The Flood and the Fauna

"Errmm..... Daddy, I think there is a flood outside!" Definitely NOT the words we wanted to hear from Alisha, just as we were all settling down for night. We'd driven further along the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape to Chinsa and parked up in the pretty campsite down a wiggly lane at Bucaneer's Backpackers. We were just 5 minutes walk from a stunning white sandy beach backed by dunes and forest, the surf crashing. There had been monkeys and black haired pigs gorging on windfall guavas as we'd settled for the evening. Nightfall comes early in the winter in South Africa and by 5.30pm, we were all snuggled in out of the cold. The rain started to fall as we tucked into bangers and mash. It whipped up into a heavy squall as we washed up, then came lashing down while the girls went to bed and continued heavy on the roof as they tried to get to sleep. For once we were relaxed about the torrential rain. Usually, as the truck weighs about 10 tons, we worry if we are parked up on soggy grass or mud but we had parked on the gravel track as they had asked us to, so we happily sat there reading and listening to the noisy drumming on the roof, feeling all smug and warm. Looking outside we could see that Alisha was exactly right there was deep, fast flowing water running under the truck and right across the campsite. After a few choice words, we leapt into action, jumped in the front and put on the roof mounted spotlights (they look cool but are only ever used "in an emergency"). They showed that the fast flowing water and debris was everywhere, it looked like a river had burst its banks. More choice language followed, as Steve gunned the engine and tried to remember where the small track was between the trees. Amazingly he squeezed the truck between the trees and kept us off the grass until we made a wrong turn. I grabbed my wellies and jumped from the back door into the waters. I needn't have bothered with the boots as the water was well over my knees. Through the pitch black and in the heavy rain, I tried to remember exactly which trees we had passed on the way in??? Finally after a nasty reverse, we thought he was driving in the right direction. My only clue was that underfoot, it felt slightly harder on the path than it did on the mud either side. I remember there were small ditches in the campground and I tried to guide Steve away from those as I walked ahead, trying to show him which direction to go. My main thought was that if it was a river that had burst its banks we might be dealing with a lot more water and branches if we hung around for much longer. We knew the track from the campsite went steeply up, so we were aiming for that. Steve did a brilliant job battling though the rising waters and we were just metres from where the track out rose sharply. Suddenly the rear wheel slid out and the left side of back of the truck dropped into a hole. With the black swirling waters we couldn't see what an earth was happening, just that the box on the back was now at a crazy angle. After checking that the other 3 wheels seemed to be on solid-ish ground underneath the waters, he had another go at getting the truck out, the back wheel spun and now the water was up to the bottom of the wheel arch (usually about 1.10m high) and the back was at a scary angle. While I ran up the hill to the hostel to get help, Steve tried to assess the damage. Inside he found Alisha still riveted to her book, even though her bed was now at an impossible angle. He couldn't see any damage inside and outside the water was just too deep to see anything, apart from it did not look good! I like South Africans for many things, two of them are they are unflappable in hairy situations and they are generally brilliant at outdoorsy things. After having a good look Shaun, the owner of the hostel suggested that we do nothing till morning. It was absolutely pitch black and we were all worried about someone getting hurt if we tried to recover the truck in the dark. He kindly gave us a cottage to sleep in and we spent a sleepless night praying for the rain to stop. We heard afterwards that 150-200mm (6-8 inches) fell in 2 hours, eventually at about midnight it did stop. DSC00457.JPGDSC00456.JPGSteve was up before first light to check the truck hadn't been either washed away or tipped over, thankfully it was ok and most of the water had run off to the sea. The other piece of good news was that the hostel's dam that provided much of the water they needed in the dry season had just about held, although there was serious damage to the slipway. With most of the water gone, we could see what had happened. Steve had gone wide on the track to avoid a tree and the back wheel had slipped off the track into a recently filled hole. Luckily the neighbour's JCB digger that had been doing the digging was parked nearby, Shaun and his number 2, Marcus, rallied to find who had the JCB's keys and to get a tractor pull us out, if that didn't work. Eventually the JCB driver was found, there was much discussion about the best way out. First Steve raised the air suspension at the back of the truck which got the back lockers above the mud so they wouldn't drag and get damaged on the way out. It made me feel a little better to see the number plate at least, emerge from the quagmire. Eventfully it was decided backwards was the best way, the JCB had to pass us to get behind. As we were barely on the path there was plenty of space to get past. That is when the JCB driver drove off the other side of the path and got himself