Day FIVE 8th April

Nice to spend another night under the stars, we took off for God's Window this morning, 12 km out of town, 5 of them straight up again, I'm getting tired of these hills I must say, the camper does not respond well to them, I'm surprised we haven't bust a gasket yet.

Well we arrived at the parking lot expecting to find the old hiking trail still in operation, no such luck, now it's market stalls with local curios, paths, paving, inadequate signs, lookout points and all manners of fat tourists, I think I was supposed to pay as well but the gate guy was reluctant to approach the camper when he saw a hoard of dogs being disgorged. 

So we strapped on the hiking bag and took off up the path and found lots of good views but failed to find the window, ended up going way beyond the path onto the original hiking path, up to the top of the mountain, spent 2 hours in hard hiking, even got ourselves a bit lost, dogs are weary and tired, not any water for them to drink along the way except a little rain puddle, and we never found the big rock with a hole in it, where I assume 'GOD'S WINDOW' comes from, I guess it's like everything in Africa, if it's not bolted down, someone will steal it.

So back to town we end, thankfully mostly down hill, ended up in the middle of Gaskop....and lost our gears, just could not engage any gear, so we pushed her to the side and went under and had a look, had a few black okes come and look, gave all kinds of opinions from your pin is broken, you need a new gear box, new clutch cable, jeez, even I knew they were all taking crap, had to wait for Pieter to come and tow us back to Panarama, all of 2km, he wanted R600 but I got him down to R400, still a ripoff for a 2km journey, anyway got my camper back home, did get to eat my second meal of my trip at one of the 4 pancake houses, we were parked outside it, so we had a burger at the pancake house.

Back at the campsite I discovered that George, my neighbour, a senior citizen, previously from Europe, now a South African, is probably the best person to have as a neighbour a he has done many camper conversions and took one look at my camper and knew what the problem was, the CV Joint that Dev fitted had come loose, he also noted my brakes were faulty, my accelerator cable was too loose and a few other things needed seeing to, well how lucky am I to land up in the one place that has the perfect person too fix my camper, unfortunately he has a wonky knee and needs to go to hospital to get it seen to first before he can fix my baby.

So we are now spending another night here and the dogs are pleased, other dogs here may not be too happy as Pepi has it in for them, but their little sausage dog keeps attacking Lani so I don't mind if Peps gives them a hard time, the camp is quiet so no harm done. Got to sit by the beautiful pool and use the free internet to get my blog up to date.

Observation

We are still in holiday mode so hard to take in that we have no home to go to any more once we get tired of travelling, I tried to explain that to the puppies but they don't get it, I am hoping that they will soon get used to the campervan as home, at the moment they follow me everywhere like Mary's 4 little lambs.

Day FOUR Sunday 7th April

How awesome to sleep next to this majestic 2000 year old tree,  all alone in the world with the birds and hyenas keeping us company, I went to sleep by counting the stars, got to 2,5 billion - then lost count.
All our blankets, duvets, pillows, towels and other sleeping paraphanalia were wet from the dew over night, will have to dry as we drive because we left early, I left all my change with the broken lock even though I don't believe they have the right to lock this tree away from people coming a long way to see it.
Headed to Graskop via Bushbuckridge, which was a squatter camp last time I came this way, now it looks like a stretch of about 50km with lots of well built houses  all over the rolling green hills, very African, I'm very impressed, but still nowhere to stop, no lookout points, long uphills and slow, hot travel, we stopped at a river so the dogs could cool off and play with the ball for a while, we discovered it was washing day so had time to interact with the locals.

 I got the camper caught in a donga and required a bunch of kids to help push me out, we also had to unlock someones bakkie and push it out the way, the kids managed it in a jiffy, again, very African.
Okay so if I had remembered Kowyns pass, I would never have gone this way, only 38km from the CBD to Graskop, but my word, all uphill and the last bit by the pass is 8km straight up, snake turns, no place to stop or pass, thank goodness traffic was light, not that that made much of a difference as everyone passed me regardless, uphill, solid white lines, steep curves, made no difference, a truck overtook and was heading straight for another truck coming the other way, me and two guys behind me took evasive action climbing onto the curb and stopping, not wanting to get caught if they crashed into each other, idiots with no regard for life, anyones!!!!
Came down the hill towards Graskop and pulled in to Panarama camping site, could not face setting up camp on the side of the road after this hard day. 174km today felt like a 1000.
Found a nice spot to sleep overlooking the valley and met George who lives here, he has a VW van he converted with a V6 engine, he showed it off to me. Nice to have a bath and sleep safely outside, no appetite but did have a great cup of coffee.

OBSERVATION

I drove for two solid days to see a tree, and then never saw it, I ended up parked the night next to the most magnificent Baobab I've ever seen, maybe these things happen for a reason, not sure I would have gone out of my way to see the second one if I had seen the first one.

Day THREE Saturday 6th April 2013

Woke up again to find Lani missing, will have to chin her to the camper if this continues, took us ages to find her, then tried to find the hiking trail in town, could not, then tried to get a new petrol cap as mine leaks, could not, so had the guy at the tyre shop cut me some inner tubing, will have to fashion a new rubber for my cap sometime.

