Category Archives: Motorcars_Automobiles

To Bots Sept 2022

In brief:

Serviced the mighty 2008 Ford Ranger 3L turbodiesel.
Wayne said, ‘I’ll do it like I was driving to Bots myself. I’ll change filters n oil n brake fluid. And even tho your fan belts are new, I’m changing them so you have spares that you KNOW fit. Does your cambelt need changing?’
My what?
‘Your cambelt.’
Um . .
I phoned Harrismith Ford. Martin said No, We Changed It Last Service.
OK. There you go, see how paraat I am?

Wayne pronounced the mighty ’08 Ranger absolutely hundred cement except for slightly collapsing front left suspension, but otherwise perfect. He fixed that. Ready for a safari!

‘Your logbook is for a Ford Bantam 1300,’ he said. Oh. So why don’t I get better mileage then? I asked. I think he might have rolled his eyes.
..
North to PTA / Tshwane to Pete n Terry luxury home pitstop.
Filled my water tank, ate their delish meals.
..
NW to Groblers Bridge border crossing
Palapye – Serowe – Orapa – Maun and Janet.
Had to eat more delish meals, watch great birds, endure early am walks along Tamalakhane river.

Pre-trip meeting with Lee n Dwayne at the Duck to plan for CKGR.

Digby Bullock at Aliboat moved my awning slot to the lower side of my canopy. Better.
Buy a Jerry can at Rileys.
Buy medevac insurance for a year. If I get the sniffles, a helicopter will swoop down from above and take me to a comfy bed.

– update: still just P75 a year in 2026! –

Dwayne fitted the ole Ranger with LED lightbulbs all round. What a difference!

Meet TomBob n Andy Dandridge at Tandoorai for too many beers n jagermeisters. Ready for the bush.

~o0o~

Fragile indeed

Here’s a repost from six years ago today:

Some sappy soul sent me this:

I thought ya, ya, sure, that’s true. And dismissed the thought.

Tonight I was parked right outside the entrance to the Playhouse theatre in downtown Durban, opposite the City Hall, waiting to fetch Jess and Fatima after the show Shall We Dance? when out of the corner of my eye I saw cars taking big evasive action.

A bakkie zoomed from the far-side lane at breakneck speed right across four lanes towards my side of the road and smashed into the little silver car parked right in front of me. BANG! People standing under the No Stopping sign scattered, leaping every-which-way.

Silence. Then much Hey! Hey! and running. I couldn’t see, too many people, but ‘my’ carguard told me the driver had made a run for it and citizens had chased after him. I though Uh Oh! and phoned 10111. Listen, you’d better send your people here pronto. I’m afraid the citizens may rough up the perpetrator, I said to the operator. I’ll send the police there right away, she said.

To their credit, the Playhouse security people stepped in and took the perp, who my informant confidently assured me was inebriated, marched him back to his car and put him back in the drivers seat to safely await the cops.

Two tow trucks arrived. An ambulance arrived and took the driver into their vehicle to check him over. Hopefully check his breath. Now the cops arrived and took over. The middle-aged couple who were sitting in the little silver car when it was hit – and like me had been waiting to fetch concert-goers after the show – were amazingly calm. They took photos and told their story, filled in forms, no panic, even though their car was badly damaged.

In the whole pantomime there were only two poephols – the drunk driver and a prick in a Merc SUV who drove up and hooted for the ambulance, the tow trucks and the crashed cars to magically get out of his way, he was important. A family member (I assume – probably a son) of the ‘victim’ couple who had arrived to assist them went up to the jerk, gave him a withering look and waved him around the scene.

When the dust had settled I finally thought of taking a picture. Then the girls arrived at last and hopped in, unaware of the drama. They’d been waiting to have their pics taken with stars from the show.

As I was leaving, my man, my guard, my informant came and spoke to me firmly: Mkhulu, my parking fee is R20; I looked after you well and I have to feed my family. I agreed with him, borrowed R20 from Fatima and paid him! He was chuffed and stopped traffic in the main street – old Smith Street – to let me out!