stuck in mud way above the axles! I'll take back what I said about South Africans being brilliant at things outdoors . To be fair to the JCB driver, who was helping us out of the kindness of his heart, I won't say any more. Just it took him a further hour to get himself out of the mud, thank goodness he had his front and back buckets to lift himself out. Eventually he was in place behind and we were all chained up but after the initial tug, it looked like the whole truck would go over if they pulled any more as we'd pitched even further over. It was back round to the front again, without driving off the path, and they re hitched the truck back on. With both buckets of the JCB pushing back, it's wheels spinning and our wheels spinning, the truck started to inch forwards. There was a quick repositioning, then another strain. Eventually we were looking straighter, with all four wheels back on the ground, Steve then slowly drove the truck up the hill. I have to admit there were tears in my eyes, as our home...transport....trip was safe again. We thanked the guys over and over again, especially as they refused to take any payment for their help. After raising the rear suspension: DSC00464.JPGDSC00465.JPGDSC00462.JPGDSC00466.JPGDSC00469.JPGDSC00472.JPGAmazingly there appeared to be no damage, we cleaned out the mud from lockers that has been submerged but as everything was in ammo boxes, nothing inside was wet. The following morning when back on the road several of the engine warning lights came on. Luckily there are many MAN garages in South Africa, so we stopped off at the nearby one in East London. The whole workshop came out to have a look and a chat as they plugged the truck into the computer and checked everything underneath. Thankfully, it all looked ok, so we were soon back on the road. We broke our journey for the night in the historic university town of Grahamstown. Which looked remarkably like a small English country town, complete with delicious smells coming from a fish and chip shop. DSC00484.JPGThe girls were very excited to get their first wildlife viewing experience on this trip as we spent 3 nights at Addo Elephant National Park. Originally created to protect the last remaining local elephants in the 1930's, it has many different species and extends all the way out to sea protecting whales and sharks too. We were all thrilled to see a caracal just a few minutes into the drive, these small wild cats have amazing tufts of fur on the tops of their ears. Usually nocturnal, it was trying to dry out after all the rain. DSC00504.JPGDSC00524.JPGInitially we had been a bit concerned about the trucks size for game watching but with the roads being wide and the animals unconcerned about our presence, we soon relaxed. Having our home along with us made things very easy. We got into a bit of a routine: with the first couple of hours drive with cups of tea and the girls still in their pyjamas. Then stopped for breakfast at a waterhole or lookout, a bit more of a drive then parked somewhere interesting while Steve kept a lookout and the girls did school. Our second day's school was rather interrupted by elephants wandering past and a lioness looking out for prey. Someone had told us earlier that there was a lioness resting in the bushes, we could just about made her out with binoculars, so we parked up and started school. After an hour or so, Steve called through to the back that a group of kudu were getting very close and we bundled through to watch. Unfortunately they smelt her before anything could happen but after that she ambled out, sauntered down the hill and lay just beside the track before strolled off after the direction the pray had gone. Fabulous! It was hard to return to maths after that. DSC00639.JPGDSC00660.JPGDSC00707.JPGDSC00701.JPGDSC00708.JPGThe unique species in Addo is the flightless dung beetle. It makes a ball of dung, rolls it along, buries it and lays its eggs in it. There are signs everywhere reminding people not to drive over the elephant poo on the road to avoid killing the beetles. As there are so many elephants in the park, they made up to a 100kg of poo a day and they like to walk along the road Steve was having to swerve all over the road to avoid all the dung. It was a good thing he was driving so slowly. Lucy was in her element, she particularly loves dung beetles after learning about them on a BBC documentary years ago. She insisted on dressing up as a dung beetle when she was in Nursery back in Prague for World Earth Day, complete with a yoga ball as her dung, so she could show everyone how it should be rolled with the back legs. The great interpretive centre had a live beetle display, so she could happily get up close to them. DSC00630.JPGWe left Addo a happy family having seen many different animals: lots of elephants, kudu, buffalo, zebra, jackals, eland and many more. Driving around in the truck made things very easy and relaxed. There was no need to return to camp for food or the loo, so we stayed out far longer than you could do normally and we could just sit, wait and watch where we wanted to. DSC00736.JPGDSC00665.JPGDSC00653.JPGDSC00725.JPGDSC00575.JPGDSC00564.JPGDSC00646.JPGDSC00615.JPG

Back On The Road…In Africa

