OUR first Land Rover was a venerable old lady called Katie. She was a bit tatty to look at, and rattled like a spectre’s chains, but her engine was good.
A few pop-rivets and a coat of bright blue paint made her look quite respectable. I had actually ordered yellow paint, but you have to take what comes in Orapa!
The time came for us to do our first bush trip in Katie.
We set out for Tsoi, on the Botete River, two days ahead of the rest of the party, along a route well-marked by the scenes of earlier Orapan disasters. A very bumpy stretch, overworked by the mining operations of antbears, was affectionately known as ‘Arthur’s Holes’ after the man who found it the hard way. A deeply rutted area marked ‘Bill’s Bogdown’ and when the single track became six, you knew you had reached ‘Schalk’s Dilemma’.
Little did we realise that we were destined to add our own names to the local map.
We bumped gently through Arthur’s Holes, made a detour round Bill’s Bogdown and created a seventh track at Schalk’s Dilemma. Had it not been for the back door, the journey would have been quite uneventful. There was evidently something very wrong with the back door, because it swung open every time we hit a bump, leaving Karen’s toys scattered along the track behind us.
At one point we narrowly missed falling into the biggest antbear hole I had ever seen.
We thought we had better mark the spot, for the safety of future travellers, so we filled a Lion beer can with sand and put it on the track next to the hole.
Further on, we hit a bad bump and heard everything on the roof-rack rise into the air and return to position with an enormous thump. Other than that, we had a relatively smooth journey, and arrived at our campsite in under four hours.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram
For news straight to your phone, add us on BBM 58F3D7A7 or WhatsApp 082 421 6033