~o0o~

Harare

What lovely hospitality we were treated to at Crake Cottage near the Monavale Vlei. Dorothy and John adopted and spoilt us, looking after Jess whenever we were out birding, actually ferrying us to the vlei in John’s red fire engine, and producing a big pot of tea on the wide veranda on our return from trampling around vleis, sewage ponds n parks. We booked for two nights but stayed for four. “We” being Dave, Esme and me – three old birders – and young non-birder Jess, driving around Zimbabwe in a 2012 Toyota RAV 4X4 and a 2008 Ford Ranger 2X4, focused on camping but willing to chalet when wet weather dictated such a copout.

Birding spots we visited around Harare:

Monavale Vlei – A RAMSAR wetland and important source of water around the capital city. Our host Dorothy Wakeling has been actively involved in promoting the need for looking after these special places for many years. We didn’t spot any of the famous crakes and flufftails, the vlei had dried out somewhat already, but firsts for me were the Yellow-mantled Widowbird, Red-faced Cisticola singing – cisticolas have to say who they are for me to ID them – and Variable Sunbird. Our birding guide Jimmy Muropa was great.

Mazowe Botanical Reserve in Christon Bank – About 30km north of town we were taken on a lovely walk in the granite hills by birding guide Abel Nzaka. Here we followed bird parties up and down the hills among the boulders, spotting birds, including including these these that were new to me: Miombo Rock Thrush, Cabanis’ Bunting (seen once before, but in Malawi), Eastern Miombo Sunbird, White-breasted Cuckooshrike and Whyte’s Barbet. We glimpsed, but didn’t nail down, the Boulder Chat.

Haka Park – Just 10km east of Harare city centre, this park is paradise. Grasslands, my favourite biome, and islands of trees and big boulders, flanked by Miombo woodland. The tree islands have perfect shady campsites. Long-tailed Paradise Whydah and Senegal Coucal.

Mukuvisi Woodland – A midday walk around Mukuvisi was not very productive and we ended up looping around (not ‘getting lost!’) longer than we intended. Another special natural area close to the city. If you started earlier on a good day I’m sure it would hum. We did get a picture of a Guineafowl Butterfly.

We left Harare with great memories of good people, delicious shared meals and enjoyable birding. Roads in the city are lousy, but the highways to and from the city were mostly fine, except for detours.

On South-Eastward to Marondera now …

~~oo0oo~~

No Divine Engine Overhaul?

I left the tyre place with my four brand-new polished rubber slippers on my Ford feeling chuffed and stable, if R14k lighter, when a shiny new and way-too-big for a 4-seater sportscar white BMW X6 switched on its hazard lights at a traffic light. The driver hopped out and ran to the car ahead of him. A dull faded green old Korean sedan in trouble.

The two drivers nodded, one hopped in and the BMW driver started pushing, soon joined by his tubby passenger, leaving the BM blinking at the lights. I followed them by driving round the BM. Soon they pulled over huffin and puffin. No sign of life in the old faded green jalopy. ‘I’ll give him a tug,’ I shouted through my open window and they nodded and ran back to the shiny new white thing, their part in the attempted rescue done.

I pulled off in front of the faded green thing and hopped out to fish for my tow rope, but the scrawny 30-ish bearded driver in a grubby mechanics overall had done this before. He had a rope out like a flash and bopa’d it to my tow hitch. I’ll watch for your hand out your window I said, ‘OK Uncle,’ he said.

Three times he dropped the clutch and the faded green hopped and screeched, tyres belching blue smoke (was he in first gear!?) but no go. He’d wave me on, his scrawny arm indicating, ‘Try Faster.’ I had to stop at two red lights, ran a third as all was clear and then at the fourth, BANG! he ran into me! Omigoodness. I pulled over, hopped out and we both surveyed the damage: My tow ball unaffected; his bonnet looking horrible, his already low-value car now worth less. Damn! Had his brakes failed? Had he lost focus? Had he texted his poppie? I didn’t ask.

Where can I tow you to where your car will be safe? I asked. ‘I rent a room in the location outside Meerensee, can Uncle tow me to there?‘ I’ll tow you to the nearest petrol station where you can ask the attendants to keep an eye on it while you arrange things, I offered. At the Shell station we pushed his car into a good spot as he told me his story. Blown head gasket, fixed, then blown again – ‘I think I used the wrong oil. Oh man,’ he sighed, ‘I just hoped By Grace it could have lasted until I got my drivers licence!’