Headed back the way we had come down to the turnoff to Tzaneen, this time missing the tollgate as the turnoff was the right side for me going North, headed for Tzaneen at a snails pace up the hills, 20km per hour, the cyclists were passing me, the runners were passing me, hell I wouldn't be surprised if the snails crawled faster than me......but ti does give us some time to look at the scenery, lots of hills, and trees, and fences..........nowhere to stop on the side of the road, long fences bordering game farms and no lookout points or campsites away from the road, makes it hard for the dogs who are not into this camping thing at the moment.

After 380km yesterday and about 12 hours in the camper, I needed today to be an easier day, we hit Tzaneen, went straight to the dam, paid my 20 bucks and spent some pleasant hours throwing the ball for the dogs, I also managed to waterproof the back window and fashion a new rubber seal for the petrol cap, wanted to camp the night there but was told we would be kicked out at 8pm, so back in the camp and headed for the mineral springs 30km away, never found them, so continued to the giant Baobab at Gravelot, finally made it there, nearly 5pm, dogs hot and tired, me fed up with the hours of driving and not getting to see much of what was on my list, finally got to the turnoff for the tree....and was met with a fence and a great big padlock aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh..........

So, I took out my hammer and hammered it off, closed the gates behind me so no passerby would come and investigate, and we went in and spent a glorious night under the stars next the majestic 2000 year old Baobab who welcomed us with open arms. Our first night sleeping out, water was available so I had a really nice large bucket bath, with lots of hot water, did not care how much gas I wasted, I did not eat today as well, just coffee, the driving is hard and hot and I have no appetite. Only drove 188km today so my headache is easing.

Day TWO Friday 5th April 2013

The day started well, had a storm over night and Pepi got rained on as the roof leaks, will have to fix that sometime, after finding Lani I managed to heat enough water for coffee and a bucket bath, hit the road and drove on the old 101 ALL THE WAY UP TO Polokwane, where I used to go to boarding school when it was called Pietersburg or something similar. Then continued following the 101 and ended up on the N1 highway, got to a tollgate, which I refuse to use, and had to pay R33 or go back home, that made me grumpy and I was determined not to pay another one, unfortunately, the road led through Louis Trichard and up to the Tshipise turnoff, which is where I was going, but we hit the next tollgate 500m before the turnoff, well if I wasn't already grumpy I certainly would have been now, I fought with everyone about not having an alternative road to drive on therefore they could not charge me a toll, fell on deaf ears, after a long hard day of driving and the dogs not happy, and too many hours in the van with fumes from the engine giving us all headaches, I just got gatvol, told them I'm not paying and drove through with my R32 firmly in my pocket, I took the turn to Tshipise, wanted to go and see the biggest baobab tree in the country, but it was late, the dogs were hungry, I had not eaten all day, and I was fed up, so I took a side road to the dam hoping to camp by the water for the night and try again in the morning to find this tree, which did not seem to want to arrive, and we headed down the worst corrugated sand road I have ever driven on, jolted my poor camper to her very bones, I never saw a sign for the dam, we went 22km in 2 hours, it was pitch dark, nowhere to stop, hot and tired, and irritable, and we ended p back on the N1 just about where we had come out after Louis Trichard and the Tunnels, well was I now pissed off, so badly that I just drove the 30 km back to Louis Trichard, stopped in an empty park and collapsed, poor dogs were buggered.

48 Hours on the road and my headache had reached MIGRAINE STATUS.

Day ONE Thursday 4th April 2013

After having to pack the camper in a hurry yesterday because the new tenants moved in earlier than planned, I finally left at 6am this morning with a very disorganized and an over packed camper, not great, a sleepy Julian saw me off and let me out the gate as I no longer have any keys, handed them all over to Beau Gosse.

We made slow time to the Tswaing crater where we were told 'NO DOGS ALLOWED', had to talk my way through the security guard, then the receptionist, then had to drive to another gate and talk my way through that guard, then headed for the camp site and before I could get going, some white oke in a fancy 4x4 arrived and said I couldn't take the dogs, I told him I sorted with the receptionist, he said he would go and check, before he rounded the corner on screaming tyres, we were lready on the path and gone....heavy walk for the old dogs but they made it up to the lookout point, would not have made it all the way around so we turned around and came back, the oke was pretty mad but did not say anything.

I had a bad meal along the way, dry pancake and even drier mince with a cold cup of coffee for my R51.
The day got worse, very hot, brakes are hard to use, accelerator is worse, the dogs did not much like the camper and a lot of sms's up and down with an ex tenant at Semarja, caustic and nasty, and Johann got himself stuck on the highway in the Jetta, which he has just bought from me and now he does not want the car.

I hi Nylsvlei and was tired of driving so we found an abandoned road and set up camp for the night, slept inside, woke up in the morning, stiff and sore from having two dogs on top of me....and Lani had disappeared in the night, I searched all the bushes for her with no luck, had to tell the puppies 'Walkies, find your mom' and luckily their strong noses went looking in the bushes and a few minutes later out came a very wet Lani, it would help in future if the deaf dog was not the one to go walkabouts.

After 24 hours on the road I had a MASSIVE HEADACHE, and we only did about 230 very slow kilometres.

The sign that keeps everyone away from the camper.....