After a hectic day sightseeing around London or going to the depressing football we had to make a mad dash to Heathrow to catch our flight to Durban via Dubai. We had hoped after such a busy day we would all sleep on the flights but apart from a few short naps no one really slept until Lucy fell into a deep sleep as we were landing in Durban! Her crying all the way through immigration after been woken helped distract them from as,I got for the return flight ticket which we did not have and could have been a problem. Instead they were really nice trying to cheer her up. It must have been all the excitement from the last few weeks combined with the excitement of going to Africa. It has been lovely back visiting family and friends but I think we were ready to get back on the road again. Checking the Internet we learned that the ship with the truck had docked in Durban 30 minutes before we had landed. Perfect timing. We headed to our hotel just outside Durban in Umhlanga hopeful that we would soon be reunited with the truck.  The next morning I headed to the shipping agent with all my documents and was assured they would quickly secure the release of the truck but that it would not be today. We spent the day relaxing in the hotel and visiting the very large shopping centre just next to the hotel which is supposedly the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. Fortunately the hotel also had a good restaurant attached so we enjoyed some good meals there. We were not missing Argentina as South Africa is also famous for its great steak and wine. The following morning I received a note from the shipping agent. Everything was ready and I had to head down with them to the port to pick the truck up. At the port everything went very smoothly and I was quickly reunited with the truck. It was great to see our home again and all was well with it. The shipping agent had handled things really efficiently and all I needed to do was drive it out of the port and back to the hotel. This might sound easy but the first thing I had to manage was driving on the other side of the road from South America. As the truck is left hand drive this meant I had to ensure I was next to the kerb. Not that easy to start with especially on my own. Fortunately it was a long virtually straight road back to the hotel. On arrival you can see how happy the girls were to be reunited with the truck.   We had one last evening in the hotel and coincidentally a former colleague of mine from Russia had just contacted me saying he had transferred to Durban and if we happened to be passing through we should look him up. As we were leaving the next day Iain came over that evening for a drink and dinner. It was great to catch up and clearly living and working in Durban is a lot different than Moscow. Before heading off we had a couple of jobs to do on the truck. We needed some new front shock absorbers and I had contacted the nearest MAN dealer who had them in stock. As has been the case when we have gone to the MAN dealers along our trip they were really helpful. Not only did they have the shock absorbers but they fitted them there and then and also changed our headlights over so we had the right headlights for driving on the right hand side of the road. Now we just needed to find a campsite so we could finish unpacking and organising the truck for the journey ahead. In South America and especially in Patagonia we just camped up in the wild. We understood this would be more difficult in Southern Africa due to the amount of people and concerns about security and that most people used campsites. This though should not be that difficult as South Africa has a very big camping and caravanning culture. We found a campsite in Scottburgh a short distance down the coast. Mind you this was not the type of campsite we were used to... lots of facilities and loads of other holiday makers. We slipped into a parking slot and tried to fit in. At least it was set on a lovely beach.     Another thing we need to adjust to is that it is heading into winter here. After coming from late spring in Europe we were surprised to see that it got dark by 5.30pm. Mind you it was light at 6.30am. This meant we needed to get up early to enjoy the daylight. This had the added benefit of seeing a lovely sunrise.  It might have been winter but it was not cold. In fact our first few days were around 28 degrees. Not bad for winter. We headed further down the coast to a small nature reserve, Oribi Gorge. Here was our first test of whether we would struggle in the nature reserves with the size of our truck. Gilly and I have driven in Africa many times but always in Land Rovers or Toyotas. The reserves are clearly not designed for our truck and we are worried this will severely limit what we can do. At Oribi Gorge we could only just squeeze into the campsite before heading out for a walk to see the gorge as the sun set.          The next morning getting out of the campsite was more difficult. To get out we had to reverse about 600m down a tree lined narrow lane. A pretty fraught start to the today. We were heading across the Transkei to the Wild Coast. The Transkei used to be one of the Homelands during Apartheid and is home to the Xhosa people. It is also where Nelson Mandela was born. As we drove through the rolling countryside there was lots of traditional Xhosa housing and small scale farming.     Driving down to the coast we arrived at Coffee Bay. Coffee Bay is set next to a lovely wild beach. Unfortunately we did not enjoy it in its full glory as the weather had changed on the drive down and there was now grey cloud. Also it was a Sunday so everyone was out drinking. And whilst everyone was very friendly there were a lot of drunk people rolling around. We were also keen to see some large African animals and as our first real National Park was still more than 500kms away we decided to continue South West.