Ballito friends take off on epic East African adventure

Two adventurous Ballito couples recently turned their Land Cruisers into mobile homes and trekked into East Africa, covering 15,000 kilometres in just under three months.

Gaby and Bruce Lyle together with Rob Heath and Louise Todd embarked on the massive drive which became an adventure of a lifetime featuring the best that Africa has to offer.

“I am not a camper, so I was quite nervous about this big trip and the rustic conditions, but in the end I absolutely loved it. Three months were not enough,” said Gaby.

Their Land Cruiser was properly kitted out with a couple of essentials for such an expedition, according to Bruce.

“You need to have a roof top tent and long range tanks with at least 1000 kilometres of fuel. I carried an extra 40 litres on the roof, just in case.

“We also have a dual battery system and solar panels. The 90-litre deep freeze and 15-litre fridge were sufficient to keep us fed, along with some emergency bully beef,” chuckled Bruce.

The trip started through Botswana where they crossed at Kazungula border into Zambia.

“The crossing from Zambia to Tanzania was quite difficult.

“It took about three hours to cover ten kilometres – the road was horrific.”

Once they saw the famous Bush cooking under the African sky in Rwanda, from left, Louise Todd, Rob Heath and Gaby Lyle. falls, they headed to Kafue National Park – a destination that was quite tricky to find.

“We consulted with Kingsley Holgate about the directions and he told us about a specific road that we had to take.

“The problem is, when it rains in Africa, the roads change and they only do a GPS update of the roads every five years.

“We went down the road that we thought was right, looking for railway lines, not knowing that they had been gone for about 20 years!

“The GPS did not know what we were looking for and neither did we.”

Gaby noticed two local boys, one wore a Manchester United shirt, and asked them for directions to the “choo choo”.

They did not understand us and after eight hours of driving, we came back to find the two boys!”

The next stop was one of their favourite finds – Lake Tanganyika.

“The lake is quite incredible. It has a maximum depth of 1,470 metres, it is 677 kilometres long and 50 kilometres wide.

It is the second deepest lake in the world. It is absolutely beautiful with the cleanest water and tropical fish. We had dinner on the sand and it was just wonderful.”

From there, they made their way to Uganda to trek with the gorillas and then turned at Murchinson falls to Jinja, the source of the Nile Kenya.

The Masai Mara and Serengeti were absolute must-sees said Gaby.

“It is just animal heaven – there are thousands of animals everywhere you look. The Masai were so good to us.

“We were their brothers and wherever we went they said “you are welcome”. The only thing I hated were the Tsetse flies – they just wouldn’t die!”

Rwanda was one of their major highlights on the trip which was quite unexpected.

“People are nervous of Rwanda, but it was the most intriguing place! It was so clean and neat and there is no plastic anywhere.

“The people are so industrious, every inch is farmed, even the really steep parts are terraced for farming and you do not see any erosion.

“The roads are so steep that cyclists hold onto the back of a truck to get to the top.”

After Rwanda, they headed further south to Dar es Salaam, followed by Zanzibar and finally relaxed in Mozambique before heading home to Ballito.

“We were so lucky as we did not have any vehicle trouble, border problems or health issues during the trip.”

Bruce did have a good chuckle when they came across a Land Rover on the side of a bad road with a broken side shaft from the deep corrugations.