Eish, maybe THAT was why he ran into the back of me?

I left him a cold drink and some cash and he was way too grateful for an oke still in such a pickle, praising ‘The Man Upstairs’ for helping him thus. Meantime there I was, R100 lighter and my feet firmly Downstairs on terra firma. I muttered to myself, He coulda just fixed you car rather!, but I didnt want to spoil his smile.

Damn!

~~oo0oo~~

A Flaw? No!

The report was glowing when I fetched the bakkie from D&B Motorcare in Durban. Fully serviced, “It’s in wonderful shape, ready for your trip to Zimbabwe,” said the reliable father and son team who keep it shipshape.

Um, except ‘One front tyre is wearing skwiff, have the wheels aligned, OK?’

So off to Richards Bay where the Tyre Tannies had more to say. Something about wearing skwiff, yes, but also different tyres, de-laminating, bulging, ens. And why are the Oom, who’s a Swanepoel, speaking English? So four new matching tyres were needed, not just an alignment, it turned out.

NOW the bakkie’s perfect. In many ways . .

~o0o~

Open Sesame

Weird that a bakkie’s electric window winding mechanisms don’t last eighteen years, don’t you think? And that one can’t get spares after so short a time?

Being without a working driver’s door window made me a bit sad. That was OK, though as it made my kids even sadder. They were my automatic gate openers and parking boom and toll booth payers. Actually they did it with surprising good humour, enjoying rolling their eyes at me and sighing. I think, I believe.

Then Willie Panelbeater found an after-market window-winding mechanism for me. The driver’s door window is back in business. Once again I am rolling up to tollbooth windows nonchalantly.

Meantime, the two rear windows had been playing up for quite a while, and eventually conked. So far we’ve been unsuccessful in our search of Olde Parts Suppliers and scrapyards, so I have had to Heath-Robinson a fix for the left rear door.

– Window Closed –
– Window Open –

Now for the right rear. We’ll take turns sitting in the back, cos having windows like these, that don’t open all the way, is not fun! Shouldn’t be allowed. How can you look cool if you can’t hang your elbow out the window?

Update 1: Both rear windows have yielded to my mechanical skill and know-how and can open and shut again – and: All-The-Way open! Elbow-hanging cool can now take place. Also photography out the window in game reserves. Admittedly all very manual, no electric motors involved, and closing them if it starts to rain or a lion wants to stick its snoot inside entails stopping, opening the door and manhandling them closed.

I call it nostalgia, a wonderful throwback to Mom growing up on Nuwejaarsvlei and driving to town in Dad Frank’s yellow 1927 Erskine Tourer. Read about that here.

~~oo0oo~~

Update 2: I bought an exercise mat on special and quickly, before any exercise could take place, cut it up and covered up the gaping hole. Netjies huh?

– not levver like the seats –

Wasn’t Me

So a chain of 600 pubs went bankrupt and I know why. If you’re selling beer and you call yourself Thank God its Friday, that will resonate with thirsty tired working people, and you’re going to be popular. If you change your name to Thank Goodness its Friday you’re starting to wimp, and that’s not a good sign. If you then wimp it down to TGI Friday’s (what!!?) you’ve lost the plot IMO. Beer sales will steadily decline over a period of about 58 years and there’ll be financial trouble.

So TGI Friday’s went bust cos they were no longer Thank God its Friday. That, and probably also that apostrophe.

Back in 1973 they very much were Thank God its Friday, and we patronised them because that sounded like a great name. It was a special night for me cos I had been drinking beer illegally for a long time and TONIGHT I was about to have my first legal beer, thus wiping clean all past transgressions like good Catholics do. Or like bad Catholics do? I’d be getting Absolution, anyway.

In the ole Vrystaat where very little is actually vry the legal age to have a pint was 18 and I was 17 when I left for America after a few years of practicing drinking beer under sustained peer pressure. That’s my story anyway. I landed up in Oklahoma where I turned 18, but that didn’t help much. The beer was Coors light, only 3.2%, but the legal drinking age was 21. That summer Katie and family took me to Louisiana which was also 21. I had to (or should have) continue to drink feeling guilty.

