OPENING UP CAMP FOR THE 2006 SEASON

The scattered convoy left from South Africa on May 9 for Mozambique this year. It is a logistics exercise second to none every year, but this years especially – since we took some new “tools” to tame the African bush. On the first night, the truck we took broke down in the Limpopo province and Gert and Kurt slept in the cars waiting on some emergency spares being raced to them. It had to be the coldest night to date this year.

The border is about 500 kilometers from Pretoria and it takes us about 6 hours to get there. It can take you from an hour to 4 hours go get through the formalities at the border, depending on the activity ate the border post. Gary and I pushed on through the Musina border post, into Zimbabwe and we spent the night at the well-known Lion & Elephant. After quickly settling a Zambezi lager, we turned in as we were planning to get up very early.

Here’s Gary – the chief PH at Bahati - on a cold but clear African morning at about 05:00 and ready to roll. Since we have intermittent to poor cell phone communications, we had no idea how the other two lads were winning their battle with broken trucks and nuisance baboons at the border post. We pressed on.

I drove behind Gary and saw a tie-down on the trailer pop. This gave us a chance to stop and stretch legs. This was somewhere on the road between Beit Bridge border post and Masvingo, Zimbabwe. The chunk of road in Zim takes forever. We plodded on, found out that Gert & Kurt were on their way again when we got some cell phone reception in Masvingo.

The formalities at the Zim/Mozambique border post took a while – again - and a lot of explanation as to the varied and interesting contents on the back of our Land cruisers. We were in Mozambique at last and glad to be back. It is a wonderful country.

About 3 minutes into Mozambique, we got the first road block – just to be interrogated about the varied and d and interesting contents on the back of our Land Cruisers all over. Africa sometimes …!

We spent the next night at a resort where Gert & Kurt caught up with us. The next day was the home stretch and it felt good.

We had some breakfast at the entrance to the Gorongoza game reserve. Breakfast was made up from fresh local bread bought at the roadside, curried fish, cold chicken and some cold leg of lamb, finished off with fruit juice and Coke. Note the little 3 ton truck that Kurt drove up for us.

Gary is keeping an eye on the cars while we shop for some fresh vegetables at one of the many roadside vendors near Gorongoza. We arrived near the camp (Near is about 100 kilometers) to unload the truck.

The truck gave birth to a tractor. It was squeezed in so tight! Notice Gert is actually sitting on the tractor.

It eventually came out screeching with the aid of some old truck blade springs to lever the sides away. That was seriously tight fit!

With the tractor and slasher in the lead, we went on out way. Here the convoy stops at the last turn-off into the really wild stuff.