff lock breather pipes and oh yes a cup holder for the odd beer!
Unfortunately when I opened the newly fitted spare wheel carrier the locking pin got stuck and I must of forced it and bent it!! Damn!! So back to the workshop to be fixed alongside the aircon and the second battery system.
Next challenge was that the vehicle registration papers had the incorrect registration number on it, imagine trying to explain that at the border posts!! Still trying to sort this issue out but hey there are still four working days before we leave.
On Friday I received a stunnning gift from some of the people I work with, a espresso machine, coffee from Rwanda and a small primus stove. This is awesome as most of the countries that we are travelling in produce their own coffee. I have visions of us sitting around a fireplace in the middle of nowhere having a hot cup of coffee (and a whisky or two). Oh yes they also gave me a pith helmet that I have to wear at every border crossing - if not I will be punished with a drink of Gavin's choice!
Gavin and I picked up my vehicle again on Saturday from Northern Offroad and took it for a drive to see if the intermittent jerking had been fixed - nope! That very second when the jerking started again was a pretty low point for me, I really did not want to take the Beast back to the garage another time as I still needed to do things to it at home. Dropped it off at Toyota and now I am hoping that they are able to fix the problem.
Reality is that this time next week we will be in Botswana regardless of all obstacles!!