Larry then drove down from upstate New York and fetched me from Shreveport in his light grey VW Beetle and we drove north through Arkansas, where we might have enjoyed a beer, but the legal age was still 21, so sadly (right! actually merrily) I was also breaking the law then.

But Missouri! Now Missouri was an 18 state and in Springfield MO we needed a beer after a long day’s drive and so we repaired to Thank God its Friday. I had my passport in my pocket, looking forward to proving I was ‘of age,’ but as always the bouncer just waved me through. I’ve never been skatted younger than I am.

So there I had a pint or two with Larry who had poured beers down my throat (me protesting) when I was an innocent fourteen year old lad back in 1969 when he was sent from wicked New York to corrupt the innocent ous in Harrismith, Vrystaat.

After that they stopped calling it Thank God its Friday and soon after – in 2024 – they went belly-up.

Cause and effect, see?

~~oo0oo~~

Damn, now Hooters has gone bust! The world sure is changing when even showing cleavage to old okes can’t sell beer!

In this case I may carry a bit of guilt. Never did go to Hooters. Felt to me like exploitation. Also, there wasn’t one nearby.

vry – free, mahala

mahala – free

skatted – estimated; collective noun: A bout of estimations (thanks Terry)

ous – young gentlemen

Brauer’s Ford Flammable

They’re generous, kind.  ‘Hospitable’ doesn’t describe the half of it. What? Tolerant? Long-suffering? OK OK.

Share our home, share our food, you can even share my car. Hang on, the Ford Flammable? Is that not a hostile act?

Anyway, I drove it, donning my asbestos underpants and gloves, and it was a revelation. I didn’t know they made Fords without shakin’, rattlin’ n rollin’;

Or Fords with little TV screens on the dash that say in plain English, “oil change overdue!“ as can be seen in the actual shot of Brauer’s dashboard above. And bespoke unraveling upholstery. No boot space though – full of golf kit and old planks that ‘might come in handy one day.’

Look, it was missing a pedal and an ignition key, but thanks to my mechanical skill, I managed to get it moving. I restarted it numerous times when it stalled till I realised I just couldn’t hear the engine. It has a tiny engine smaller than a pint of milk, whereas mine has three full diesel-filled litres. And I’m used to my diesel operating and grumbling in no uncertain terms. You don’t think, ‘I wonder if this engine is running,’ in my car.

Oh, I needed a loan car cos mine was being studied by automotive engineers and marketers marveling at its 17yr-old wonders. They’re considering relaunching it as a special edition.

~~oo0oo~~

Tuinslang Marelize

The fokkin yoomin race. Just watched a GP tannie woman hose down her SUV in camp for ages, using two million gallons of pure drinking water to get the dust off every crook and nanny. Some people . . !!

It was not a fine aluminium can bakkie like mine, it was a tin can SUV. One of those ForTuna, the new Toyota one, metallic grey. She sprayed and sprayed and sprayed WAY longer than needed. ‘Specially when you know she’s going straight back into the dust tomorrow! She used the camp’s hosepipe – tuinslang – in an area with a sign No Entry Staff Only.

I went over to her and said, My fok Marelize! and she immediately stopped and put all the water she’d wasted back into the hosepipe. Of course, my brave, principled intervention purely in my imagination.

~~oo0oo~~

tannie – old woman; nearly my age

tuinslang – garden snake; garden hose

Over. Over.

I told Steve Reed’s Clarens TV story at a 70th birthday held in a lovely home in Maun on the banks of the Thamalakane river one evening. Over.

Sally-Ann modestly said, Well I Can’t Top That One, and then proceeded to do just that, telling a hilariously disastrous tale of her mobile safari outfit getting their first walkie talkie radios so she could keep in touch with her 4X4 vehicles out in the wild.

The next safari launched. Off went the newly-‘connected’ vehicles, the drivers and their clients, off into the wonderful wild of Botswana.

