BY the time we made our next trip, we had still not seen the Okavango Delta, but we had acquired a boat, which seemed to be a step in the right direction.
It was a bright orange runabout with a four horsepower engine. We had taken it on a few fishing trips to the Botete River, but we were limited by the fact that we always had to rely on someone else to transport it for us.
It was just a bit too heavy to be manhandled onto Katie’s roof–rack.
We ordered a trailer from South Africa, giving the dimensions and the weight of the boat and expected to get something small and light.
When the contraption arrived, the size was right, but the construction looked as if it had been designed to take the weight of the QE 2.
It seemed a pity to waste the carrying capacity of those springs, so we set about turning it into a camping trailer with boat space on top.
We spent the week before our leave sawing and drilling, bolting together and painting.
Wood is was very scarce commodity in Orapa. We had managed to scrounge a couple of packing cases, which yielded enough timber for the sides, but there was very little left for the bottom and none at all for the lid. We could do without a lid, as the boat on top would stop things from falling out.
For the bottom we used what planks we had and filled in with a sheet of hardboard.
Not exactly good engineering practice, but it was the best we could do.
In the summer rains it would disintegrate immediately, but it was safe enough at this time of the year. In the middle of the dry season, there was absolutely no chance that it would get wet.
We loaded up and drove gently out to Mopipi to pick up the boat from the club’s boat-house.
I had to sit in the back of the Land Rover and watch the trailer all the way, in case anything fell out. Nothing did.
We tied the boat on the top and I relaxed in the front seat. Nothing could fall out now.
We travelled about three hundred metres – and the boat fell off.
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