Day 119 Bloemfontein

Camper would not start this morning but she did kick in eventually without a push, haven't learnt how much petrol to pump into the carbs for her to catch before I actually flood her, will figure that out when we are done travelling I guess.

the quiet truck stop

Long hot day with the dogs shivering and shaking at every truck bearing down on us, made it out of Bloem and onto the Winburg road which led us straight to the toll gate, paid up the R41 without a fuss, too much effort to try and figure out alternate routes or argue my case, because there is no alternate route, we headed off the N1 at that point anyway and shouldn't encounter any more tolls where we were going. We never saw a garage for the full 103 km and we were again on the smell of an oil rag when I spied the Total sign coming into Winburg, filled up full this time even though their is a heavy smell of petrol in the van, I think it must be the two holes in the chassis, I will try and epoxy them up and see if the smell improves, looks like the holes go through to the petrol tank.

Been thinking about a plot of half an acre in Morloth park and it is strating to work for me, have to just do some calculating to see if I can fit in all the main bits of my farm along with a campsite and if I can I might go for that. It will require a seller to desperate enough to take what I can offer, which will be way lower than the prices on offer at the moment.

I did finally decide that the only way to be happy is not to want all the material things, just to have a dream and be willing to pursue it, it motivates me out of any slump when I think about what I want to achieve, makes all the difficulties worth it when I hear others complaining about their lives but unwilling to do anything positive about changing it for the kind of life they really want. I think most people don't have a clue what life they really want, makes me one of the minority on that score.

Drove 350km today, we were heading for Bethlehem but I could not have found a worse pit to plan to spend a night in, four different people sent me all over town, with one way streets all going the wrong way, in search of the caravan park. The first woman was at a guest house, she told me to just go around the corner and I'll find the campsite, what I found was Campworld, can't imagine they would be happy if they arrived for work in the morning and found a campervan crashed through their window and the occupants fast asleep, we would at least not be short any camping equipment or dehydrated food. I finally found the info centre, in the municipal building, could not take the dogs in so made the guard bring the info guy outside, and lo and behold, the town does not have a caravan park, and it is a huge town, amazing, must wonder about the idiots that sent me on a wild goose chase, but when I think about it, I could not tell you where their is a campsite in Joburg and I lived there on and off for 40 years.

So we headed out even though I was fed up with driving and trying to keep the dogs from stressing, another 80km to Warden and did not even stop to look for a camping place, pulled straight into the truckers rest stop. This is a huge place next to the Durban Highway, it has a little spaza selling cold white bread sandwiches and processed junk, four toilets all marked 'mens' a wellness centre clearly marked 'not for the public' and a truck coming and going every few minutes which is just what my stressed out puppies needed for the night. They are hiding under the covers, but I am not driving any more, will make Ermelo tomorrow and the eco park on Friday. Sarah phoned me this morning to give me directions, arrange for the keys and to let me know what work was expected from me, build the permacultur gardens she said, apparantly I will have all 4ha to myself, looking forward to it especially having the river to play in every day with the dogs, our own tent so we can get out of the camper, an easy job to do digging and planting and lots of time to write and plan without stress.

Lets not talk about the cricket

Did swap some emails with Gissie this morning, can't believe that Image want her to fly home to SA and then back to the States, they must be smoking some strong stuff, she told them to go ahead and book it, she booked her own trip to Nassau, Miami and on to Seattle all for about $800, cheaper than flying from SA to Seattle, so she is heading for some R and R for a few months, chose a sea port after 6 months at sea, but doesn't seem to mind.

not empty for long and we had to move

So, our nice quiet truck stop has just become a nightmare, must be 1000 trucks lined up and streaming in to this parking area, which is huge but looks small when a ton load of 24 wheelers are trying to squeeze themselves in, not easy to squeeze a 24 wheeler into a small space. It seems we were taking up the space of two trucks so we moved down to behind the gate thinking we would be out of the way, after squashing in another ton load of noisy machines we were still in the way and a very polite black gentleman informed me that these trucks pay to be here and maybe we would like to make other plans, I got the hint, plus the dogs could not have been more stressed out, every time a roar went past and the cmper rocked they tried to burrow deeper under the covers, so we drove off into town and parked at the local garage, all sand roads in this town, not sure why. A far more peaceful night although the occasional truck going by kept the dogs under the duvet all night.

What an education that truck stop was, especially after all the stories I heard from Noel and Vic about truck driving around the States and how well controlled it is, stops with hot showers and buffet meals, regulated hours for driving, decent conditions all round. Well it's like comparing apples and eggs to what we have, those poor guys will piss in a real crap house, eat the worst kind of unhygenic, processed rubbish and sleep in a cold truck with no chance of any kind of hot shower and in the morning they will all attempt to untangle themselves and head off in a procession to their relatively unexciting destinations to just do it all over again come the end of the day, no wonder so many of the drivers are clambering to get to the States, other than some decent working conditions it is also possible to save some dollars to bring home and at an exchange rate of 10 – 1, worth the effort.