Just a few short hours later, Sally-Ann  couldn’t wait any longer, and eagerly called them up from ‘Head Office,’ her first time to be in touch with her drivers out in the wild!

Calling Safari 1. Over.
Safari 1 here. Over.
How you guys doing? Over.
Um, not so good. Over.
What’s up? Over.
Well, we’ve rolled the Landrover over. Over.

~~oo0oo~~

Black Friday

I’ve not had much to do with Black Friday. Except twice. Once near Sodwana Bay in Zoolooland; and once in Keetmanshoop in Namibia. Both times it took me completely by surprise.

– Bethanie express coach –

I got caught with a flat, well how ’bout that, north of Bethanie on my way south from Solitaire. The young ou there said, Oom, we do have some tyres but not your size, Oom. The Oom will have to go to Keetmanshoop, Oom.

Note: You may be pouncing Bethanie incorrectly. It’s ‘Bet-Taahny.’

At the Keetmanshoop tyre plek I got excellent service. They fixed up everything, checked all the other things and gave me two shiny new rear tyres. When it came time to pay I expressed surprise at the price. That’s a very good price, saith I.

Ja Oom, the Oom are lucky. Today is Black Friday and the Oom has got a very special price for your tyres Oom.

Well blow me tyres up and blow me down. If you gotta get a puncture some day, get it on a Black Friday, nê.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

‘So You Got Caught With A Flat?’

ou – fella

Oom – older ou

Ou Oom – me

plek – joint

Foreign Knowledge

Locals know there’s no easy way to the main road from the river outside Janet’s place. Okes from Durban know better, so they venture off looking for a shortcut. Which ends up needing rescue, a towrope, mocking laughter, eye-rolling and getting to the tyre place an hour later than planned. Luckily, Janet’s old Mazda BT – a stablemate of my Ford Ranger and about the same vintage – is 4X4. All it needs is GPS, but despite the well-known Humphrey navigational challenges (Trish could get lost too), Janet did eventually find and rescue me. Easily. Damn. Ignominy.

At SupaQuik, Reggie and his men say they can fix me up with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their back. All we have to do is bugger off to the Dusty Donkey for coffee and cake, and come back with a credit card.

– Dusty Donkey chook & chicks-

As we’re leaving the Donkey a roadside trader waves and makes a rolling motion while pointing at Janet’s left front wheel. Puncture. We hop out and deploy the jack and spanner and wooden base for the sand and start expertly changing the tyre like a Ferrari pitcrew. Good fortune makes my cap fall off as I bend down. The trader and his mate take one look at the whispy white hair surrounding the large pink bald spot and they gently nudge me aside and change the wheel for us. Ke a leboga borra!

Weg is ons back to Reggie where I exchange 3700 pula for two new tyres and we’re free to go, driving off feeling like I’m wearing brand new shoes.

~~oo0oo~~

Ke a leboga borra! – thank you gentlemen!

Weg is ons – beetle off

Feature pic – re-enactment of the humiliation. Jess forgot to take pics; she’s not cruel like her Ma

Raintree Camp

Raintree Camp is just short of Shorobe, north of Maun. Janet and I, gaily chatting our heads off, woke up when we got to the fork-off to Kazakiini Camp, a good 26km past the turnoff. We pretended we knew all along and were just reconoittring the area. Jess was unimpressed at our u-turn. We had actually both noticed the Shorobe Basket Weavers sign, but hadn’t figured out that meant we were passing through that village!

While backtracking, we went straight back to yakking and solving the world’s problems, including the fact that the bakkie was pulling to the left as a result of the road camber and the thick sand on the left compared to the harder calcrete in the middle.

Which was actually neither of those things. It was because of a left front puncture. Our prolonged diagnosis meant the tyre was shredded by the time we stopped.

Jess then took a near-plumber’s crack picture, which resulted in her forfeiting supper last night.

Some young guys stopped to help, only to be told we had everything under control. Noticing some slight huffing n puffing, they ignored me and kindly loosened the wheelnuts with ease. Other than that, of course, everything was under control.

~~oo0oo~~

A short drive north of Raintree there’s a lagoon in the Thamalakane with water from the last rains. Yellow-billed Storks, Spoonbills, Hamerkops, a lone Pelican, a Saddle-bill Stork, flocks of Sandgrouse, Blacksmith Lapwings, and a large pod of Hippo. A mokoro poler with two passengers gave the hippos a wide berth, hugging the reedbed on the western shore.

Along the dry shore, Magpie Shrikes, White-crowned Shrikes, Meves Starling.

We had a lovely campsite under a raintree – lots of those here! – near to Janet’s safari tent. The third night I moved the bakkie next to her tent as I had brilliantly left a light shining all night, so needed to charge the aux batteries by plugging in to Botswana Power Corporation.

To complete my puncture and battery faux pas trifecta, I then moved the car, snapping the charging cable. f&#-it! Luckily, we were fully charged already, and the fridge’s two compartments were back down to 5⁰ and 0⁰C.

Raintree Camp is a lovely place with lovely people, big trees, great ablution facilities, a bar and a pool. We enjoyed our three day stay. Some of the tents are close to the road, so noise can be an occasional factor. New chalets are planned on the water side of the property, away from the road, owner Neil Kendrick told us. So do check it out if you’re headed that way. As a transit camp on the way to or from Moremi, it’s ideally located.

~~oo0oo~~

Only Game in Town

Louis showed me where to go. ‘Head South, young man! Along the edge of the Namib via Karibib through the Naukluft to Solitaire,’ he said. He’s lived in Namibia for forty years so I did as he told me, despite him having led me astray the week before. You know what locals are like: Go Straight, You Can’t Miss It, they always say. Keep the Namib on your right and the rest of Africa on your left, you can’t go wrong! they say with their head thrown back, eyes half closed and a beer in hand. This time he was right. I only meandered off the beaten track once, but that was to see where a dotted line on OrganicMaps led to. And the roads were gravel, not sand.

(Plug: Don’t use google or waze (google bought waze). Use OrganicMaps. Good people).

Well, Louis was right! Solitaire is an oasis with ice cold beer and wifi hovering around invisibly under cool, shady thatch. It’s owned, I was told by an American in a wheelchair, by his Dad. He represented USA in wheelchair basketball at the paralympics. I think that’s what I was told by him and his wife in the spacious cool shady pub. I do know they dish up just the right kind of fuel, food, beer and wifi that you need on a road trip, so it’s a popular spot. Also, it’s a long way to the next places to chill, and those don’t do these essentials quite as well.

So I pulled into a lovely campsite for the night, which became three nights cos who wants to leave?

Views around, and a small flock of quelea flying past. Sociable Weavers in camp – here’s one of their communal nests some distance south of Solitaire, nearer Helmeringhausen.

– another Ford bakkie salutes mine as I leave Solitaire – mine’s the white one –

Notice the Morris Eight open-top 2-door tourer in the feature pic?

~~oo0oo~~

Beautiful Kakombo

Schoolfriend Louis is nuts and has no handbrake. He gets onto a bicycle, the kind that don’t go unless you pedal, and rides 2150km from Maritzburg to Wellington along the Cape Fold mountains – it’s too far, it’s non-stop and it’s ridden offroad – exactly where you can fall off your bike and graze your knee. And did you read that right? Two One Five Zero kilometres!

But he has a beautiful farm just outside Omaruru, so I visited him despite this disconcerting evidence that he can make some worrying decisions.

He and his neighbour have dropped their boundary fence and cut bike trails on their huge properties, including ones that go up the Omaruru mountain. Like I said. Luckily, he took one look at the fine physical specimen I am and he chose to show me around in his oversized 4X4; the kind you drive if you’re nervous of sitting vas. It’s called ‘toyota,’ which is the Herero word for ‘invincible.’

Then he parked at the foot of the Omaruru Berg and made me walk. On my feet.

– Louis’ snug cottage was once a milkshed! – He serves beer now, thank goodness –

I got a lifer I had dipped on in Namibia in 1986, Rüppell’s Parrot; and a lifer thanks to splitting, Damara Red-billed Hornbill. I dipped on another sighting of the Hartlaub’s Spurfowl, which I’d last seen west of Omaruru in 1986. Next time.

This is a very special place.

~~oo0oo~~